Monthly Archives: March 2012
Budapest montage
A long weekend in Budapest, Hungary
Buenos días mis amigos!!! Last weekend– and by weekend I mean Wednesday– I hopped on a bus to Madrid and then a plane to Budapest, Hungary to meet up with two of my friends from high school, Lucas Campbell and … Continue reading
Stuff Study Abroad Students Say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMucFYi4Hw
As I’m packing my bag to go to Budapest, Hungary this weekend I’m realizing how ridiculous/surreal/amazing/whaaat?! my life is. Here’s a video that’s part of the “S*#& ______ Say” fad about study abroad students. It’s funny (and embarrassing) to watch because I’ve said well over 75% of the quotes made in the video.
Although I am in a very intense school program because I am actually enrolled in the University of Salamanca, while most study abroad students take classes only with other foreigners, I am having a great time traveling Europe, playing with my “monopoly money” and getting lots of pictures of me. Just tonight while packing my bag I’ve thought “hmm…. will this fit ryanair’s standards?” and “maybe if I take some of these coins out of my wallet it will weigh less”– both mentioned in the linked video.
Enjoy the video, laugh, make fun of it (me) a little, but also remember I’m having a really cool experience and learning a lot about myself and the great big world we live in and everyday I wake up knowing how lucky I am to have this incredible opportunity! Talk to you all when I get back from Budapest!
Spanish Father’s Day
This post goes out to my dad! The one and old Dadler, Daddy-o, bank account… I mean… David Adler! Today is Spanish father’s day, and since I don’t have a Spanish padre I figured I’d give my old man a … Continue reading
Benefits of Bilingualism
My program directors at ISA posted this link on their facebook page this afternoon about the benefits of being bilingual. I’ll let you all read the article for yourselves, but basically it says that people that are bilingual can handle switching attention to different topics with ease, staying focused and holding information in your mind.
I’m not posting this article because I think that I have become bilingual… in my head I think that to be truly bilingual you need to have learned a second language from birth, or be put in a living environment for a very long period of time with the second language. If I lived in Spain another five years, I’d probably get there.
I’ve recently started volunteering at a bilingual school in Salamanca. Every Wednesday I walk to the private school, about ten minutes away, and transform into Lily, the linguist assistant. Most of you know I want to eventually be an elementary school teacher, so when this opportunity came up I was so excited! I get to work with kids and also give back to my current community- two things that I do and love doing at home!
What I come away with week after week at the school is how awesome I think the idea of bilingual schools are! I mean, I teach 6 year olds who can already speak better English than their teachers who are Spanish with English as a second language. And, these kids start to learn French at age 10. It’s so easy to learn another language at a young age, and as this article shows, it really helps out the old noggin too!! I hope to send my kids to a bilingual school someday, and wish they were more common in the USA.
The more I meet people from Europe the more I am jealous of their language skills. I’d say that on average of the folks I meet here from Europe know 3 languages perfectly. So awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA and have come to appreciate many things about the states that I didn’t before, but I really hope that we can start implementing more language requirements into school systems.
There’s my two cents! I hope you all feel inspired to go buy Rosetta Stone and put your children in private French lessons after reading this. Just kidding!! 🙂 But I do hope this opens up your eyes to the importance and usefulness of being bilingual. If anything else, it’s awesome to know a second language and you can brag about it to friends, right?!
What I miss
I’ve been in Spain for 74 days now, which means I’ve gone 74 days without seeing any of my friends or family from home (minus Rett). That’s probably about 53 days longer than I’ve ever gone in my life without seeing … Continue reading
Kids and Pets!
This blog post goes out to two of my favorite things in the world: kids and pets!!! Also a great setting on my camera. During my time here I’ve tried to notice the differences between life in Salamanca and life … Continue reading
Lisbon, Portugal
I went to Portugal!! Two weekends ago… whoops– so much for keeping up with the blog. My weeks have been pretty busy with school and spending every second that I can outside (it’s finally warm!!!! 72 degrees right now!!) so … Continue reading
lilyinspain 