The ISA JournalYou Know You’re Studying Abroad in Malaga, Spain When…

Hannah Baird is a student at Wright State University and an ISA Featured Blogger. She studied abroad with ISA in Malaga, Spain.

1. You have never consumed so many carbs in your life.

Spaniards love their carbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From bread to rice in the paella to pasta to potatoes as tapas and everything in between, the carbs seem to be around every corner. I don’t think I’ll want to eat bread for a while when I return back to the states.

The traditional, delicious Spanish dish, paella.

2. Your feet will hurt by the end of the day.

Thankfully, you basically walk off all of the carbs you consume because you walk everywhere. Everything is so close together in Malaga that you can get from your house to the beach to the shopping center within a 20 minutes. Even though I bought a bus pass, I prefer to walk everywhere besides going to school because you get to really indulge yourself in the beauty that Malaga has to offer.

The morning walk to the bus stop isn’t too bad when you walk through Calle Larios, one of the main shopping strips in Malaga.

3. It is H.O.T.

If you don’t think you are burning off all of the carbs by walking everywhere, you probably burn everything else off by how much you sweat. When you have the Spanish sun along with no air conditioning, at times it feels like you’re dying. Most houses in Spain do not have air conditioning because of how expensive it is. So no matter how fast you have your fan blowing on your face, you will still sweat.

4. You start to speak Spanish even when you don’t have to.

I’m not by any means a fluent Spanish speaker after being here for such a short time, but I feel like my Spanish has improved so much. Spanish sort of becomes second nature. I even find myself texting people in Spanish. I truly believe the best way to improve speaking another language is by putting yourself in that city or country where you have to speak it every single day.

5. You fall more in love with the city every day.

Malaga, Spain has the best of both worlds: city life and a beach. I’m not sure how much better life could get. Every day I discover something new about the city that makes me fall in love with my new home more and more. It makes the thought of leaving this beautiful city in a few weeks hard to even imagine.