"My experience at UMM has been enriched by the expansion of my horizons; I feel that I can travel anywhere in the world now, whether on vacation or even to work and live." Kimberly Hiland

I went to Spain for the 1999-2000 academic year (8.5 months) through AHA and Portland State University, because I only had one year of college-level Spanish and the UMM programs required two years. Also, because I studied at the University of Oviedo and received credit through PSU, financial aid covered everything. Spanish was the language that I studied in high school for 4 years; but though my family hosted an AFS student during high school, I didn't want to miss any of those years. Studying abroad during college turned out to be one of the most outstanding years of my life, and I feel that I was better prepared to be out on my own.

I studied in the city of Oviedo in the province of Asturias, along the north coast of Spain. I was enrolled in a Spanish language program for English-speaking foreigners at the University of Oviedo, and was placed with a great host family by my program director. This experience gave me the opportunity to experience Spanish culture from the inside out, and also created friendships and host family relationships which will last for my entire lifetime.

In addition to life in Oviedo, I absorbed the many rich cultures of Spain. As a group, we visited many sites in Asturias as well as the rest of the country. Thanksgiving dinner was a four-course meal with 12 other friends at a restaurant in Caceres, Extremadura, and our other major trip in the spring to Barcelona was one of three times that I visited one of my four favorite cities in Spain.

Laura, the Art History professor from the university, accompanied my group on many excursions; in addition to slides, we were treated to explanations of the real thing right before our eyes. She explained the architecture and history of the church at Santiago de Compostela, a very famous pilgrimage destination since the Middle Ages, while we were waiting to attend the pilgrim's mass during October of the holy year of 1999. I ended up taking her class twice simply because I enjoyed it so much and my understanding of Spanish kept getting better as the year went on.

The adjustment from life here was somewhat difficult; one can track the stages of culture shock as I gained confidence in myself and in my ability to adjust to new and strange surroundings, including language and philosophy. I was the only UMM student there; it took a little while to get to know the other Americans (other groups from Iowa, Massachusetts, and New York were in my classes), as well as ERASMUS students (an intro-Europe exchange program) and Spanish students. Most of the time things were great and I have probably never had so much fun in my life, but the adjustment at times was a little rough.

My experience at UMM has been enriched by the expansion of my horizons; I feel that I can travel anywhere in the world now, whether on vacation or even to work and live. In the future, I feel that if I have the opportunity to live for a time in another country, I would like to take it. It is not possible to truly realize the United States' role in the world until you have lived outside and seen it from beyond its borders.