Let's get this show on the road!

Only six weeks to go until I fly out to Madrid! Lots of emotions at the moment, with a few nerves but mostly just excitement - I can't believe something I've had on the horizon for such a long time is finally coming into view! But why am I sitting here writing my first ever blog post? First a little bit about my journey so far... I've been learning Spanish since the start of secondary school, and, although I haven't always been the most motivated linguist, it's always been one of those passions that's stuck with me, in the hope that one day I can finally say that I speak a second language. As part of my BA International Relations with Spanish at the University of Birmingham, I have a compulsory year abroad in a Spanish speaking country. After much deliberation and asking an excessive amount of questions to many final year students who have been there, done it and got the t-shirt, (I cannot stress how helpful this has been - thank you all for putting up with me!), I finally settled on the la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Where are my language skills right now? Well, I'd like to think my reading comprehension and grammar is fairly good; I'm currently reading 1984 in Spanish and picking up a fair bit. My listening is very hit and miss, and generally depends on how well I know and the speed at which I recognise the vocab used, but I'm trying to keep up doing little and often over the summer. My speaking, however, is a completely different kettle of fish, and is something that really needs improving. As we never really do much speaking practice at uni I've essentially taken the attitude that, "it'll be alright, it'll improve when I'm abroad". So the pressure is on this year to make that assertion become a reality! All of my modules will be taught and completed in Spanish but I still need to force myself to converse as much as possible in order to pick up my fluency. That's partly one of the reasons for writing this blog. Whilst I've ummed and ahhed about setting one up, as I'm not really one for social media, I thought it would be a good idea for me to write down expectations in the public domain in the hope that this will push me towards making them a reality. The other main reason is basically so that I don't forget where I've been and what I've seen, as I'm not one for taking many pictures either: I'd rather not experience the moment behind a camera lens!

And so begins the start of chapter 3.3. I've filled in most of my paperwork, booked my accommodation, paid for my flights (which pains me to say, as I would have much rather taken the train due to its lesser carbon footprint, but the price was more than double that of flying), and I'm currently researching everything about Madrid so I've got a bucket list of things I want to do and see whilst I'm out there. These will come in a future post before I set off - so I've got no excuses not to have done them by the time I return! As to what to expect from this blog more generally, I'll hopefully be posting monthly updates of my best (and probably worst) bits. But for now, that's all for now folks, ¡hasta luego!