Thinking of trying the Erasmus program?

La Feria, Seville

True, when my first experiences were sloshing around in the rain looking for a student flat, receiving withering looks in response to my rusty Spanish, and waiting weeks to get a student/library/“I exist” card, I almost wished I hadn’t bothered. The whole making new friends thing and a second pseudo-freshers’ week seemed like a bit of a bore too. To mention just a few of my first impressions, the Italians were bohemians, the French were antisocial, and Americans talked so loudly that I knew all the ins and outs of who’d fallen out with whom. The Irish were rowdy, I knew all about the English already, and the Spanish appeared to resent the Erasmus invasion. Was I in Spain or in some reinvented Tower of Babel? Not that I’m inclined to generalise but didn’t you do the same in your first week at university?

However, when these strange people became friendly or at least distinguishable faces, I started to quite enjoy communicating in bastardised Spanish with accents that came from all corners of the globe (apart from Spain; none of us Erasmus were that good). Once I’d settled into my flat and met my new flat-mates (an eccentric landlady from Ecuador and her slightly mangy, sadly un-housetrained puppy, along with fellow Erasmus students from Ireland, France and England – all of whom wished to drop said puppy off the balcony while the landlady was otherwise engaged) I began to feel almost at home. Well not quite at home, after all, the air was infused with the smell of oranges and the sun was shining and there were no ducks.

The term began, or failed to begin because the students were on strike or there was a staff meeting (these were somehow called without notifying either students or staff), regular occurrences at the rambling former tobacco factory that was the university. My timetable told a different story; we had classes every day, making a change from the one seminar and a smattering of lectures that are demanded of an English student at York.

Some of the professors were unusual to say the least. One shrieked at us for an entire class about how he would – don’t think I won’t, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again – happily fail the lot of us, another made us recite “O O O O O That Shakespearean Rag” reminding us of how lucky we were to be sitting here and saying that. (He has a point.) Another of my classes involved adapting and performing a Renaissance tragedy, which we decided to take to the 1950s. At least my classmates were getting an eclectic vision of what constitutes English literature.

I even got some of the Spanish students on my side, once I’d realised that the Spanish lack the crazy English tendency to plan things. When a Spanish acquaintance suggests having coffee, suggesting a date, let alone a time for such a crucial stage in the bonding process is an absurdity. It’s enough to say you want it to happen, and it may happen: the subjunctive mood. When I told fellow first years that I had decided to spend two terms of my second year at university on an Erasmus exchange in Seville, Spain, I got one of either two responses: “Wow, I admire you… I could never do that”, or “Yeah… I thought about going; then I thought, why would I leave York to go abroad when I’ve made friends here already?”. Polite ways of saying, “you reckless fool” and “when you get back you’ll be that friendless loser third year whom nobody remembers”. Despite these thinly veiled discouragements I decided to go anyway. And even though some of my former acquaintances have had to look twice before recognising me (I like to think it’s the haircut), I’m glad I did.

And if it’s the people you meet that matter most in a new place, then the way they party says a lot about them. Not that I like to think that Ziggy’s says anything about me. The Seville equivalent is “La Fería”, when hundreds of tents swamp an area of the city, set aside primarily for the purpose of dressing up, dancing “La Sevillana” and partying 24 hours a day for 7 days of the week long festival. This is swiftly followed by a week of religious fervour, “Semana Santa”, during which the old city becomes an impenetrable mass of hooded figures carrying elaborate images of the Christ and Virgin Mary.

If you’re considering Erasmus, don’t let the disparaging comments of your friends put you off. If it’s your first year and you’re thinking twice of leaving your recently re-established comfort zone, think again. You might not get the opportunity to learn a new language and to experience a student lifestyle more exotic than York’s again. If you can live without the company of ducks and weekly excursions to Ziggy’s they’ll wait for you, while you consider the Erasmus perspective.

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