The Road to Badajoz

I originally signed up to be an Auxiliar de Conversación (English Language Assistant) as a potential plan B to some other career plans I had made months earlier. I knew I missed Spain after having studied in Granada during my Senior year of college and had been thinking about returning ever since I'd left. One day a co-worker had mentioned that he had some friends who were doing similar programs around the world and it sounded like a really cool opportunity. After poking around a bit I'd found that some of my friends from the Granada program had given this a shot and loved it, so my girlfriend, Aarika, and I decided to give it a shot.

The economy was awful. My plan A had fallen apart and I felt a little lost. I'd all but forgotten about having signed up for this when I got a phone call from Aarika saying that we'd finally been bumped up from the waiting list to the go-list. We only had about 6 weeks to prepare, but were incredibly excited to have been given the opportunity.

She was placed in Jaen, Andalucia and I in Badajoz, Extremadura. Although we were basically on opposite sides of the country, we were thrilled that it was less of a hike than crossing the Atlantic to visit each other. Neither of us knew much about where we were going but we agreed that Spain was Spain and it would be a great experience.

Aarika is the reason I'm here. We went to school together and one night she told me she was planning to study abroad in Granada (she was a Spanish major). We were a little tipsy at the time and I immediately said I was interested. This was strange because I had not taken a Spanish course in nearly two years and had impressively failed the Spanish AP exam (A whopping "1") and had never really excelled at it. I had loved my Spanish teacher of two years, who was from Granada, so I suppose that his stories had something to do with it. Although my motivation to go through with the program dwindled at times, she always pushed me. She made sure I had my paperwork in on time and that I'd done everything possible to prepare for the trip. She even helped me pass the Spanish grammar course I had to complete in order to go.

Our three and a half months there ended up changing both of our lives. In that time we'd made incredible friends, experienced places and things we'd never imagined and my Spanish skills went from being some of the lousiest in the program to some of the best. We both fell in love with the country and it broke our hearts to go home. We were never the same after that. We'd caught the fever.