Study Abroad Experience in Málaga, Spain (2020)

Málaga Exchange Experience

Karine Regai (class of 2021) reflects on her experience in Málaga.

I arrived in Málaga on a sunny day in early January. I remember smiling while looking outside the taxi window and thinking to myself “Wow. I’m really here.” It was such an amazing feeling, I was in a completely foreign country, by myself, with a pretty weak verbal Spanish knowledge and I was on my way to my apartment. An apartment which I had found on a third-party website, trusting the landlord that it would look like it did in pictures and on FaceTime. To my surprise, the apartment looked even better than it did in pictures. It was modern, clean, bright and with a stunning view of the city. The best part was its location: within a 5-minute walk, I had access to 4 different grocery stores, which was a big advantage for someone like me who enjoyed walking around grocery store aisles far more than shopping for clothes. I had 4 days to begin unpacking my 2 giant suitcases, finding a  nearby gym and buying a membership, and managing to get a monthly bus pass to get to and from university. The latter was more difficult than I had anticipated. Being the one friend with no sense of direction whatsoever, it took me way longer than it should’ve to find my way to the right location. Not to mention this was my first proper interaction in my very weak Spanish. I was so embarrassed, but I had no choice but to keep talking as I would find out later that my other classmates from Ryerson and I were probably the only people that spoke English in this whole city. I wish I was joking. Anyways, time flew by as I tried to settle in and next thing I knew, I would be exploring five different European cities with my best friend for the next two weeks. We met up in France, as he was just finishing up his exchange, and we spent the next two weeks visiting Cologne and Berlin in Germany, Dublin in Ireland, Copenhagen in Denmark and Bordeaux in France. I am so grateful I got to visit these amazing cities before my semester started because at the moment, I didn’t realize that this would be one of my only chances of travelling for the rest of the exchange. Once I got back from this amazing trip, I was excited to embark the rest of the journey.