I took this outside of the Alhambra compound while a religious procession was occurring.

Author: Evan Meyers | Majors: Computer Science, Spanish | Semester: Spring 2025
My name is Evan Meyers, and I am a rising Senior at the University of Arkansas Honors College and the College of Engineering. I am pursuing majors in Computer Science and Spanish with a minor in Mathematics. I studied abroad through the Universidad Nebrija Direct Enrollment program at the University of Arkansas, where I took Spanish courses in Madrid, Spain.
May marked my final month in Spain, filled with bittersweet emotions as I began to feel
excited about being back in the United States and with my friends and family again. Still, I was
also devastated to leave behind the new friends and family I had made while abroad. Regardless
of these complicated emotions, this month was filled with new experiences and adventure.
At the beginning of May, my mom and stepdad flew over to visit me for a little over a
week. This was great because it allowed me to share some of the experience of Madrid with my
family so that they would better understand what my study abroad experience was like. While
they were there, I took them to places I had already been, like the Royal Gardens, Retiro Park,
and my neighborhood and school building. I also got to go to new places such as Segovia, which
dates back to about the first century CE, and Barcelona, where I saw the Sagrada Familia and
other famous structures designed by Antoni Gaudí. While my mom was visiting, we also got
some long-planned tattoos together, a great bonding experience we had looked forward to.
After my mom and stepdad left, I had about a week of school left before I took my finals.
During this time, I did a lot of studying to ensure that I would finish my classes with good
grades. Along with studying, I also attended a judo competition that my thirteen-year-old host
brother, Pablo, was competing in. To get to the competition center, I rode with my host mom and
her other son, Alejandro, to a city about forty minutes outside of Madrid. While there, we
watched anxiously as Pablo won round after round. Eventually, Pablo beat all the other
participants, and he was awarded a first-place medal for the tournament. I was extremely proud
of him. To celebrate his win, we went to a local supermarket and bought everything we needed to
have a barbecue. For the rest of the day, we sat outside on Alejandro’s terrace, which overlooked
parts of Parque Oeste and the Moncloa metro area. It was a lot of fun, and it felt like a good
conclusion to my time spent with my host family.
After finishing my finals, I helped book a karaoke room with many of the friends I made
while in Madrid. This was a great chance to spend one last night together before we began to go
our separate ways. Aside from a few of them, most of my friends live quite far away from
Arkansas, so it is unlikely that I will see them again for a while, if ever again. My study abroad
experience would not have been nearly as beneficial for me without those amazing people, and I
owe a lot to them and wish them the best in their lives.
While most of my friends began to leave Madrid, I had plans to stay a bit longer. I
previously made plans with one of my uncles for us to rent a car and drive all along the southern
parts of Spain. Once he flew in, it was time for me to say goodbye to my host family. It was
really hard for me to do as I had grown so close to them over the previous five months, and I am
not sure when I will see them again.
After our farewell, my uncle and I began our trip. We started by driving down to Granada
to stay for two nights. I wrote in a previous blog post about my time in Granada and how much I
love the city, so it was a great reunion to be back. The two main things we did while in the city
were getting tickets to the Alhambra and visiting the Carmen de los Mártires gardens. When I
was previously in Granada, I was not able to purchase tickets to visit the Alhambra, which was
upsetting since it is the city’s biggest attraction by far, so this trip felt like a redemption for me.
The architecture of the palace is truly breathtaking and made me marvel at the intricacy of its
design. After we left the palace, we happened to be in the right place to watch the ending of a
religious procession that terminated at the gates of the Alhambra compound. It was a beautiful
thing to witness, and the community that emerged from the crowd around was a magical feeling.
The next day, after exploring around the city and doing some shopping, my uncle and I made a
trip to Carmen de los Mártires, the “secret” garden I visited back in March. My uncle loved the
scenery, and we paused to sit near a peaceful fountain to read for about an hour. We finished up
the day with dinner at a cozy outdoor pizza restaurant.
The next day, we started our drive to our next destination: Sevilla. We made a slight
detour to have a more scenic drive and managed to view the Straight of Gibraltar while on our
way there, which was truly a geographic wonder. Upon entering Sevilla, I already knew that it
was going to be my favorite Spanish destination besides Madrid. We explored a lot in Sevilla,
and I was enamored by the design of the city and how culturally rich it felt as I explored. While
wandering around, my uncle and I stumbled upon Sevilla’s Plaza de España, which was
beautiful. While walking around its grounds, I realized that it was one of the filming locations of
Star Wars: Episode II, which made it even more surreal to walk around and admire. After
exploring different buildings and compounds in Sevilla, we ended our last night with a flamenco
show in the heart of the city. This was a great way for my uncle to experience some of the
southern Spanish culture during his time in the country, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
From Sevilla, we drove to Córdoba, our last stop before heading back to Madrid to fly
out. Córdoba was much smaller than I thought it would be, but we were able to find plenty to
explore and keep us busy. We began by getting tickets for the city’s famous mosque. Walking
through the mosque was fascinating to see a mix of Islamic and Christian architectural styles,
which exhibits a historic transition from the Islamic Moorish Empire to Christian rule. Later that
night, after walking through a large part of the city, my uncle and I were told that one of Spain’s
ferias, or festivals, was happening that night. We made it our mission to go and check it out.
Upon arriving, we saw the largest festival either of us had ever experienced. Hundreds of
pavilion-sized tents hosted clubs and bars, food trucks and stands everywhere, concerts, Ferris
wheels, roller coasters, haunted houses, and many other attractions. It was a once-in-a-lifetime
kind of experience that I am so grateful to have seen due to its immense scale and the sheer
enjoyment of the festival goers.
We left Córdoba the next day and drove back to Madrid to spend our final two days in
Spain before leaving. While I thought Madrid would have the homey feeling I was used to
experiencing upon returning from a trip, the city felt empty without my friends and schooling.
This crushed me, as I felt like I no longer belonged in Spain. I spent my final days revisiting
restaurants and places I used to go to with my friends and reminiscing about our time together.
Just like with my host family, this made for a bittersweet goodbye as I did not want to leave
Spain, but I lacked purpose and knew my time was up. After almost missing my flight home due
to a two-hour-long baggage check line, I boarded my plane and made my way to the United
States.
I am extremely grateful for my time in Madrid, Spain. There has never been a more
influential period in my life, and I owe my ability to attend my semester abroad to the
scholarships I received. Without the scholarships awarded to me, I would not have been able to
afford to go on my trip, so I thank the Honors College for providing me with the means to make
this life-altering trip possible. I am not sure when I will return to Spain, but I know that I will.
The Spanish culture has rooted itself in me, and I cannot wait to be immersed in that
environment again.