Annie Albin is a junior ADPR and journalism major from Lincoln. We've been friends since middle school, when we did community theatre together and created a lot of drama, ate a lot of Sour Patch Kids and planned a trip to London that never happened.
Last summer, Annie spent two months studying in Soria, Spain and traveling around Europe (Maggie was in the same program!!). All of her older siblings studied abroad in Spanish-speaking countries while in college, so she felt like she had to uphold the family tradition.
Before arriving, Annie was fairly confident she could speak Spanish well enough to get through her program. After a few run-ins with impatient people and some confusion with her professors' dialects, her confidence started to dwindle. Thankfully, one day they were assigned to go to a park in the middle of town and just talk to a stranger. Annie found a nice woman who was very patient and sweet to her, and things started looking up from there.
She said she realizes now that she should've embraced her language mistakes as part of the learning process, and that talking to locals was worth the risk of embarrassment because of how helpful it turned out to be.
Parc Guell in Barcelona.
Beyond the language barrier, Annie also said she struggled with understanding the Spanish daily schedule. In the middle of the day, everyone takes a siesta (nap), and all of the stores shut down for awhile so everyone can take a break. Naturally, this coincided with Annie's afternoon break from class, when she most desperately wanted a snack.
Over the weekends, Annie spent time in Madrid, Logrono (the wine capital of Spain) and Barcelona, as well as Switzerland and Portugal.
After her program ended, she met up with her parents to go to France and Luxembourg.
Post-running through the rain.
While in Luxembourg, Annie applied for citizenship. Anyone with an ancestor who emigrated from the country within the last 100 years is valid for citizenship, and as of a couple months ago, Annie is an official citizen of Luxembourg.
She has to go to the embassy to get her passport, but once she has that, she'll be a citizen of the European Union and reap all of the international travel benefits of that.
Since hearing this story, I've committed myself to discovering my ancestry in hopes that I, too, could become a citizen of another country. It probably won't happen.
If you want more of an inside look into Annie's trip, she put together some videos from Paris, Zurich, Porto and her flight to Madrid.
Wow a castle/fortress/cool thing.