Type of housing:
Apartment/House

Arranged by:
Independently - My choice

If returning, I would choose:
Apartment/House
Why? In 1996 I participated in an AFS Exchange to Argentina and lived with an Argentine family for a year. This was a wonderful experience as it gave me the opportunity to live and breathe everything that was part of the Argentine culture. I would definately repeat this experience but have also immensely enjoyed living in an apartment whilst being in Spain. I shared this apartment with 7 others from various parts of the world. Living in such close quarters with so many increased immensly my levels of cultural understandings and now value greatly the differences that can lie between two people of the same age yet from different parts of the world. I would definately repeat this learning experience again should I be given another chance.

Describe host city:
Students interact with the local community without much university involvement

Activities take/s place mostly outside the university/student environment

Travel, Nightlife take/s place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Course recommendations:
None

The language of instruction was:
Spanish

My proficiency in the language of instruction:
before: Everyday knowledge (shopping, directions, etc.)
after: At ease in most situations

Learning the language of instruction was a factor in choosing my host country

Main source of funding:
Personal savings

Other sources of funding:
Family
Personal savings
Government assistance
A private grant

Work opportunities
I worked, but it was illegal/cash in hand work.
I worked in a private company

Personal spending habits:
In general, these expenses are much greater than those in New Zealand. Also we come over here with a very weak dollar making our money disappear a lot quicker!

I wish I had known ...
That winter here is a lot colder than I thought and was a bit unprepared in terms of clothing!

In my opinion:
Everybody loved it, you will too!