Life Update!

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Darwin Leyva Ayala

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Darwin Leyva Ayala

<i>Home Institution</i>: Brandeis University <i>Expected Graduation Year</i>: 2024 <i>Academic Major / Minor</i>: Business & International and Global Studies <i>Destination</i>: Madrid, Spain <i>"Hello" in your host country's language</i>: Hola <i>Program Provider</i>: IES <i>Demographics</i>: Hispanic/Latinx, First-Generation College Student <i>Future Career Goals</i>: My future career goals include working for an international company working as a quantitive data analyst or consultant to a global scale, in hopes to find a job that lets me live and work abroad to do business all over the world. <i>Top Three Study Abroad Goals</i>: I hope to try and enjoy as much food as I can, enjoy traveling all over the country and beyond, and immerse myself into the culture of lifestyle of those around me.

Welcome back everyone! Hope everyone has had a wonderful time since we last checked in the blog! I unfortunately got a stomach bug and was sick for a week. So I do apologize for the sudden delay in my writing. However, we are up to speed and ready to tackle the next couple of weeks ahead!

This past week, I was sick from who knows what, but did go to the doctor and was prescribed some not so tasty medicine. Fortunately I was able to make a speedy recovery, and was quite shocked at how easy the whole process was. Earlier this week I went on a hike to 7 Peaks! A very popular hiking attrating near near Cercedilla, Community of Madrid and hiked 12.1Kilometers! Scary enough, we arrived at around 4pm and since the hike is about a 4 hour hike, we made it slightly past sunset and hiked in the dark. While at first it was fine, I was definitely thinking about having watched enough scary movies and video games to know better to be in the woods at night. But thankfully enough we made it out, and even then was still stranded and called a taxi late at night. A really fun adventure, I need to find more people to go on hikes on!

To be quite honest, this past couple of weeks have been very laid back, I have gone to explore more of the beautiful city Madrid has to offer, try new foods and coffee shops, and most of all hangout with the friends I’ve made. Reflecting back, it’s kinda crazy that I have less than a month left before my time studying abroad is up. While it’s very sad to think about, I’m extremely grateful to have chosen Madrid to study here. The people I’ve met have been nothing less than amazing and kind, the food has been outstanding, and the sunsets have been as beautiful as ever. It’s taken a while to get used to, but after internalizing my time here, I think I have grown into this mindset of being much more appreciative of the little things, even the ones that may not even matter. Extremely happy to be here, now it’s the grind season to get ready for my finals within the next two weeks. Till then, talk to you soon!