The Best Adventure of My Life

Hola from Espana! As Katie Hirsch said in her entry recently, Dartmouth has provided us with some amazing travel opportunities, not just with the team, but on our own as well. I am in the middle of experiencing that right now!


I, along with teammates Kendall Houston and Madeline Baird, took this Winter as a transfer term to the Universidad de Salamanca, in Salamanca, Spain. I am not even sure where to start about this amazing adventure we are in the middle of! Since I was young, I’ve had the dream of studying abroad in college. This dream was part of the reason I chose Dartmouth volleyball: the fact that we have the freedom to follow our passions (no matter where in the world they take us), while still competing on a division I college team is spectacular. People always talked about it, but I never really appreciated it until this winter when we went away.

We’ve been here in Spain since the beginning of January, and I can’t believe it’s already March. Time is flying! We’re taking Spanish language, Spanish Literature and History classes here. Salamanca, the city where we are living is great. It’s absolutely beautiful, pretty small, and full of young people because of the University. We’ve done lots of exploring here, and lots of traveling in Spain. We went to Sevilla and Madrid, and we are going to Barcelona next week, and Basque country the week after that! Our Spanish has gotten SO much better already, and keeps getting better every day. We have class every day, but usually take Fridays off to travel, including to Morocco, London, and Rome. I can’t believe that this life I am living right now is real! We’ve been taking tons of photos, and writing in our journals, and I am having the time of my life. Being with my teammates makes it even better. This week, we went and practiced with the University of Salamanca women’s team! The girls were so nice, and it was good to get some practice. They taught us all the Spanish words for “I go!” and “Your ball!” and “set me!”. Maybe we’ll bring those back to Dartmouth!


In addition to being the best adventure of my life, being abroad has made me appreciate Dartmouth. I can’t wait to come home and tell stories, share pictures, and be with the rest of the team again! I think that after realizing how much traveling you can do in a weekend, we will explore New England a lot more and take advantage of all the opportunities around us at Dartmouth. We are so lucky!

-Annie Villanueva '12 (Santa Barbara, CA)