Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

Don't travel with five girls!! Have an updated train schedule, which Europass probably won't give you! seriously force yourself to try the foods... :) Bring a big suitcase to send home after your study abroad time if you plan to travel, and then just carry a backpack for your traveling, but REMEMBER that you can wear the same clothes in every city and have no one know!! It gets heavy... :)

Like most of the exchange students to the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), I was referred to HabitatgeJove for the difficult quest for accommodation. This doesn't have to be the best choice: While I was very lucky with my flat, I heard of other misfortunate students who only found housing in sleazy suburbian flats. Therefore it may be more advisable to engage into the tiring and sometimes frustrating search for flats yourself. Take a look at the blackboards in the Central University building of UB where usually a lot of flat ads can be found (watch out for dodgy ones, though!) and at newspaper stands for buy & sell journals.

All participants in the Knox College Program in Barcelona are placed to stay with local families during their studies at the Universitat de Barcelona. The families are recruited by the on-site administrators of the program. When students arrive in Barcelona, they are given information about the families, which includes addresses, the number and ages of family members, the occupations and interests of family members, and comments made about the families by past participants of the program who have stayed at their homes. The students pick the families they feel they would be most comfortable staying with, but if more than one student picks the same family, the ultimate placement decision is made by the program administrators. In my opinion, the placement program, although not perfect, is effective in matching the students to host families and the fact that the students are given the opportunity to find out about a little about the families and make a choice for themselves plays a large part in that. My family consisted of a senora and her college-aged daughter. I was given a small room with a bed, desk, and dresser and I shared a bathroom with an exchange student from Rotterdam. The apartment was kept clean and neat, my sheets and clothes were washed often, and the meals were great! My senora loved to talk to me about whatever travel plans I would make in Spain and was always nice and cheerful. She was an artist, she had a great sense of humor, and she was full of stories. I feel that she genuinely cared about me. I have many wonderful memories of that family and I feel glad that that was my family for the ten weeks I lived in Barcelona.