As I reflect back on what I was expecting León to be like and my life in León now, I laugh at how big of difference it really is. Everything from the school to the restaurants to the size of the city is so much different than what I was expecting. I thought the Centro de Idiomas would be a very small school that only taught Spanish. However, it is very big school, and several languages are taught there as well as art classes, clown school, and more.
I knew that in Spain they eat at a different hour than in the United States. For example, lunch is usually eaten around 2 and supper around 10. However, I was expecting fast food restaurants to open earlier because it’s fast food. We have a 30 minute break between our classes, and I tried to go to Taco Bell one day to get a snack. However, I walked inside and tried to order only for them to tell me that they did not open until 1:00. Now, I have grown accustomed to eating at this hour, and I enjoy it. Having no Taco Bell to snack on between classes helped to speed up that process. 🙂
Something else I had to learn the hard way was that León is not as small a city as I thought. I thought León would be a smaller city that would be easy to travel by foot. For the most part this is the case. However, there are some things that are quite a long walk (35-45 minutes away from the center) that I prefer to take the bus to. For example, I like to go to the University (which is around 40 minutes from my house and the language school) to play volleyball. There is also a mall on the outskirts of León that I like to go to that is about a 35 minute walk from my house. I was expecting everything to be close by (20 minute walk or less) and to have no need for the bus. I tried for the longest time to avoid taking the bus because I expected it to be very stressful (I had never taken one by myself before). However, it was so simple to figure out, and I regretted not doing it sooner when it was freezing and raining. It’s funny how oftentimes our fears are unfounded, and even though our expectations aren’t always “met” it can be for the better.
