sydnie rae daile
The blog
Besides just moving to a foreign country where my grasp of the language is minimal; I wanted to try and push myself out of my comfort zone.
I went with a blog in order to improve my limited writing skills and be able to share my experiences with friends and family.
About Me
Hola! In case you don't already know me, I'm Sydnie. I'm in my mid-twenties and I like to consider myself a bit of an adventurer.
I spent the majority of my childhood in a very small town in southern South Dakota where most of my travels were to various towns across the state for my siblings' sporting events.
The beginning
I had a relatively late start to traveling when I decided to take a jump my fall semester and study abroad. I was placed in Nottingham Trent University in England where I spent a short 3 months living and studying.
While there I was able to travel to cities throughout the UK including Conwy in Wales, Edinburgh (Edinbrugh) in Scotland, and Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Durham, Liverpool, York and more in England.
During the Christmas holidays I was able to spend a few weeks traveling mainly solo throughout western Europe. Starting off in Brussels, I was able to meet up with a friend in Paris before parting ways so I could catch a flight to Rome.
After consuming an excessive amount of pizza, I boarded a bus to Munich where I spent Christmas before heading north to Berlin to fly back to the States.
Finishing up school
During my time finishing up my degree I took as many advantages of the breaks and vacations afforded to college students that my finances would allow. While I did end up going to New Orleans twice, I did decide to try some new places and flew out to Honolulu, Los Angeles, and even Brazil before finally graduating,
Thanks to the pandemic, I decided to put my big city/foreign country dreams off for a year to have a more stable job where I could save up until the world reached a new level of normal. During this time I was able to visit Salem, MA for the Halloween season, Nola once again to finish the holiday trifecta (Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's, & New Years), London & Notts to catch up with friends, and Disney to let my inner child out for a week.
Getting caught up
After the vaccines came out and the travel restrictions began to go away, I figured that the fall of 2021 was my time to seriously start looking at the logistics for moving abroad. I applied for a few different programs and ended up being accepted to teach English in Spain as an auxiliar de conversación.
After a lot of paperwork and some overfilled and overweight bags, I am currently working on adjusting to life in Ourense, Galicia where I work with children ages 3-11 during the week and spend the weekends exploring the town (and eventually the country) and getting to know Spaniards and other expats.