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This past summer Dr. Caryn Connelly, chair of the Department of World Languages and Literatures, traveled with her daughter Kiara to Spain to present at the Twenty-ninth International Conference on Learning that was held at the University of Valencia. This was the first time she had travelled back to Spain since completing a study abroad at the university in Spring of 1988! At the conference, she and Luis Guadaño, a colleague from her graduate school days at the University of Minnesota and now Associate Professor of Spanish at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, led a focused discussion on the topic of experiential learning in the foreign language classroom and its impact on language proficiency.  

When not attending conference sessions, Dr. Connelly explored historic sites in the Ciutat Vella and El Poble-sec neighborhood of Barcelona including a hike up to Montjuïc Park located on the second highest hill in Barcelona and a visit to the Castell de Montjuïc, a military fortress with a long and fascinating history and beautiful views of the Mediterranean. Other highlights of Barcelona included a day on the beach and lots of delicious Spanish food, including a seafood paella, and various meals of tapas (small plates).

Barcelona was fantastic, but the highpoint of the trip was her time in Valencia. She stayed in an old apartment in a building near the iconic Valencia Cathedral and its Torre de Micalet (the bell tower of the cathedral, called El Miguelete in Spanish). Besides spending time at the university and in the Ciutat Vella (old city) where she stayed, she took a day trip to the El Saler beach which is near the Parque Natural de la Albufera (the albufera is a large freshwater lagoon south of the city of Valencia), visited the Estació del Nord (Valencia’s main railway station opened in 1862), and enjoyed more tapas! The crowning moment of her time there was her return to the apartment building where she lived during her study abroad in the late 1980s.