Welcome to my blog. This blog will cover my experience in Barcelona, Spain during a 6-month internship at the University of Barcelona. Up until August 2015, I was living in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil, running greenhouse experiments at the Federal University of Mato Grosso as part of my research for my PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I know. I’ve just mentioned 3 countries/universities in the first two sentences about myself. Basically, I’m doing my PhD in Vancouver, but my field work is in Brazil. However, as part of my degree and as a TerreWEB scholar, there was an opportunity to have an internship experience. So, after initial contacts, emails back and forth, and some paperwork, I was awarded a TerreWEB internship grant and I was on my way to Barcelona.
Why Barcelona? Well, besides Joan Romanyà, the professor at the University of Barcelona I will work with being an excellent researcher on soil organic matter, I also had a personal interest in being in Barcelona. For starters, my sister has been living here for several years now and loves it. Secondly, after over one year of long-distance, I am once again in the same city as my Spanish boyfriend who I met in Vancouver and even spent some time with me in Cuiabá (until the mosquitos drove him back to his land). As you can see, I am sort of a jack of all homes, master of none. (Though I guess Paraguay would be considered my home always. Before Spain, I dropped by my parents’ home just outside Asunción to pick up my winter clothes I’d stored there. Luckily, I can still count on that home!) For now though, I will be calling Barcelona home for the next 6 months. Welcome to the Barcelona half.