Friends – Authentically Ady

What a Professional Soccer Player Does in their Free Time

I don’t mean to brag, but I have the best job in the world. It’s obviously not like your typical 9-5 job because there are only so many hours in the day that you can physically train. So a typical “work day” of training for me takes about 5-6 hours of my day, leaving the rest of my time to rest and recover. I’m very fortunate that I am not in school anymore or working a second job, so when I am not training, I can fully relax and do activities that I really enjoy.

It was definitely a change of pace from the grind of being a student-athlete in college, where having free time throughout the week was nearly impossible with all the school work, practices, and other jobs/priorities. It didn’t take me too long to adjust to this type of living (I know, tough transition!), but I did have to create new hobbies and interests so I wasn’t wasting all my free time by scrolling on my phone or binge-watching Netflix all day. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my Netflix shows, and my roomies and I will typically watch a show together every night, but I do try and be somewhat productive during the day. So, here are some of the hobbies and activities that have become a big part of my life and have kept me busy since playing abroad:

Hanging with teammates! The best part about being on a team is forming tight friendships that can last a lifetime. You spend so much time together, that teammates you just met feel like friends you have known your entire life. On Xolos, my teammates and I love exploring Mexico and San Diego – going to the beaches, eating at new restaurants and cafes, exploring new towns, and going on little trips when we have days off are some of our favorite activities!

Writing. Growing up, writing in school was something I did not enjoy and I never in a million years imagined that I would start writing for fun. But here I am, journaling almost every day, and writing this blog because I truly enjoy it! Writing has become a part of my daily routine. I started journaling when I lived in Spain because the experience was so incredible that I didn’t want to forget anything about that experience. I then decided to create this blog while living in Serbia because I thought it would be interesting to share a bit of my life and the things I’ve learned through my experiences abroad. Now I’ve somehow accumulated 3 different journals (one for personal use, soccer, and my health), this blog, and a Spanish notebook that keep me busy writing all day lol. Typically after practice, my roommates and I make a coffee or matcha, then sit on our balcony and journal. It’s quite a lovely post-practice ritual.

Coffee Shops. Coffee culture is so popular in Europe and in Mexico! There are cute cafes on almost every street, so there are endless places to choose from. Trying new spots around town and chilling at cafes with teammates and friends is a bi-weekly activity. My teammates and I try a new cafe every week and there are still thousands of cafes in Tijuana that we haven’t yet discovered!

Watching Soccer. I try and watch as much soccer on tv as possible, not only because I love it, but I also learn so much from it! From watching and analyzing the teams in my league to watching the Premier League, Laliga, Laliga MX, and all the major tournaments going on around the world, there’s always a game going on! When you love this sport as much as I do, you really can’t get enough of it. There’s nothing like chilling and watching the best in the world play. Here’s what a typical afternoon looks like for me – recovery boots and some futbol!

Painting. I’ve always been creative and love having an artistic outlet. Painting has been a hobby I’ve enjoyed since I was a little girl. I love playing music and just letting the paintbrush flow. It’s like a type of meditation for me and helps take my mind off soccer or other stresses. Now that I have more free time, I’ve picked up my paintbrushes again and have been painting up a storm! Here are some of my latest works of art lol! Side note: If anyone wants to pay for an “Ady original”, let me know because ya girl needs a little extra side income.

Reading. I’m proud to say that I now love to read. Like writing, reading was another one of those things that I felt forced to do while in school and you could hardly ever catch me doing it in my free time. Now, I have a long list of books on my notes page of must-reads, so the second I finish a book, I pick up a new one the next day. Lately, I’ve been super into “self-help” books about mindset, sports psychology, and entertaining fiction reads. There is so much that I’ve learned through these books which have helped me on and off the field. Here are some of my favorite books I’ve just finished and highly recommend:

Listening to Podcasts and Audiobooks. Listening to different podcasts and audiobooks while doing chores around the house has been a game-changerrrrr! It really makes the not so fun parts of my day actually enjoyable. You can always find me listening to my favorite podcasters Jay Shetty and Mel Robbinson if I need a little motivation or inspiration. If I need a laugh, I’ll be listening to my favorite comedians and actors on the podcasts: Whisky Ginger, Smartless, Bad Friends, and King and the Sting.

When I’m not at the field or in the gym, these activities are typically what I am up to! It’s a pretty sweet life and I can truly say that my life off the field brings me just as much happiness as being on the field. If you guys are interested in me filming “a day in the life” video to actually see what a typical day is like, then let me know in the comments! Until then, I hope you guys enjoyed this little blog, and as always, thanks for reading!

Skills I’ve Gained From Living Alone

It’s crazy to think about how I was living with 13 other girls in a massive villa in Spain just a year ago, and now I’m living alone in a single bedroom apartment in Serbia. In Spain, it was almost impossible to have time alone (sometimes not even when going to the bathroom haha), and now time alone is a lot of my day! Complete polar opposite experiences. Of course, I see friends throughout the week and have practice every day, so I’m not some hermit without social contact. But living alone was definitely a big adjustment I had to adapt to because I am a very social person.

Living alone was never something I saw myself doing. I always imagined myself continuing to live with teammates, friends, and family. And in the future, when the time is right I imagined moving in with a significant other. Therefore, I never saw living alone in my future, and living alone in a foreign country was COMPLETELY out of question. When I initially came to Serbia, I came with three other Americans and we lived with each other in an apartment. However, Jazz, Kim, and Leslie did not return to Serbia after Christmas break, and I was left to return to Serbia solo. So, I’ve been living on my own in Serbia for the past 5 months. It was never intended for me to be living alone, but it just happened to work itself out that way.

This has been a challenge at times, but also a blessing because there are so many things I have learned about myself during this period. I really do miss having roommates and being surrounded by friends 24/7, but I think it was meant to be that I spent this time alone to discover myself. I don’t see myself living alone again after this chapter in Serbia, but I am grateful for this experience.

I’ll be sharing what living on my own has taught me and how I have grown from this experience. I know living on your own is a big step in adulthood and can be challenging or scary. Hopefully, this will give a better perspective to see the positives of being alone.

5 Skills I’ve Learned:

Positive Self Talk: When you spend so much time alone, you become the person you talk to the most. This sounds crazy and a little sad haha, but you basically have to become your own best friend! I had to change the way I was talking to myself because I didn’t realize how negative I was about myself beforehand. Being surrounded by so many roommates, friends, teammates, and family 24/7, I didn’t think about the way I talked to myself because I was so busy talking to the people I was surrounded with. So being alone has forced me to be more positive in my thoughts about myself and life in general. If my thoughts and the way I think about myself are negative, then I would spend most of the day being pretty depressed. I had to become a person I enjoyed being with, otherwise, I would have been miserable.
Self-Reliance: Living and traveling on my own forced me to become fiercely independent. My abilities grew because most challenges or problems that arose, I had to figure out on my own. I’ve learned to trust my intuition more and have gained confidence in my abilities to handle tough situations. You really have to be more careful, cautious, and aware because sometimes there isn’t someone immediately there to help you if a problem arises (For example, missing your bus at midnight in a foreign city and having to wait until 6 am for the next one. Or losing your keys and being locked out of your apartment in the middle of the night…). I’ve had to gain some lessons the hard way but have gotten through them alive and well!
Outgoing-ness: Because I have been fortunate enough to live with my teammates and friends since moving away from my parent’s home, I never had to put myself out there in an effort to make new friends. I’ve always had my best friends living with me. As a result, I have never been forced to be super outgoing. So, living in Serbia has really pushed me outside of my comfort zone because I have had to be the one to initiate hang-outs and plans. I am not super close with my teammates because of the language barrier, so I have made many friends outside of my fútbol circle who speak great English. I became really comfortable having conversations with new people in social environments and being the one to initiate meet-ups. I was very self-conscious at first because I thought that if people weren’t texting me to hang out that meant they didn’t want to see me. I’ve realized this is not true at all and people are just busy or feeling the exact same way about you! This opened my eyes to know there’s no harm in reaching out to others.
Self-Awareness: I have always been a “go with the flow” type of girl and am pretty indecisive when it comes to making decisions. I mainly do what the group wants and am typically content with it! I like to make others happy and that determines my decision-making. But now that I am living alone, I don’t have an immediate group to lean on for decisions. So every decision I make (outside of fútbol) is for myself. This was a challenge because, in the beginning, I really didn’t know what I wanted. I spent a lot of time overthinking about what I should be doing instead of just doing something! Therefore, I’ve had to become very hyperaware of myself and my desires in order to change. I had to look inward and do things that I genuinely wanted to do or would make me happy. I’ve stopped thinking about what I should be doing or what I think other people think I should do. I care less now what others think of me and do what makes me genuinely happy. If I want to go on an adventure, I’m going to do it even if no one else can join me and the people here think I’m crazy for it. If I want to see friends, I will reach out to them even if they didn’t text me first. If I’m feeling tired, I will cancel plans or head home early and not feel guilty for it. Basically, everything I do is for myself now and what I truly want at a specific time. I’ve learned to listen to myself and honor my feelings. I’m still the “go with the flow girl”, but now I know when I want to change direction and standstill.
Breaking and Creating Habits: to elaborate on my previous point on becoming hyperaware, this also helped me to break bad habits and form new and better ones. Being alone a lot of the time could have heightened my bad habits because there is no one here to keep me in check. Luckily, my time alone forced me to internalize and deeply question why I do certain things, which helped me break these habits instead. And on the flip side, this new self-awareness has highlighted who I want to become and where I want to grow which influenced me to create new and better habits. I have a lot of free time here, so I decided I needed to make this free time beneficial. These new habits and routines help fill my day and aim to make me grow. Obviously, I’m not perfect and revert to my old habits at times, but now I’m way more disciplined and can get back on track faster.

I hope this gives a little insight into some of the ways living alone can become a positive experience! Thanks for taking the time to read, everyone! If any of you have lived alone, I’d love to hear what you learned from that experience or some of the challenges you faced. Feel free to comment below or email me. Peace and Love!

Serbia Update

When I think about my Serbian experience, the first word that pops into my mind is: unexpected. Unexpected in the best way. I have done so many things here that I never would have imagined that I would do. I did not expect to have a bad experience here, but I also did not expect to have as cool of an experience as I’ve had.

When I found out a team from Serbia was interested in me, I didn’t know how to react because I didn’t know a single thing about Serbia! I couldn’t even tell you where its general location is on a map. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. It was such a sudden decision to play here that I didn’t have much time to research Serbia or even have time to process what was happening. Despite my lack of knowledge of Serbia, I was on a plane two weeks later to start my adventure. And holy smokes am I happy I decided to come to Serbia because it has totally surprised me.

Like my experience in Spain, my time in Serbia has been so much more than just playing fútbol. I have created incredible friends, experienced a very different culture and language, and have really built a second life out here.

In this blog post, I will be sharing some of my favorite memories and activities I’ve done in the past 4 months in Serbia! It has been an absolute blast and I can’t wait to share more that comes along the way.

Niš

Niš is the city in Serbia that has quickly become my home. It is the third-largest city in Serbia but it is still quite small. This is perfect because everything is walking/bike riding distance away. Even though Niš is a city, there is still a lot of nature in the city and surrounding it. There is a river called the Nišava that runs through the city which is very beautiful to walk by during the summer months. There’s also a ton of trees and big parks that add a pop of green against the tan and brick apartment buildings. On the outskirts of Niš, there are pretty blue mountains that make for a great city background and old villages with lots of farmland and vineyards. Niš has the perfect ratio of city and nature.

My life here is so simple and peaceful. My days include going on long walks and bike rides along the Nišava river and Niš Fortress, meeting up with friends for coffee, writing and reading at different cozy cafes, exploring the outdoor markets to buy fresh produce, doing photoshoots, watching fútbol games on tv, and of course… playing a lot of fútbol!

This is my first time living in a place that does not have an ocean or sea near. I was worried I was going to be depressed living here because I love the beach so much. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself when I had free time if I couldn’t go to the beach. Thankfully this has not been the case! I have started appreciating different things, finding new hobbies, and learning that I can make my own happiness wherever I go. I don’t need specific settings or activities to ensure my well-being. Although I do miss the ocean, I can absolutely say that I am very content living in Niš.

The People

Serbians are the friendliest and most welcoming people I have ever met. They are full of life and passionate. They love to sing, dance, talk, and celebrate any and every occasion. They love to share their culture and traditions with people who are not from their country. They are also impeccable hosts and know how to make visitors feel taken care of.

One of the unexpected things to happen was making so many friends outside of my fútbol team. Typically when you are on a team, especially when you’re so far away from home, your teammates are your only friends. This definitely has not been the case in Serbia. I am so grateful that I have a good relationship with my teammates, but have also branched out and made so many friendships outside of my team.

I can’t even trace back to exactly how I have met all these people whom I have become close with. But typically this is how it works: I meet someone for the first time–> very soon after I am getting coffee with them–> the friendship blossoms–> I’m introduced to their friends–> then the same cycle continues!

I have always been good at getting along with everyone, but I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who is extremely outgoing or extroverted to be able to make new friends immediately. However, making friends in Serbia has been so easy because the people here are so damn nice. Being in Serbia and meeting all these new people has really changed my mindset and has made me become more outgoing and comfortable engaging with new people.

Forming these friendships has been so important to me since Leslie, Kim, and Jazz (the other Americans on the team) did not return to Serbia after Christmas break. I am now the only American and live alone which has made this experience so much different. I miss having them here, but my Serbian friends have kept me from being homesick and lonely. I have had such a fun time with my new friends going out for coffee, drinks, and dancing at our favorite club called “Feedback”. It’s really been them that have made this experience so incredible.

My birthday

I’m the type of person that doesn’t care too much about their birthday. I never plan anything big for myself and don’t particularly like being the center of attention. I just like to hang around good company and eat delicious food.

Despite my lackluster enthusiasm for birthdays, my birthdays spent abroad have been absolutely over the top. I had an epic birthday in Spain and I thought nothing could ever come close to that. However, my Serbian birthday definitely reached the Spain level of awesomeness.

My birthday festivities started after we got home from practice on a Wednesday night. Leslie, Kim, Anja, and Jazz took me out to eat at this amazing restaurant called Cafe Bravado. We ate so much food and drank good wine. I was perfectly content with ending my birthday celebrations there, but they had way more in store for me. After the restaurant, we walked back to our apartment and I opened the door to a massive surprise party. My teammates, non-fútbol friends, and a group of friends that I had only met briefly the weekend before all surprised me (about 25 people!). Some of the people who I had only met the weekend before, I couldn’t even remember their names, and yet they were there at my birthday party (now they are some of my closest friends here)! I was so freaking surprised. We played music, danced, drank, and sang the rest of the night. It was a night I will not forget; I felt so incredibly loved. It was definitely an unexpectedly-amazing memory in Serbia.

Benji

Next up on the list of unexpected things: Jazz, Kim, Leslie, and I became cat moms for about 2 months! This little journey began one day when I was rushing out of the house because our ride for practice was outside when I almost stepped on this tiny gray creature. I screamed because I thought it was a rat, but with a closer look, I realized that it was a baby stray kitten. Because Leslie and I were already late, we quickly decided to leave an old shoebox with a pair of gross shorts in it outside our apartment for the kitten to shelter in. We felt bad for the poor thing since it was freezing cold outside! 4 hours later when we returned after training, the kitten was in our makeshift box. After about an hour of back and forth thinking, we decided to keep the kitten because we just didn’t have the heart to leave it in the cold to die. We knew we were leaving for the U.S. in 2 months but decided we would cross that bridge when we got there. So we gave it a bath, named it Benji, watched a couple youtube videos on how the hell to take care of a kitten, bought it food and a kitty litter, and took it to the vet the next day.

We loved having Benji as a kitten. He was such a love bug and the perfect companion to snuggle with while watching tv. As Benji grew a little older, he started becoming a little problem with a mind of his own. There was no training him, he ran the house. So we decided that because we were leaving for the U.S. and our lack of ability to discipline him, it was best if we gave him up for adoption. We found a couple through Instagram that wanted him and so we said our last goodbyes to him right before we left for the holidays. It was a fun run with him but I don’t think I’ll be a kitten mom anytime soon.

Becoming a “Model”

Probably the most unexpected thing to happen while being in Serbia is becoming a stock model for Getty Images. It started because my friend Dek who is a stock model invited me to do a shoot with him. I was so thrown off by this offer because I am someone who has never loved being in front of the camera. I take selfies as a joke and have always made fun of the “influencer” type. So this was totally out of my comfort zone. However, I decided to take him up on his offer because f**k it why not?! I am so happy I did because now I am doing shoots at least twice a week which has been a great source of extra side cash and has actually been really fun. Each shoot is a different theme but they all encompass “a day in the life”. When Leslie was here, we had so much fun modeling with each other. We did a shoot where we pretended to be a couple moving into a home together and another where we made and ate blueberry pancakes. I have also become friends with the photographers Stefan and Slava, so most of the shoots also involve us joking around and them laughing at me as they try to talk to me in Serbian. Let me tell ya, this is the most fun and easiest side hustle I’ve ever had.

Jazz festival

Every year in August, Niš hosts a festival in the Niš Fortress called the Jazz Festival. The festival is three days long and is relatively big. People come from all over come to see Jazz musicians and musicians of different backgrounds perform. Leslie, Kim, Jazz, and I went to the festival with our Serbian friends Anja, Kika, and Irene. It was one of my favorite memories ever. We saw Goran Bregović perform and it was incredible. We danced crazily the entire night, jumping up on our seats and screaming the lyrics to his famous song “Bella Ciao”. The energy there was contagious and the vibe around the whole city is something different during the Jazz Festival. Everyone who lives in Niš says this is their favorite time of the year. Going to the Jazz festival was the perfect start to my Serbian adventure and something I won’t forget.

Trips

Belgrade

One weekend Leslie, Jazz, Kim, and I took the bus to Belgrade where we stayed at the 360 Hostel, located in the heart of the city. Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia where you’re engulfed in the big European city feel. We had so much fun there, visiting the Belgrade fortress and Kalemegdan park, tanning at the Ada Caganlija river island, shopping around Skadarska street, eating incredible food, visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art, and riding bikes along the Sava riverfront. Leslie and I also made friends with other travelers living in the hostel, so we went to a party with them on Saturday night. It was such a fun weekend exploring and meeting new people. It definitely made me crave adventure and the desire to explore Serbia more.

Novi Sad

I went on my first solo trip to Novi Sad which is the second-largest city. Novi Sad is incredibly beautiful with pastel buildings, tall point churches, monuments, and impressive graffiti wall drawings. I toured the Petrovaradin fortress and had lunch there with a breathtaking view of the river and city; visited a tapestry museum called Atelje 61 where women hand make these amazing tapestries by hand; walked to all the monuments, churches, and monasteries; and spent some quality time with myself lol. It was such a different experience traveling alone. I definitely wish someone was there with me, but I am happy I went anyway. It was a great learning experience and I know how to better prepare for future solo trips.

Kapoanik Mountain

After I returned from the United States, I went snowboarding at Kapoanik mountain in Serbia. It’s the biggest ski resort in Serbia (about 2 hours away from Niš) and the mountain was huge! I went with my coach, her friend, and her niece. I have become good friends with my coach’s niece, Anja, and she has been incredible with introducing me to new people and taking me to do fun activities. We stayed 2 nights in an apartment right on the mountain and snowboarded/skied one day. It was a blast and I’m so happy I was able to check out the Serbian slopes!

Strumica, Macedonia

My team traveled to Strumica, Macedonia to play in a friendly game against a team called Tiverija. Strumica is a pretty city with wide streets and lush green mountains hugging the city background. It was a short trip as we spent 1 night and a day and a half there. Before our game, we were able to walk around the city, see the monuments in the city square, and take pictures. Although Strumica was very similar to Serbia, it was still nice to check out the new city and stretch our legs. Overall it was a really good trip and we ended up tying Tiverija 1 to 1.

The first half of my Serbian adventure has been so much fun. I hope the next 5 months bring more unexpected surprises, new experiences, traveling, and personal growth. Can’t wait to update y’all about my future endeavors. Until next time… Ciao!

Spain Recap

It’s impossible to try and write 10 months’ worth of crazy adventures and experiences about my time playing in Spain into one post. I would seriously need to write a novel to fit everything in. The beautiful thing about playing abroad is that it is so much more than just playing fútbol. The people you meet, the traveling you do, and the memories you make are just as important in my eyes. So, in this post, I am going to recap my favorite non-fútbol things and memories of my time in Spain that made it so incredible. Vamanos!

ALMUÑEĆAR

Almuñećar is the beautiful little city on the southern coast of Spain that became my second home. I was so content living in this city because it had everything I loved: the sea, mountains, narrow cobblestone streets, and gorgeous views. Right along the beach, you can find a number of great seafood restaurants and bars. And the mountains made for awesome adventures like hiking and seeing incredible sunset views. The heart of the city is very traditional European looking with narrow streets filled with little restaurants, cafes, clothing stores, markets, and shops. Although it was a sleepy little town, Almuñecar is just an hour away from two major cities – Malaga and Granada. This made for perfect day trips to these bigger cities if we wanted a change of scenery and pace.

Day-to-day life in Almunecar was a slice of heaven. A lot of my time outside of fútbol was spent at the beach, going for long walks along the boardwalk, climbing heights to see new sunset spots and views, shopping at the street markets on Friday and Sunday, and going out for dinner and drinks at the beach restaurants and bars. I basically was on a 10-month long vacation living there and I enjoyed every second of it.

MY TEAM

Although living on the southern coast of Spain was an actual dream, it was really the team and people that made my experience so incredible. From practice and gym sessions, Spanish class, traveling around Spain together, and all living in the same house, my teammates and I spent every waking and sleeping minute together. Because of this, the connection we all had on and off the field was so strong, and we became a family instantly. These girls (and coaches– shout out Pabs!) all became my lifelong friends and honestly writing about them right now brings a tear to my eye.

We all came from different backgrounds and countries, (Ireland, Spain, England, USA, Canada, and Guatemala) but what made us all vibe together so well was our desire for a crazy experience and of course our love for fútbol! Let’s just say… we worked hard and played hard. We absolutely made the most of those 10 months.

“LA CASA ROJA”

What a beautiful, chaotic, incredible shit-show of a living experience. “La Casa Roja” (“The Red House”) is a big red villa in Almunecar, Spain that my 13 teammates and I lived in. Yup, you heard that right! 14 of us lived in there. It’s a 3 story house with 7 rooms (2 girls to each room), a pool, a massive backyard with an outdoor BBQ, 3 huge balconies with views of beautiful Almunecar, and not enough bathrooms. Let’s just say not even 4 bathrooms and 3 showers were sufficient for 14 sweaty athletes with stomach issues. We all had to get very close, very fast lol.

But besides the bathroom situation and problems with our electricity, water heating, power, and wifi, La Casa Roja was an epic place to live in! After training, most of our days included: tanning and reading by the pool, hanging out and eating meals together on the balcony, watching (or attempting to watch because our wifi never worked) fútbol games and tv shows in the living room, doing yoga and at-home workouts at the backyard patio, and having dance parties in the kitchen. The house was filled with laughter 24/7 and for 14 girls living together, there was really never any drama which honestly seems impossible.

You also might be thinking: “A house with 14 people… That seems impossible to keep clean!”. And you my friend, are absolutely correct! The house was a complete disaster 24/7 no matter how hard we tried to have it not be. If I had known that 14 of us were going to all be living together, I might have second-guessed my decision because that honestly sounds terrifying. I had already done the college experience living in a wild house with a bunch of roommates. But this was like a college living experience on steroids. 14 girls (ages 18-26) from all over the world who don’t know each other, living together in a foreign country… it could either go really bad or really great. Thankfully, it went really great! La Casa Roja was really the foundation, literally and figuratively, of our team’s Spain experience. It was our home, the setting of many incredible memories, and everyone in it was family.

THE HOLIDAYS

Living abroad and not being with family for the holidays can be difficult. It’s sad seeing your family and friends gathering back home and not being able to join them. This was my, and many of my teammate’s first times being away for some of the major holidays. But we did not let this negatively affect our holiday cheer because we went OFF for holidays! We decorated the house, prepared huge feasts, and dressed festively for every occasion. Some of my favorite memories are cooking together in the kitchen while blasting music and dancing as we try and prepare the massive meals after drinking a little too much. Somehow the food always turned out incredible and we managed not to burn the house down.

Love Island

Our house became obsessed with the British Reality TV show called “Love Island”. If you haven’t heard of the show, basically a group of single guys and girls who don’t know each other, all live in a villa in hopes that they fall in love with someone in there.

Anyway, we would binge-watch love island every night and one day we got inspired and decided to recreate the show amongst ourselves. Since we also lived in a villa, it was the perfect setting for this recreation! So 5 of us put on intense makeup, wore high heels, and put on skimpy outfits to look like the girls on the show. And the other 5 turned themselves into douchey boys by drawing on beards/mustaches and wearing baggy clothes. Rosie (our English teammate) mimicked Caroline Flack who was the host of Love Island and also did the voice-over comments. She nailed the part perfectly because of her accent! And lastly, Olivia was our incredible videographer and producer who also edited the videos to make it into the episode. Every single person in the house had a part or character and committed fully to it.

We spent a whole afternoon/night filming this and ended up making a full 20-minute long episode. It was one of the funniest days ever. We filmed each person doing an introduction of themselves, then the boys and girls meeting for the first time and picking who they wanted to be coupled up with, and of course the inevitable drama that happened throughout the night. It was absolutely hilarious filming this and the amount of dedication to our characters was flawless. We couldn’t stop laughing while filming because it was so spot on to the show and ridiculous. The full episode turned out to be a cinematic masterpiece. I’m convinced that if we sent it to the Love Island producers, they would actually want us all on their show!

Dressing up and creating this episode is a perfect example of all the crazy things we would get into living at La Casa Roja. Every day there was something new and weird that we would come up with. There definitely was never a dull day living with these psychopaths.

Hiking

We went on some pretty incredible hikes during our time in Spain. The Southern coast of Spain is insanely beautiful so the views and nature we experienced on these hikes were pretty unreal. As an avid hiker back home, it was a blast to be able to explore Spain’s mountains and see what the non-city setting was like. Our coaches were so nice and wanted us to see many different parts of Spain, so we went on a couple hikes as a team for our training for the day. And then on our off days, a few of us would rent a car and drive ourselves to the trailheads. Most, if not all of the trails we went on did not have any signs to ensure we were going the right way or people we could ask for directions. So most of our hikes turned into epic adventures involving climbing up mountains in the wrong direction, getting lost, but always persevering and eventually finding our way. It was always a great time.

TRIPS

Granada

We spent a lot of time in Granada. It’s an incredibly beautiful city, rich in history with many sites to see and places to eat. It was an easy day trip by bus or car ride. Unfortunately with COVID, there were many restrictions on travel and experiencing Spain to the fullest. At one point we were not allowed to travel outside our providence of Granada (thankfully we could still go to Granada!). In addition, curfew was placed at 6pm so all bars, restaurants, stores, etc… were closed very early. We all obviously wanted to experience Spain to the max despite these regulations, so we had to get creative with how we spent our off days. One day, my teammates and I decided to rent a van and drive to Granada where we rented an Airbnb for the night. In the daytime, we toured around Granada, and at night we threw a wig party amongst ourselves at our Airbnb. Everyone created a new “identity” based on how they looked and felt in their wig. We spent the night dancing, playing games, and laughing at how funny everyone looked. It was one of my favorite nights.

Barcelona

At the end of our season, most of the team and I went to Barcelona as a last hurrah to end our 10 months in Spain. It was such an epic trip. We stayed in a hostel in the city where we met other cool travelers from around the world. We adventured around Barcelona; going to museums, laying on the beach, seeing sights, shopping, watching fútbol games at cafés, eating lots of food, and partying hard at night. There couldn’t have been a more perfect trip to encapsulate our time together in Spain and say goodbye to one another.

This post only scratches the surface of all the fun and crazy adventures we had while living in Spain. This experience is something that is indescribable. I wish I could accurately explain my team’s dynamic and just how much fun we had, but I can’t. It’s something that only my teammates and coaches understand because you just had to be there. This was without a doubt the best 10 months of my life. I seriously think about and miss my team and Spain every day. I can’t express how grateful I am to have met so many incredible people and have the greatest 10 month Spain adventure of all time!