Sophomore Candela Berzal is from Madrid, Spain. Coming from the capital of Spain to a small town in Idaho has been quite the shock, the biggest adjustment has been the religion. In Spain, there is not a large popular religion, but especially here in Blackfoot, Candela was surprised by the religious influence. She elaborated, “We have religion back in Spain, but I’ve never seen it this much. Many people are Catholic but they do not practice it. Here they practice their religion.”

The hardest thing Berzal has experienced while being an exchange student is being away from her family. “In Spain, I didn’t appreciate them, but I do by coming here.” Another thing that she misses about her home country is everything there was to do. Candela explained how it was so easy to take public transportation into the city and find something to do, whereas here in Idaho everything is so spread out and there isn’t much to do. 

While Berzal is excited to be an exchange student and to be here in America, she was hoping to go out east because of the big cities and what she has seen about the east coast. Her reaction to finding out she would be coming to Idaho was, “Where the heck is that?”

Back in Spain, Candela participated in tennis and swimming. She hopes to be able to play tennis while at Blackfoot High, and she also would like to try doing basketball. 

Another thing that she misses is the Spanish food. She even made two oriental meals for her host family, but they did not share the same love for it as Candela. Some differences Candela has noticed while being in America, is that there are many more fast food restaurants here than there are in Spain. The ones she is familiar with are the bigger food chains such as Burger King, Taco Bell, and of course McDonald’s, so coming here and seeing the many other fast food available to the US is a little crazy to her.