To Glacier Adventure through Erasmus

It all started to resonate in my head when I met some people who had done Erasmus in other countries and they encouraged me to do it, I didn’t realize it but little by little the idea of leaving was taking hold, to the point that last summer I signed up for an English academy to try to pass the selection process. I still remember those days of not wanting to study and complaining about English, but my mother always told me that I would eventually get my reward.

I kept on studying without even knowing if I would be able to go on Erasmus, until the selection process came and I was accepted and not only that but I had also passed my B1 English exam.

The truth is that I had no idea which country to choose, but after researching I fell in love with Iceland. The nature there overwhelmed me in such a way that I had nothing else in mind, I wanted to go there no matter what it cost.

I sent a lot of emails, I wanted to focus on helping with marketing and social media for the company, many companies didn’t reply, others said no, until I ended up getting an interview with the Icelandic company Glacier Adventure. I couldn’t believe it, it was a company that did tours on the biggest glacier in Europe, the Vatnajökull, a wonder of nature.

My first night in Iceland I saw an aurora borealis next to the cathedral in Reykjavik and I thought this can’t be happening to me.

From that day on I didn’t know how much this experience was going to give me and not only in terms of seeing amazing things but personally what it would change me.

During these three months I have seen humpback whales, reindeer, arctic foxes, seals, auroras, rainbow clouds, I have been many times on Europe’s largest glacier seeing its deep blue ice caves, canyons and tunnels, I have ridden on a boat and walked through icebergs, driven a snowmobile through the snow covered Icelandic mountains, climbed on ice, seen the geyser, amazing waterfalls, craters, etc….

Iceland’s nature is brutal, I was not disappointed at all.

In addition, these three months have allowed me to get into a culture totally different from mine and learn a lot from it, although not only from Icelandic culture, I have been in contact with a multitude of cultures both in the company and in my accommodation.

I have met people from Taiwan, Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania, etc…

Both on a professional and personal level it has been an unforgettable experience that has made me realize that there is a whole world out there waiting for me to explore. The experiences I have had here have made me mature, make me stand on my own two feet and make me believe I am capable of things I would never have imagined I could achieve.

Carmen, who had so many fears about many things before taking that plane to Iceland, can say that she has overcome every single one of them.

I thank all those people who supported me to live this adventure, but above all I thank myself for not having given up, for having continued believing in myself despite the obstacles that life put in my way on this journey.

I would like to finish by saying that if someone wants to take the step of going abroad, they should do it no matter how much fear they may feel and even if there are people who don’t believe that you can do it, don’t listen to them, keep believing in yourself and remember this phrase that I repeated to myself during all these months, ‘you set your own limits’.