Field trip to Alicante from March 16 to March 22, 2025

For the second time in a row, the Spanish department organized an excursion to Alicante under the supervision of Dr. Rosario Herrero and in cooperation with the Sprachenzentrum. 13 students went on the trip, which gave them the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Spanish culture for a week, practice their language skills on site and get to know student life in Spain.

The University of Alicante is a partner university of Saarland University. The two universities jointly offer a double Master's degree in Translation Science and Technology, in which students spend one year in Saarbrücken and the second year in Alicante. The aim of the trip was to contact Spanish students and gain an insight into student life at the partner university. The field trip was sponsored by internationalization funds from Transform4Europe. 

The program consisted of cultural activities in the morning, including a city tour, the Castillo de Santa Bárbara castle and bunkers from the civil war. A visit to the Museo de las Hogueras offered an insight into these local festivities. There was also an optional trip to Valencia to the Fallas de San José, one of Spain's most popular spring festivals. A new highlight was a day trip to the Fuentes del Algar waterfalls and to the beautiful towns of Guadalest and Altea, where students were able to experience nature, history and regional cuisine.

In the evenings, meetings were held with Spanish students at the University of Alicante. In a pleasant atmosphere, the participants actively took part in lessons and various training modules. Tandem groups were formed in which two people from each country worked together. This approach facilitated direct linguistic and personal exchange and promoted intercultural contacts. Some tandem pairs even used this opportunity for private meetings outside of the classroom. The direct exchange was the core of the field trip and was found to be particularly rewarding by the participants.