This qualitative case study investigates intercultural adaptation during a studyabroad (SA) of undergraduate bilingual Catalan/Spanish students, focusing specifi-cally on life experiences which resulted in inflection points in that process of adap-tation. Data were collected through a pre-departure questionnaire, individual in-terviews conducted before and after SA, and narrative diaries collected during thesojourn. The results point to the complexity and the nuances of the adaptation pro-cess, the diversity of life experiences that may affect adaptation (Bennett 1993) andthe need to expand existing explanatory theoretical models.

The present work has benefitted from funding from UPF’s research groupGREILI and from the research project FFI2014-52663-P (Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competivity).