After coming home from my nine months in Spain, I realized that there are three people that shaped my soph- omore year of high school.

On Sept. 9, 2021 I began my journey to Spain. On the flight to Madrid from Chicago, I sat with a Spanish family.

I spoke to the mom, Sara, and she introduced me to her family. I was sitting amongst the entire family and grandparents. The family had finished their trip to the United States and were returning home. Sara asked where I was going to live in Spain, and I replied — it was where she said they were from. I thought that was a nice coincidence. Sara asked me where in Andelucía I was going to live and I told her Huelva. At this moment her face dropped. “We live in Huelva!” Sara said. The size of Huelva is the same as Ann Arbor, and it is defi- nitely not a common place for exchange students to live. Out of the hundreds of seats on that plane, I sat next to what could have been the only other people from Huel- va.

The story gets better. I began asking Sara where they 

went in the U.S. and she said they visited Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. They had been to my home and now I was going to theirs. The story gets crazier.

When I arrived in Huelva, I sent Sara a text sending her my location to see how far I was from her house. It said I lived three minutes walking to Sara’s house. Once I realized that I didn’t write the address wrong and I real- ly did live three minutes away from her house, I couldn’t believe it.

Throughout my year in Spain, I would go to Sara’s house for dinner. I enjoyed spending time with Sara’s three sons while watching the 2022 World Cup. Sara’s family generously invited me on trips, which allowed me to see more of Spain.

Sara is a beautiful, strong and kind mother who opened her doors to a random girl on a plane. I will forever be touched by her generosity and kindness. I want to be as welcoming and generous as Sara was.

Second, my Lengua teacher Don Miguel was difficult. Don Miguel was an older man known for being the meanest teacher at Maristas. He decided he would make fun of me in front of his class. He would speak to me in Spanish, looking me dead in the eyes knowing I didn’t understand a word he was saying. The class would laugh at the things he said to me, but I was never laughing. I had never experienced this level of disrespect in my life, and I wanted to shrivel up and become a fly on the wall. I would dread Lengua class with Don Miguel every week. I was scared to sit up straight in my seat, and I would quite

literally sit in the back of the class behind someone so I wasn’t in his eyesight. He treated me as if I was a complete idiot and made sure everyone knew what he thought.

I don’t remember the moment, but at some point I stopped being scared of him. I realized he would never respect me and it didn’t matter because it was mutual. I always showed him kindness even when he was mean to me and that made me pity him. He was being mean to a fifteen year old girl because he was bored.

Don Miguel taught me more than any teacher I have ever had: he taught me to never be afraid of looking someone in the eyes; he taught me to never hide behind someone because I am scared; and he taught me to never let someone make me feel that helpless again. Towards the end of the year, I would make jokes to Don Miguel that the students in my class were too afraid to say. I jokingly tried to set him up with my grandma, which be- came an ongoing joke for the class. I gained a new level of confidence in his class. At the end of the school year, I bought him a thank you gift: I gave him a cactus plant.

Lastly, my host parents María and Gustavo. I count my host parents as one person because to me they are one strong unit. When I was young, I was worried that when I got older that I would be less silly and goofy and life wouldn’t be as fun. María and Gustavo proved me wrong. Almost every Friday, my host parents invited their friends over to our house. They would eat, sing, dance and laugh together while blasting music on the balcony.

The parties really began at midnight when María and her girlfriends became acrobats, professional singers and choreographed dancers. Many times these gatherings would go on until 5:00 am. My host parents were special, but an overall theme that I saw was that the Spaniards liked to have fun. When people were together, they rarely talked about the future because they were too busy hav- ing fun in the moment. María and Gustavo showed me that there is no age limit to fun. I want to have fun like María and Gustavo, and I aspire to focus less about the future and be more present in the moment.

Sara, Don Miguel and María and Gustavo taught me valuable lessons: to be generous, to be confident and to enjoy life. Getting on that plane in September, leaving my family and going to a country where I knew zero Spanish was intimidating to say the least. I threw myself into it not knowing what the other side would look like. I came out of it stronger because of the people I met. The people made my experience.