Being from America, traveling outside of your home state is exciting, but entering territory outside of the USA can be even more exhilarating! I had already experienced traveling at a young age for my parents wedding, for a cruise to islands in the Caribbean, and annual family vacations at all-inclusive resorts to which we predominantly stayed at during the trip. However, I never flew to a foreign country where I would be staying in a moderate hotel, exploring the culture of the area, frequently traveling, and going without my parents! It was the ultimate opportunity to experience Europe, particularly Spain and France, with my two best friends at the time. This trip was planned spur of the moment when I asked my mom closer to the deadline if this was something I could do. I was debating on using money from my job as well as college savings to pay for the late fee of a last minute trip, but little did I know how making the decision to go would change my life forever!
I committed to getting a placement on the travel list for our Senior Class Spanish and French students (I had taken 4 years of Honors Spanish to be able to go on this trip). This vacation was planned through EF Tours, so we didn’t need to plan for anything but our own luggage packing, flights, and transport to my high school. From there it was the preparatory shopping and planning days before the bus would pick us up and take us to the airport to head to Europe. I was leaving in the middle of starting to date a guy and it was a really interesting time for me to be 17 years old and leave the country for the first time without my parents. This was the trip that altered my life when I discovered my newfound love for traveling, exploring the culture, and understanding the language and customs of other places. I learned about my mental durability and my connections to others and what relationships mean to me in foreign places and across distances. Not only was it a vacation that was totally preplanned with an itinerary, but also it was a new learning ground for me to gain skills that I would not have had if it weren’t for this vacation.
Overall, I had an amazing time on this trip, but there were plenty of hardships, frustrations, and disappointments that came along with it, which is all part of the growing process of people through experiences. Some of the most fond memories I had on my vacation were exploring the museums with my best friends and learning about the rich history of the areas we were walking the grounds of. We got to go up the Eiffel Tower at night in Paris, which was iconic and I fell in love with the views from up top of the city lights. There was a perfume factory where we learned about the perfume-making process in Paris, which we all bought at the end as a souvenir. The name of the company that we took the tour is called Fragonard Parfumeur. From Paris, we took a train to Spain and drank Sangrias as we walked around Spanish markets and ate fresh seafood from the marketplace. We made a few stops along the way in different cities like Zaragoza and Barcelona, but spent the majority of the time in Madrid. I enjoyed Barcelona a lot since I was born and raised near the beach and it reminded me so much of what was familiar to me. Even today, travel locations with a beach or lake always makes me feel at ease, like it’s my new temporary home. The best memory in Spain was the bike tour to the Mediterranean Sea in Barcelona. I can’t remember the name of the bike tour but it was included in our travel itinerary and there are plenty around the area.
These were definitely the highlights of my trip. There were plenty of difficulties that occured for myself and others during this vacation as well. One of the teachers at my high school got her wallet pickpocketed by a person while we were walking around the city. That taught us quickly how to be alert and aware of your surroundings when traveling to a foreign place. Sometimes, I assume, we looked like a target for theft since we were a big group of tourists heading to all of the tourist locations in the center city. That was probably the worst of it. Thankfully, nothing went wrong with the transportation or hotel stays. I did encounter issues with my friends, which taught me a lot about your relationship dynamic with others when you live with them temporarily. Also, I grew a closer bond to the guy I was dating during the time, despite the distance because of the desire of expressing my joy of sharing my experiences but also my draw back to what is familiar to me in which I would be returning to. All in all, I grew a greater sense of independence, learned about the meaning of the relationships with people in my life, grew a love for exploring culture, and understanding foreign travel.
Of course I thoroughly enjoyed this vacation, which allowed me to see the main tourist spots in Paris and Madrid. A dream, truly, as others have yet to experience these places where I’m from in the United States. Yet, I had an urge to see more, to travel more, to experience more of what our Earth has to offer. It was beautiful to see the creations of humanity. Art, statues, architecture, and life thriving in large cities with tons to explore, were all around. But I never got to explore on my own or with friends, without a chaperone or approval from the teachers. We were limited to an amazing, but strict itinerary and no freedom for our own enjoyment. Nonetheless, I needed to see the other side of things. The life and land untouched, and the places people don’t dare to go because the only entertainment is your own creativity, the beautiful scenery, and the connections of those around you. I realized I wanted to see more of the natural side of reality, the part of our existence that was there before we, humans, changed it, and not always for the good.
I knew there was so much of the world out there to see besides just the cities and capitals of countries and states that I’ve experienced prior to leaving North America. I had only ever experienced beach resorts on tropical islands but even that wasn’t the most fulfilling to stay put in one place and just relax. I’ve always craved to travel but in a different way. One that would satiate my thrills of spontaneity and I would get to see the beauty of the places I was visiting in total privacy, all for the people I was spending my time with. The travel bug continued on, after family vacations and a school trip to Europe, traveling was a dream more than a reality to me.
I fell into the mindset that most everyone believes as they age. That is, “you go to school, you go to college, get a degree, get a 9-5 and you save up, and travel when you’re older after you have kids and send them through school.” By that time, where I’m from, you’re just too tired from years of hard work and the only energy you have is to sit on a plane ride long enough to take you from New Jersey to Florida for vacation (Nothing against Florida, I love the state and have family that live there). The point is, traveling around the world seemed far fetched. Going places untouched and off the beaten path seemed expensive and needed more time planning than I could afford with my heavy college studies to follow a path that I thought I was “supposed” to follow.
That is until I decided while finishing up my first year of community college that I wanted to study and move to Southern California…