Student Travel & Study Abroad Opportunities

Lost and Found: The Self-Discoveries of Travel Abroad
By Hannah Austin, 2001

When I stepped off the plane in Madrid I felt lost. In the middle of the bustling airport, people shouting, crying, holding hands and meeting loved ones, I was lost and all alone. I knew that I had to be in Spain for the next three weeks. I didn't know one single person and I didn't feel like I could speak the language. What started out as a couple of the most physically and emotionally draining two days of my life turned out to be an experience I will never forget. I learned more about the culture than is in the books, more about what it means to have history than can be seen in any picture, and more about the language than how to speak it.

Choking down my emotions, I put a smile on my face that was half-fake. Despite my sorrow, I was amazed that I had made it. This wasn't a trip my parents had forced on me. It was my idea, and though without them I couldn't have gotten there, I knew I had no one to blame but myself if I didn't make the most of my time there. My life had been moving in slow motion for the last 24 hours and all of a sudden someone pushed the fast forward button. Everything happened so quickly, and suddenly I was at the home of the Gomez family, eating gazpacho and still marveling that Europeans really did do the double cheek kiss.

Even though I had read and learned about the cultural differences, I hadn't truly believed they existed. Then I was jolted into later mealtimes, eating dinner at midnight, among other things. It took me a little while, but I got used to the schedule, adjusted to the food, and gave up trying to convince everyone that even though I was a girl I could still play sports.

Living in America my whole life gave extra meaning to this trip. I realized there's a lot I take for granted, such as the equal opportunity I've had to play sports my entire life. There's also a lot I missed living in the U.S. so long. I grew up thinking houses built in the 1800's were old. The first day I was in Valladolid, walking around the city with my host family, they showed my countless ancient buildings, hundreds of years old. My favorite was a church just around the corner from their apartment building. It was old and abandoned, half falling down , birds nesting in the tallest remaining towers. I loved this little piece of history, crumbling and overshadowed in the middle of rising offices and pizza joints. I loved all the visible history I could see any given day on a simple walk. The only things that have been around that long in America are the mountains.

One of the most important things I took from this trip was an understanding of the language. I don't feel like the three weeks I spent there had a big impact on my speaking skills, but I comprehend so much more about listening and the concept of language itself. It was halfway through my trip, and my journal was filling with more and more Spanish words. I was dreaming and thinking in broken phrases, trying to use more than one verb tense in a sentence, when I realized something that changed my outlook. I used to think of everything in terms of direct translation. I would think something in English, rework it in my head, and then say it in Spanish because I was so concerned about butchering such a beautiful language, I was overcautious. I was doing this when I realized that "ir" doesn't mean "to go", nor does "to go" mean "ir". No word has an exact parallel. Words are only the medium for ideas, thoughts to get across. I realized it's about communication, not direct translation. Even though it's an idea I learned from the start, it wasn't until I went to Spain that it really fell into place.

My trip to Spain was full of things falling into place. I learned more than I had thought I would, but not what I expected to. I went thinking I was only going to improve my Spanish speaking skills, and came back a different person. When I stepped off the plane home, I wasn't lost anymore.