Lost in Translation

Coming from a town with exactly three stoplights, the only thing I knew about the world was that it existed. Every blog I had ever read, every picture I had ever seen, or television show I had watched was the product of someone else's experience, someone else’s vision. Though there are people in this world with the ability to write in a way that makes their audience feel as though they’re traveling with them, I always felt like I should have been the one doing the writing.

I pushed all of my fears aside and chose to move to Granada, Spain for a year to study abroad, keeping a blog of my travels so that my hometown could come with me. Through my mother’s teary eyes, reflected my own face flooded with a whirlwind of both excitement and nervousness as I hugged her goodbye. There was a passion in me and I was willing to give up everything I had ever known for an experience that most could only dream of no matter how afraid I was to go alone.

From the minute my plane slid across the runway in Madrid, I could feel my life begin to make sense. It was as though everything I had ever done had lead up to that moment. Granada was a smaller city in the south of Spain surrounded by the snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains and a quick bus ride from the Mediterranean Sea. It was a quaint place nestled amongst a lively culture that shined as brightly at night as it did during the day.

People who believe New York is the city that never sleeps has clearly never been to Spain. There’s not an hour in the day that people aren’t in the streets, enjoying free tapas while gulping down cerveza. Spain is a country of people well-rooted in their traditions that are very expressive and colorful. They changed my life and molded me from the scared, small-town girl that entered into the beautifully cultured young woman I was when I left.

Within my year, my journey in Spain expanded into the rest of Europe. I had hiked the Alps in Germany, dipped my toes in the Irish Sea, took a detour to make sure London Bridge hadn’t fallen down, and found myself laying in the green hills of Scotland. I had flipped three coins in the Trevi fountain, stood silently as I admired the Sistine Chapel, and learned more about life than I ever could from a tv show or a photograph.

I'm fearless, I'm educated, and there is nothing that I want more than keep my passion for traveling alive. In the end, I learned that it doesn't matter where you're coming from, what matters most is where you're going.