I have now been in Alicante, Spain, for two weeks but it already feels like I’ve been here for months. Over the course of just 14 days, I have met friends from all over the world, moved in with a host family and celebrated my 22nd birthday in a new city. My Spanish has improved very quickly, as my host family and many of the locals speak no English. It’s so cool to see just how effective immersion is for language learning! The most personal growth happens when you are uncomfortable, and struggling to understand your host family while they repeat what they said for the third time is certainly that.

While I’m here, I am taking an art and history class where we travel around Spain to see different historical sites in person. We have visited Catholic cathedrals, an Islamic temple and even the site of underground bunkers right here in Alicante that civilians used to flee Italian bombings during World War II. As somebody who has grown up only in America, a relatively young nation, it’s eye-opening to see how vast and rich human history is as it stands right before your eyes.

I stood where Christopher Columbus wrote his contract for sailing across the ocean blue and walked past the room where Washington Irving wrote his famous “Tales of the Alhambra.” Learning history in Europe makes the textbooks come alive, shedding a whole new light on how we have become the people we are today.