“Things are not always this great. Tonight, we’re out to celebrate you, but if you weren’t here, we’d be at home. This is not how we always live, and things are not always better somewhere else.” Those are the words my Spanish host mother said to me at diner over a year ago. After a two-year-long pandemic and a couple of canceled flights, I’d finally found myself back in Vigo, Spain, four years after my first high school exchange. At first, I discounted her statement. I loved Spain and Europe. I had lived and spent an entire year of high school here. I had Spanish friends, a Spanish family, and a whole European life I’d built for myself behind. I thought that I had learned and experienced just about everything this Western European country had to offer, and so I made plans to one day return.

A year later I decided to do an internship abroad through Mizzou’s international office and IES Abroad. I’d done school abroad, how different could doing an internship abroad be? And I was eager to get back to the country I loved. I applied, packed my bags, and off I went, but this time to the opposite coast of the beautiful city of Barcelona. Here I’ve spent the last couple of months living and working. As I write this, I’m currently in my last month here and have less than three weeks before I return home and I could not be more excited. Don’t misjudge this blog post. This is not to discourage those from studying abroad or to discredit the experience. I have no regrets about choosing to go abroad, and I recommend to everyone that they should, but this experience has also yanked the rose-colored glasses from my eyes and has allowed me to see a range of race, sex, and economic problems I had failed to see before.

A girl of color from the U.S. in my internship class put it perfectly, “I’m finding a hard time finding people of color who are also successful here.” A statement that was simply brushed away by our professor and our fellow French classmate. “Europeans don’t see color the way you Americans do,” they said to her. Ironically, protests over the killing of a young man of color by police would begin in France just a week later. Besides racism, Spain faces a list of economic problems with high unemployment, low work opportunities, and rising political tensions. I’ve also learned that these problems are not just found here, but all over Europe. These things made me realize the United States may have its issues, but so too do these countries.

I once thought Europe and Spain were places I eventually wanted to live and work in. That they were the shining examples of progress that the rest of the world, especially the U.S. should emulate, but I’ve realized every part of the world has its problems, and my appreciation and love for my home has never been higher than now. I never realized what makes the U.S. so special is its diversity and the vast mixture of cultures that exist within its borders.

“Never forget where you came from and be proud to be an American.” This is something both my parents in the U.S. and my host parents here have told me before, but I never felt them until now. Interning abroad has given me invaluable experiences, friendships, and memories that will last a lifetime, but it has also taught me to be proud of my heritage. I’ve learned that things in fact are not always greener on the other side, and while I’ll be sad to leave this beautiful country and culture behind, I also can’t wait to get back to the vast multicultural land of opportunity I so luckily get to call home.

Shouting M.I.Z from across the world,

Sydney

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Global Mizzou Internship: Barcelona