January 28, 2013 at 4:00 AM

I never really dreamed of traveling. I always thought it would be cool to see the world, but growing up, I wasn’t the type of person to sit around dreaming of taking a glamorous trip to Paris or sipping tea in London.

But the one thing I have always loved since my first class in eighth grade is speaking Spanish, so when my high school offered an immersion program with a high school in Spain, I took the opportunity.

I thought it would be really awesome to learn Spanish and meet a few friends from a foreign city, but what I didn’t realize was that the city I was going to stay in – Granada, Spain – would be a place that would one day become a large part of my future.

When I traveled to Granada in 11th grade, my experience was incredible. I stayed in a home with a Spanish family, which included a girl my age who became a very close friend of mine.

I traveled with about 20 other students from my high school and we did activities tourists typically participate in when traveling in the southern part of Spain, such as visiting the Alhambra, exploring the caves of Nerja and marveling at the famous mosque in Cordoba.

While that trip was exciting and fun, I’m looking forward to learning the city on my own this time. I hope to actually live my life there like a local instead of taking it in from the outside for two weeks.

At first, I was unsure if I wanted to return to Granada since it was a place I had already experienced. I thought that maybe it would be better to find something new, but when I thought about how much I truly enjoyed being there, I knew it was the place where I wanted to have my experience studying abroad.

Before, I got a small taste of life in Granada, and now I am so excited to explore it on my own and truly make the town my home. I’m looking forward to the new experiences that are coming my way, starting today as I take off to begin my life abroad.