Barcelona Fri, Jul 12, 2019

Hello everyone!

By far my most memorable summer vacation was when I studied abroad in Barcelona in 2014. It was my first time out of the United States and the first time I had traveled out of the Central Valley without family.

Although part of my time in Barcelona was spent in class and writing essays, there was plenty of time for me to explore the city, take a party bus to Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls (emphasis on "watch" as there was no way I was running but I saw plenty of people get trampled and flipped by the bulls), experience the culture and amazing food, and obviously party with my friends and classmates.

The biggest reason why my trip to Barcelona was the most memorable has nothing to do with what I did there. Rather it was what I saw. I noticed many parents, not from Spain, taking their young children on their annual summer vacation (one of our professors being one of those parents).

My mother, as hard as she worked to provide for us, never had the funds to take us outside of California. The trip to Barcelona created a new goal for me, to be able to expose my future children to the many cultures and countries outside of the United States.

Barcelona 2014 was important for my growth, not just socially, or educationally, but for my overall growth.