No one is ever truly prepared for their first trip abroad, especially when you're traveling alone. I had my suitcase packed to 49 lbs. and my travel pillow hooked on my backpack. I had successfully made it to JFK without the step-by-step instructions I was so used to my dad giving me.
Ohio University offers countless "study away" opportunities for their students, and I was accepted to spend a month in Seville, Spain for a documentary storytelling program. I had no idea what to expect from this trip, but one thing I did know is there were two girls in my group on my long flight to Barcelona. We made small talk at the gate and even ate some airport sandwiches together. The flight itself was nothing to write home about; we all sat separately. But when we convened in a coffee shop outside of customs, the story really begins.
We arrived in Barcelona at 6 a.m. local time. None of us had slept the entire flight, so we had been awake for more than 24 hours at this point. If you ask any of us what we did for those eight hours, we couldn't give you a straight answer. I know we sat at a coffee shop and at one point attempted to order food. The barista was not happy about the fact that three American girls were trying to speak at him in broken Spanish, which was a pretty traumatizing first interaction with a Spaniard. Luckily, merchants thereafter were generally kind and patient to us.
These two almost strangers and I talked about everything under the sun: friends, cringe past stories, fears for the trip, and so much more. Talking and bonding for eight whole hours helped me find two of my best friends and made me feel safe for the next four weeks. Without them, I would have felt lost in this foreign country. We were able to navigate together, even though we were all the same amount of clueless. I'm forever thankful for our eight hours in the Barcelona airport, because I found two people two are going to be friends for the rest of my life.
