How I met my American Family. 

I was just 15 years old when I developed to desire to travel. I discovered a program called Interway where it is possible to travel to England or the United States of America. The great thing about this program is that’re traveling with a group of students from Spain and you will be staying in a host family in order to learn the language and customs of that country. Unfortunately, it was too expensive for me, two or three week’s abroad costs between 2.500 and 3.000 euros, whatever the destiny was. So, I could not take advantage of that opportunity, but I thought that I wanted to improve my English-speaking capabilities and maybe there were other less expensive options to practice it.

Instead of travelling abroad, I was given the opportunity to invite an American student to stay with my family and me. So that’s exactly what I did.  Few weeks after, a group of Americans came to Totana. This group of Americans was organized by Interway too.  They came to Spain to stay in two weeks;the first week to travel around the provences and then to spend some time living with  a Spanish host family. Sarah is the name of the student who came to stay with me. She turned out to be very nice and polite. My mother and I showed her the most popular parts of Lorca such as, the old castle, the best churches, the beach, “El Merendero”, etc. One week was too short of time to enjoy Lorca however, we had a great time together.

Two years later, I had turned 17 years old and I was invited to America in order to visit with Sarah and her family. At first my parents was concerned that I was too young to be travelling alone. Eventually I persuade my parents to allow me to go. It was a little bit confusing at the airport.I had only traveled by plane once before and it was when I was only 5 years old. When I arrived, there they were looking at me with a bouquet of flowers in the baggage claim, what a beautiful welcome! Then, we go to their house and they showed me my bedroom. I loved the house and the neighborhood; It felt as though I was in a movie. I stayed in there two weeks. I did many activities such as, going to the biggest Mall in the country, we visited the Minnesota’s Zoo, we went to the cinema, saw many of the popular lakes in the state (Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes). There was so much to do and amazing people to meet, even a wedding.

Last summer I visited them again. This time, I stayed in there three weeks, I would have liked to stay in more days but I could not because the week before I was in London. This time I met Sarah’s grandparents who I love. We went to see the fireworks on 4th of July, we had dinner crossing the Mississippi River, and we went to different restaurants such as Spanish restaurant, Greek restaurant, Argentine restaurant, Japanese restaurant, Chinese restaurant, Italian restaurant, Indian restaurant… I always ate outdoors during my trip. We went shopping, we went to the theatre to see “My fair Lady”, and we went to an amazing landscape. I also cooked for them Spanish food such as pan de Calatraba, tortilla de patatas y sangría. They really loved pan de Calatraba. After these three weeks, I went to New York with Sarah’s grandpa and Sarah. We stayed in Long Island one week and then I came back to Spain. Her grandpa showed me a lot of parts of New York. I went to Wall Street, China Town, The Little Italy, Manhattan, I saw the Statue of Liberty, Jones Beach…

Thanks to my American family I’ve known such a lot of things and I did a lot of activities that I could not have done without their help. I’ve met wonderful people and my English improved a lot. I love the United States and I’m  hopeful that I will visit again soon. Meanwhile, they know they’re invited to visit with me anytime.