“What a busy day for you, I hear you went to get churros with chocolate. What do you think of them?”

“I love them, but in the United States our churros usually contain cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon?”

“A type of spice, but used for desserts.”

“I don’t know the word, let me look with a translator. Oh, so you meant canela. How interesting.”

I was staying with a host family in Barcelona when I learned two things: the Spanish word for cinnamon and that I could hold a conversation in Spanish. Before my trip to Barcelona, I knew Spanish and had even visited the country before, but sitting at a table with my hosts and talking about the names of food ingredients demonstrated my improvement. The whole situation seemed surreal, eating dinner with a family from halfway across the world and conversing in their language with the casualness of my family discussing our day. Two years ago, I could not fathom a real conversation in Spanish nor living with strangers for a week, but at that dining table they welcomed me as a son and brother.

Before visiting, I never spoke to or even saw my hosts. Nervousness engulfed my mind before and during the trip, as I had never traveled alone. My previous trips always involved either my family or a group including people I knew, but in Barcelona I was alone. No roommate, few friends on the trip, and a mysterious host all contributed to my worries. No other event in my life was as much of a step into the unknown. Months before the trip I debated myself day after day, addressing all the problems and fears, but a part of me retained enough determination to continue the trip. I ended up adapting well to my hosts and their city, in spite of the cultural and linguistic differences. Their contributions to my experience reminded me of my own family, they gave me food, train passes, and suggestions for tourist sites in the same way my own parents would. I depended on them and realized how close we became and how adaptable I was late into my stay, though I appreciated it the entirety of my stay.

I consider my success a testament to a power I did not know previously. The power to connect with strangers as if they were my family. Though I cannot explain this ability with a single term, I offer a demonstration of its effectiveness. During the trip I met with another student who asked about my hosts, so when he asked where they lived I told him my neighborhood’s name and my family’s plans for that day. My family. There I heard it again, my integration so thorough that I could not, even unconsciously, separate myself from my hosts, always referring to “us” and “our plans”. They provided for and guided me as I saw myself more connected to them each day of my stay, extending a level of generosity hard to believe for strangers, but appropriate for a family member.

What opportunities do you have? Something as exotic as traveling or as simple as seeing a movie with a new friend can spark a lifelong relationship, if not a personal improvement. Whether your path leads you to places incredible, ordinary, or back to the beginning there will always exist the unknown, paths with hidden destinations. An important part of life is accepting the unknown, and exploring the people, places, and experiences it brings. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear, everyone has their own anxieties and personal fears, courage is rising above fear to achieve something greater.

So what can a city of a different tongue, a different nation, and a different lifestyle teach a visitor? It taught this visitor how to value family and how to integrate with new people. And it revealed this to me in the most innocuous manner, through a question about canela.