“You really have to step out of your comfort zone if you want to enjoy another culture. If you don’t open up, you’ll close your opportunity to learn. When we fear things that are different, people may try to distance themselves. But in Málaga, Spain, you couldn’t do that because you were surrounded by a new experience everywhere you looked. There are things in certain countries you will not enjoy, but if you push through, you’ll find so many that you do,” said Senior David Best. 

Ten Leelanau students recently returned from Spain – a trip of a lifetime. While the trip was planned meticulously for them, it’s pretty vital to point out that our students experienced everything so fully because they were open to it. Our hope is that learning and living The Leelanau Way helped prepare our students to do exactly what David said – to get out of their comfort zone to get the most out of life. And it’s the students’ brave leaders, Señora Melissa Ellsworth and Mr. Cris Piña who led them to squirm into a little discomfort so they could truly embrace the Spanish culture.

Málaga is located in the region of Andalusia, Southern Spain, on the Costa del Sol along the Mediterranean. As senior David said, “Everything was so beautiful. Even on the bus trips, you’d look out the window and see a portrait of beauty.” Aside from its natural beauty, though, they experienced the lively culture of the Spanish, too. 

Daily, the group woke up early to eat a variety of new foods in their hotel, including fresh homemade breads, pastries, and meats. Then they hopped on a bus to complete their studies. Senior, Sophie Schwartz, was named the class “parrot,” because she couldn’t stop soaking in the language. And on one day, our Leelanau bunch spent an entire day with the Spanish students. These students loved practicing their English on our students. Together, they learned so much from one another by simply being together. In fact, this day was many of the students’ favorite part of the whole trip.

After their morning Spanish lessons, the group explored and adventured. These excursions included going to Granada where they saw a Moorish Palace, The Alhambra. They also toured the Picasso museum, visited an olive co-op in the village of Tejón where they saw an olive tree over 1,400 years old, took a cooking class where they cooked paella, and partook in flamenco dancing classes. I even caught a video of some of our students involved in a street performance where dancing acrobats flipped over our students and into the arms of another. Our students also couldn’t stop talking about a simple part of the Spanish culture–food. 

That’s right, if there is one highlight from interviewing the students from their adventure, it is the Spanish food.  To top the culinary charts and fill the hearts of the students, a local woman opened her doors and kitchen to feed our entire group. They shared a traditional family style meal consisting of homemade bread, homemade olive oil, roast chicken (which was killed the night before!), puchero (chicken noodle soup with garbanzo beans), Spanish tortilla (eggs, onions, and potatoes), rice pudding, pineapple custard, Fanta de Limón, and Coca Cola. Their bellies came home full and happy, and so did their souls.

The students I interviewed almost all had the same takeaway from the trip – the electricity from the Spain trip left them yearning to see more of the world and other cultures. As junior, Ruby McKenna said, “While this may sound pretty cheesy and a bit cliche, I think my biggest takeaway from the Spain trip was the realization of just how big and beautiful the world is. And yet despite how small Málaga felt comparatively on a scale of numbers and population, we saw mountains, museums, castles and factories, hundreds of years of human history and culture, even thousands in some cases, all packed into this tiny place in the world. A place that felt so grandiose, beautiful, and completely unexplored on foot.”

Senior, Will Madsen agrees when he said, “It’s just so important to experience different cultures. It’s important because we get stuck in the place we’re in; we only experience the people we are directly around. So, it’s healthy to see how other cultures live, eat, and play.” 

As they returned from the trip, you could truly feel what the trip meant to these students. When I interviewed senior Emma Perez to write this blog, it was as if the Spanish culture was catapulting out of her. She sat across from me, bouncing out of her chair telling me about all of the magical moments and showing me videos. When asked what one word she’d give to describe the culture in Spain, she stopped bouncing to contemplate and then said with absolute certainty, “Alive.” I can report that it’s evident our courageous students carried this electricity back to campus with them and spread it around like the scattered acorns.

As a community, we are grateful for the leadership of Señora Ellsworth and Mr. Piña. We just know our students will carry this grand adventure within them for the rest of their lives – and will always be open to not only see the big world out there, but to feel it.