In the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year of high school, I joined some of my classmates on a summer service trip to Sevilla in the southern region of Spain. This region is known as Andalucía, distinguishing it from other regions like Catalunia (Barcelono) and the Basque region (Bilbao). On this trip, we were able to spend time with students from the local Catholic school, play and train with one of the best clubs in the world, and do community service in the area our host families lived in.

The school we visited is called Santa Maria del Valle and is one of a conjunction of schools part of the Catholic order Sacred Heart, or Corazón Sagrada. There, we spent a day with the students our age and got to experience what a day in high school was like to them; it was much different than a high schooler here. My favorite part though was getting to hang out with the students outside of class a few times. Their lives as teenagers are radically different then the lives we have here in the US.

My favorite part of the whole trip was getting to train with the professional club Sevilla FC. Even though most of the players on the trip had never played soccer, the experience was still great getting to train with some of the best trainers in the world. I even got a chance to train with the youth team in my age category for a session in their preseason tuneup. In the end, we ended up playing against their u14 side and embarrassingly lost 5-2, but for a group of guys with only 3 guys who played soccer on it, that result wasn’t terrible.

The most enriching part of the whole trip was getting to perform community service in the local neighborhoods. The area we were staying in was filled with lower middle class families probably just meeting ends meet. It was a great experience to talk to the children of the town and realize they have the same dreams all kids do, they just don’t have the same opportunities.