Murdock 1

Eleanor Murdock

Dr. Cassel

English Comp 2

22 September 2019

Streets Filled With Music

I stood still in the middle of the square of Barcelona. Closing my eyes, I heard the strum

of the ukulele being played in perfect key as if it was a recording. I could smell Spanish risotto

and cigarettes pervading the air. Soon the sound of voices singing the words “Hey, soul sister.

Ain’t that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo…” began to accumulate and take over all the other

sounds around us. Looking around me, I saw the people walking by, glancing over or stopping

for a minute to watch this bizarre sight of twenty some teenagers singing without a care in the

world with this one girl in the middle with dark brown curly hair from Brazil playing away at her

ukulele that had all of our signatures on it as a momento. To think just a couple months before I

have only just left home for the very first time, and now I was doing something I would have

never done before.

It all started when I was 14 years old, sitting in my high school auditorium listening to

this speaker talk about embarking on a journey, finding a sense of independence, and

experiencing a new world. Now of course the only reason I decided to go to this is the first place

was to get out of class because who wouldn’t want to skip a class period. I thought this whole

talk was just going to be a load of bullshit, but after sitting there for about 10 minutes he showing

this image of a girl from our school who was over in France at the moment and the sight of her
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having fun and experiencing a new start was what I was secretly dreaming of. From that second

on I knew I was ready to leave.

I walked home and the second I stepped in the door I started my application. My oldest

sister Nikki was born in South Carolina then my family moved to Japan where my second sister

Maggie was born and my third, Georgie, was born in Italy, so I decided that it was my time to

get the chance to have a life outside of this suffocating bubble I was living in. I didn’t even give

it a second thought before I started begging my parents, pleading to them how I was their only

child who did not have the experience of my sisters, and eventually they gave in.

I never had experienced life away from home but I had this gut feeling that I had a

capability that a lot of other people my age did not. I had many people saying “You will do

great” or “You are so brave and bold to be leaving home for a year”, but I never knew what to

expect until I finally left, it never seemed real until I said goodbye to my dad and sister at TSA

and my mom at my gate. Then, it was finally real to me.

After over 30 hours of traveling, 3 out of my 4 flights delayed, 6 hours of sleep in the

airport then another 8 hours on the plane ride to Paris, I had only 1 more 60 minute flight to take

me to the place I would soon call home for the next year. When I stepped off that last flight I was

scared out of my wits, but I walked into a loving french couple who made my first few months

amazing, a little stranglesome but amazing. I started school not knowing a single person but I

soon made friends who just loved having an exchange student, who was an American

nonetheless. A week later I met the rest of the exchange students who, I didn’t know at the time,

but would soon become my closest friends. They came from all over, five or six from Mexico, a

couple from Brazil, a Paraguayen, a Cuban, two from Chile, five from America, Poland, Finland
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and maybe even more. With them all from all over that just gave me even more reason of having

to go visit and travel the world.

Months passed of meeting new people, going from event to event, exploring this new

amazing town, walking the streets filled with vendors and cute shops and cafes that made me

never want to leave and creating this new life with the people around me. I reached out to friends

and family back home ever once in awhile but I got to a point where my life had become so

routine and I was so content that I found myself going days or weeks without speaking to my

family without even realizing it. With my new classmates and friends, I began to find myself

feeling like I was surrounded by new people who I was able to consider my family. I met girls in

my class who I grew so close to that they felt like my best friends, and my host brothers

welcomed me so quickly that it was an instant family, and these relationships made me so happy

but they didn’t even compare to the friendships that were made with the other exchange students.

We all started as young kids, just looking to grow and experience life outside of our lives at

home. We all were lost and timid in the big new country with nobody that we knew but, we

made each other our family and grew closer and closer as every day passed.

After months of getting acclimated to this new life, I embarked on another journey. I

hopped on a train hurdling towards Paris with only 4 other girls who were exchange students

from my district. Two Mexicans, a girl from Taiwan and me. We headed to our next big

adventure that lied waiting for us. When we came to that halting stop we took off. We stepped on

a bus meeting another twenty some exchange students from around France for the first time and

made our way to Barcelona. After 7 days of being stuck on a bus with the same twenty-six or so

people laughing from each others jokes or stupidity, crying for no reason, and exploring and

messing around in city after city of France, we finally made it to our final destination. During
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these days on the bus we found ourselves falling in love with the song “Hey, Soul Sister” by

Train. Through this journey together it brought all of us so much closer and bonding us in a way

we couldn’t have imagined. Singing the song non stop at every place we stopped and every

chance we could it soon became our anthem that no one could take away from us.

After shopping in the city, feeding the wild pigeons out of our hands, our late night walks

down to the beach, and our talks that kept us up till 3 or 4 in the morning, it was our last day. We

wanted to commemorate it in the only way we knew possible, and that was by singing our song,

our anthem that made us unified at one. On the last day in the city about to get on the bus a leave

to go back to each of our own cities, we started to sing our song. With one girl in the middle

slowly starting to strum her ukulele, everyone else surrounding in a large clump, we began to

sing for one final time, following along to the beat of the song. While during this time, all I could

think was how I ended up singing in the middle of a random street in Barcelona, Spain,

surrounded by the people who gave my life direction like nobody else had before. All of us from

around the world, with different ethnic backgrounds and upcomings, coming together as one,

sharing this once in a lifetime experience with each other by our sides.