This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kevin Schreck, a 33-year-old from North Carolina who moved to Spain in 2018. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I was pursuing a master’s in Spanish when I met my husband, who was also working on his master’s. He’s from Valencia, so when we finished our programs, I thought, “He’s lived here for a couple of years, why don’t I go ahead and try Spain?”
I applied to a Spanish program that places native English speakers in public schools as classroom language assistants. I got really lucky and was assigned to a school in Valencia.
At first, my plan was to live there for a…
