Senior Trang Mai sits in her living room with her sister, joking around about the possibility of living in Europe for a year. Over the next few months, their jokes turn into serious consideration, leading Trang to decide to live in a foreign country for a year before attending college.

Starting this August, Trang will be living in Spain with a family and caring for their children for one year as an Au Pair through a Visa that she signed up for on-line. Trang is in AP Spanish 4, so she won’t have trouble communicating with her host family.

“Usually when you do Au Pair, you learn whatever language that country speaks,” she said. “Since I’m going to Spain, I’m going to learn to speak Spanish fluently. The parents will be teaching me Spanish with conversations and I’ll be teaching the kids how to speak English.”

Trang said she likes “the idea of working with kids,” so she opted to do Au Pair for a year.

“I like kids, and I like to take care of kids, but through this I’ll know if I actually like being with kids all the time and constantly having to be with kids,” she said. “Like being a teacher or something. How am I supposed to know if I really want to do that? Through this I can know for sure if that’s what I want the rest of my life.”

Even though she is excited for the experience, Trang does have a few worries.

“I’m really worried about being away from my family,” she said. “My family is a big part of my life and I love them. We see each other all the time.”

While her sister is excited Trang’s opportunity, Lan Mai said she has concerns, but knows that the experience will be worth it in the end.

“Being away from home for the first time is hard enough, but doing it in another country will be very difficult,” Lan said. “But I know she will grow tremendously as a person.”

Trang said because she has never been by herself before, she’s expecting to learn how to be more independent from this experience.

“I’ve been to a bunch of places, but this is kind of like independence, too,”  Trang said. “I’ll be with the [host] family, but it’s kind of like being my own person and being away from everyone.”

Her father, Phan Mai said that is exactly what he wants for his daughter.

“I hope that she becomes independent and experiences the different cultures over there,” he said.  “I taught her how to be strong and to help others that are in need, but I still want her to be careful.”

Along with her fears, Trang said she will struggle with isolation, but will be able to find comfort with her host family.

“It’s also kind of terrifying because I’ll be away from my family,” she said. “With Au Pair, I’ll be independent, but [my host family] will be taking care of me. They’ll be watching over me and making sure everything is safe.”

With his personal travel experiences, Trang’s father wants to take every precaution to protect his daughter.

“I know how tough it is to leave, and I fear for her,” he said. “She is my baby girl, and I want to be there if anything bad happens.”