"I learned that we can do many things alone, something that society doesn't fully understand."

BarcelonaMaking a mistake when buying a plane ticket can become your best summer memory. This is the experience of the music teacher and YouTuber Neus Rossell, who took a flight to Gran Canaria during Easter to visit a friend who actually lived in Tenerife. When she wanted to change her mind, the only available dates to go to her friend's house were in the summer, and on a few days when the friend wasn't there. Rossell, who had worked nonstop since she was 16—"first as a waitress, in a bakery, in a tobacco shop, and then as a teacher, and in the summer, as a summer camp instructor"—felt she should take a break that summer and understand what a real vacation was like. So, encouraged by her friends, she decided to go anyway and embark on what she considers her first solo trip, although she had lived in other places, but always with the shelter of school. "I woke up. I learned that we can do many things alone, a fact that society doesn't really understand. Everyone says you have to have someone. What the hell? Why not make a living?" she exclaims.

That's how Rossell ended up in Tenerife, eager for adventure, but very afraid of getting bored. "I'm not used to it at all. It's really hard for us to have time; we just think about producing and producing," she says. So, she downloaded Tinder and wrote that she didn't want to flirt, but rather find local people who would show her around the island. During those days, several companions acted as Cicero, of whom she only remembers one name: Ulises.

"Even one day when I went shopping at the supermarket, I asked a guy who was stretching to show me the city," she adds with amusement. She also rented a car, which got her stuck on a climb: "I felt like I was dead. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid of falling off the cliff. And the guy from Tinder who was with me didn't have a license. I thought: nobody knows where you are." But she overcame that moment of alarm when she said to herself: "Nieves, you came on a trip alone, so you'll eat it alone." She turned the car around and, little by little, managed to get out of the quagmire, she explains, relieved.

The soundtrack to this refreshing 2019 trip was On low heat, by singer Rosana, who became hooked and learned to play with a ukulele she found at her friend's house. The image she takes home with her is a photo of her jumping in front of Mount Teide, a testament to the sense of freedom and self-sufficiency she describes.