When Sonia González was a child, her father was the center of her universe.

My papa vivia in un mundo de grandes aventuras e historias románticas,

like the story about how he met Sonia's mom on a diving board five meters up in the air.

Se conocieron en una piscina en caracas, Venezuela.

Mi papa tenía 19 años y mi mamá 18.

Sonia's father went to leap off the high dive and found her mother sunbathing there.

On the diving board, her long black hair flowing in the wind.

And as the story goes, he immediately fell in love.

Con mi papa, la vida era mágica y cada experiencia era una nueva aventura.

Pero un día todo cambió.

Y tuvimos que vivir la aventura más difícil de nuestras vidas.

Welcome to the Duolingo Spanish podcast.

I'm your host, Martina Castro.

Each episode we bring you fascinating first-person stories from Spanish speakers across the world.

The storyteller will be using intermediate Spanish, and I'll be chiming in for context in English.

But these are not language lessons. They're real life lessons through language.

José Antonio González Cordero and Alicia Cebollada.

We're born in Spain, and in their teens they moved to Venezuela with their families.

When my parents were young, my mother was a secretary, and my father studied astronomy.

My mother said that when I met her, my father was very nice and always happy.

Eventually they got married and moved to Maracay, a city near the capital,

where Sonia's father was finishing his degree in agriculture.

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