I'm not exactly sure what a study abroad blog should entail, or a blog of any nature for that matter. The last time I had something like this was an xanga account in middle school and no one wants to remember those days... so you will have to bear with me! But I hope I at least keep you mildly entertained and relatively up to date on my adventures below the equator!
I have just THREE days until I board a plane for what I hope to be a very rewarding, yet challenging four months in South America! I will be staying in Cochabamba, Bolivia with a host family, taking classes in Spanish and trying my best to absorb everything Bolivian I can find from the food to the indigenous languages and hopefully the afternoon siestas!
I always knew that I wanted to study abroad it was just a matter of where. When I started at Pitt I thought about taking Arabic as I already had taken five years of Spanish in middle and high school and wanted something different. But last summer I traveled to Belize for an archaeology field school and decided Spanish would be my romance language of choice. I came home itching to travel again with my sights set anywhere, as long as I could improve my Spanish. I chose this program because I wanted something very different. I didn't want to go to Spain and have the same experience as countless other students, traipsing across Europe on weekends; Milan for shopping, France for wine, London for fish and chips... and although that would be amazing, I figured I could do that on my own after graduation. I wanted an adventure that would provide a drastically new perspective and more importantly, a challenge. So I set my sights on South America.
When I chose this program I really had no idea what Bolivia was known for other than the Incan sites we've studied in my anthropology courses. Even now, after reading the textbooks and talking with my professors and friends that have spent time in South America I still am not 100% sure what to expect. I've been very lucky in that I have traveled through Europe and Central America, yet even with that experience under my belt I think Bolivia will be very different -- which is what I signed up for! So here's to the start of my new world that began when I was saying "agua" instead of "water" at three, memorizing countries near and far in middle school and putting holes in my wall marking places I have visited and others I want to explore. I think I'm ready and I hope you'll come along!
Until I land in Bolivia,
Carly
Because everyone needs some perspective!
I had to look up Cochabamba too, don't worry!
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