I arrived in Córdoba with 10 other Richmond classmates and immediately encountered culture shock with the language barrier. Although we all had been taking Spanish for a long time, it took some time to adjust to their dialect.

While abroad, I took two classes, “Spanish in Politics and Society” and “People and Cultures of Latin America” at the University Blas Pascal. I stayed with a host mother and a Richmond roommate 10 minutes away from the university, making it easy to walk to school. I had class every day, with each class lasting two hours in the afternoon. We were not allowed to speak any English! While shy and embarrassed to speak in front of teachers and locals at first, it was amazing to see how quickly my Spanish improved from being immersed in the language.

The greatest challenge of living abroad was navigating the city on my own. Not many people spoke English, so I was forced to use my Spanish while using public transportation. There were several times when I took the bus in the wrong direction and had to ask the bus driver if I was going the right way!

Apart from Córdoba, we visited Buenos Aires for a week, Alta Garcia and Carlos Paz. My favorite part of the trip was when we traveled North West of Cordoba to the little towns called Salta, Tilcara, and Tucuman. These were more rural towns and were a nice change of pace from the city. The landscape was breathtaking. We visited many old Inca villages and met llamas! Unfortunately, I got too close to one and it spat on me. The highlight was when we drove through the mountain ranges. They were the biggest mountains I had ever seen, and some had such a variety of colors that they looked like rainbows. We went on a brief hike where we were able to walk through the mountain range, one that had previously been under the ocean.

January 13th, 2019

January 12th, 2019

January 10th, 2019

January 13^th, 2019

January 12^th, 2019

January 10^th, 2019