Hello All!,
Time has been flying by here in Venezuela. It seems like I don’t have enough hours in the day the first few days here, but it is amazing how quickly I am adjusting to this new life! There are so many things to talk about, and many things that words can’t even explain so we are working on adding photos and videos as soon as possible to the blog and to facebook.
The basics:
What are we doing?
If you didn’t know Myself, JaNel and Paris are all living in the same house with a host family here in Merida, Venezuela. We are studying abroad here with the University of Minnesota at the VENUSA institute. We go to school everyday here at the institute which doubles as a school for American and European students learning Spanish, and for some Venezuelan students learning English. We go out in the city everyday, speak Spanish, meet new people all while taking classes which are LOOONG. We al have class last 6 hours Monday-Thursday.
How did we get here?
That’s a great question. And honestly I’m not sure if I really know the answer. I have always loved to travel and ever since my trip to Mexico with Central’s model united nations class I knew that I wanted to visit another Spanish speaking country and eventually learn Spanish. In college I explored study abroad opportunities and narrowed down my search to South America. Around this time Paris expressed a mutual interest in studying abroad, considering that it is required for our majors at Michigan State and we decided we would do it together. We then went to the study abroad office to look programs but to our disappointment many programs that I was eligible for Paris was not, and vice versa because of our different levels of Spanish experience. Our advisor then referred us to VENUSA in Venezuela and it sounded to good to be true! No Spanish prerequisite… CHECK Interesting country with different government… CHECK …. In state tuition offered to us…. CHECK…. Sign us up immediately. I also had been telling my good friend Ja’Nel how much he should study abroad and he would always tell me “soon” or “next year” and often brushed off my suggestions for him to go with me. He would always tell me that he really did want to go, but that he just couldn’t. I had all but given up hope on my good friend, when he out of nowhere told me “Chris I’m going to go, I know you don’t believe me, but I’m going to go” I replied, “I’ll believe it when the G4 leaves the concourse” the rest is history
Now you know the basics!
More to Come!
- Chris
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