Spending four days hiking the Inka* trail was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. The first day was full of breathtaking views, and we were surprised with almost gourmet meals set up for us by our team of porters along the way. When we sat down for lunch, we were served a....
Peru: El Carmen
One of my favorite days of the trip so far was the Friday of a weekend trip to a small town called El Carmen, located in the province of Chincha. When we arrived, we ate a delicious lunch at the home of the Ballumbrosio family, a family well-known in Chincha for their dancing and music.....
Peru: shout out to host families
When I thought about spending three months in Peru, I had a lot of fears. I worried about learning a new language, learning how to use public transportation, and standing out as a tourist. Once I arrived, I realized that using public transportation is easy, standing out as a tourist is inevitable, and learning the....
Peru: The Fog of Winter
Garua! Living in the Southern Hemisphere at the end of October means that we are transitioning into Spring!聽 Warm sunny days are slowly replacing the dense fog and humid cold of the city.聽 Most of our group is used to American winters.聽 We know what to expect and how to dress for the dry cold.聽....
Peru: Museo Larco
On September 7th, we visited Museo Larco in Lima. The first part of the museum featured a grid displaying the timeline crossed with geographical regions. It provided an image on which to begin the following historical venture. We then proceeded to walk chronologically through the art of Peru. We started in the pre-ceramic era of....
Peru – First Impressions
First Impressions鈥� Cross-cultural programs are notoriously busy!聽 We are taking a full load of college courses while navigating a gigantic city (think NYC with 10x less infrastructure) with traffic patterns that aren’t really patterns at all.聽 Everyone and everything needs to be filtered through Spanish, and the history and customs and politics and every other....
GHANA 2022
June 27th: We had our final two lectures at University of Ghana in Accra.聽 Women in Public Life in Ghana presented by Akosua K. Darkwah, PhD, Department of Sociology, University of Ghana.聽 This lecture was conducted by one of only two women who provided lectures to us while we were here.聽 Women contribute at high....
Spain II – Mediterranean coastal cities, learning, take aways
A Beautiful Castle, Beach and History of Pe帽铆scola, Spain On the weekends, Tarjona language school takes some of its students on excursions to see different sites that we may not know about. On July 24th, we got on the 2 hour bus ride and headed to Pe帽铆scola for the day. On the bus, a few....
Spain II: Bullfight
Bullfighting in Spain On July 16th, around half of our group decided to go and watch a bullfight here in Valencia. It’s the centuries-old Iberian distillation of the most classic of conflicts: Man versus Nature. Recently, bullfighting has become taboo out of concerns for animal welfare. To watch an animal slowly lose blood and eventually....
Spain II: Madrid and Valencia
July 6 – 18th 鈥溌縌u茅 tal vlogueros?鈥� That means 鈥渨hat鈥檚 up vloggers?鈥� in Spanish! It鈥檚 only one of many new words in my vocabulary.聽 We鈥檝e been here in Spain for two weeks now. Today marks the halfway point in our trip. So let鈥檚 review it, shall we?聽 Madrid We got to Madrid on Thursday, July....