My name is Sarah and I recently traveled to Jordan to check out this tiny country and its tourist attractions for my company. Great job, right? I work for Academic Arrangements Abroad, which organizes cultural travel experiences for many non-profit organizations. I had heard amazing things about Jordan from fellow travelers, but really didn’t know much about the country. But once I started my tour, I immediately decided that I didn’t want to leave!
Read this personal account from one of our volunteer participants, Mikel B., who is currently volunteering in Bolivia.
My name is Mikel and I am a 21 year old girl who has been doing volunteer work for the past year through Amerispan and I am continuing on my second year with them. One of the many programs I have done through them is the one located in Peten Guatemala. It was possibly one of the funnest experiences I have had through Amerispan (its very hard to pick, they were all amazing). You get to work one on one with the animals, alongside a very very very friendly and intelligent staff who know a lot about wildlife and are eager to share as much of the experiece with the volunteers, of working with wild animals, as is safe and possible.
The first week in Sevilla flew by in a flash and with a distinct rhythm. I would get up, have breakfast at home and then walk to school around 9:15am (though I still haven’t quite adjusted to the late day break after 8am in Southern Spain – it constantly throws me off). School hours were from 9:30am till 2:30pm. The classes moved quickly and everyday I was faced with fresh deluge of Spanish vocabulary, verbs and grammar. I was glad I had carried my Vox English/Spanish dictionary with me, as recommended by the Amerispan website, as it became an invaluable resource for me.
It was a cold, gloomy and wet Monday in Sevilla and hardly the weather I was expecting for my first day in language school. Luckily the school was barely a five-minute walk from my apartment and I did not have wander about too long through the complicated streets of Barrio Santa Cruz (though I would get hopelessly lost soon enough). I had taken a beginning Spanish class in San Francisco about a year ago, which gave me the over-confidence to indicate in my AmeriSpan application that I was “Beginner-2” (out of 3) level. I guess I thought that knowing the Spanish alphabet, numbers, and forms of “ser” and “estar” put me one level up from an absolute novice. However my illusions were shattered when I arrived at school and had to take the Spanish evaluation test, which would determine my placement level. Out of fifty odd questions, I could barely answer five of them correctly and the instructor promptly put me in Level A1(the absolute beginner level and followed by A2, B1, B2, C1 & C2). I understood pretty quickly that I knew nothing and my Spanish language journey was going to be a long haul.
As I headed for Sevilla, where I was planning to stay for three
weeks, I was a little nervous. Initially I had chosen an apartment stay, but
had changed to a homestay as an afterthought, as I thought that it would
provide me a chance to interact with a family and make the immersion experience
more authentic. However as a person who is not exactly an extrovert, I was
worried that the experience might not work out as planned. I was not sure what
to expect. What if I did not like the family or vice versa and I was stuck with
them?
I have traveled to Spain before on business, but this time it was different. I was unemployed and on a budget, but the flip side was that I was the master of my own schedule and had the luxury of time. I decided to fly into Madrid, spend a few days there before heading to Sevilla where I would start my Spanish study. I was landing on 31st evening in Madrid and looked forward to spending New Year’s Eve the traditional Madrid way; in Puerta del Sol with everybody else, eating a grape with each strike of the clock and ushering in the New Year. I was looking forward to an interesting international experience.
As a little girl growing up in New York City I would pretend that I could speak Spanish and spent countless
hours prancing around the house like a flamenco dancer. Surely, my Southern born parents must have found my fixation on a language that was not spoken by a single person in my family a bit strange. In elementary and middle school I was able to learn a few words of Spanish from my friends but my daydreams were still filled with visions of Spanish castles and handsome bullfighters set to a score by Andrés Segovia. Corny, perhaps, but the truth.
By Joey F., Guest Video Blogger: Heredia & Samara Beach, Costa Rica
Watch a video of our guest blogger, Joey F., at his new homestay in Samara Beach, Costa Rica, go with him on his bike ride to school, and see AmeriSpan's Spanish school in Samara Beach, Costa Rica. Click for more information about studying abroad in Costa Rica.
I have always been fascinated by the idea traveling and have
spent the initial part of my life dreaming about it and then the latter part of
it actually having it come true. It’s an addiction and no matter how much I
travel, it never seems to be enough. However, it is one thing to go for a
vacation and completely another thing to really travel. A vacation is just a temporary break from our regular life,
with an emphasis on leisure and entertainment. Traveling, on the other hand,
means letting go of all our comfort zones, our embedded habits and ingrained
prejudices; it means stepping out of our cocoons and opening our mind and heart
to new perspectives about the world and ourselves. Real traveling requires
interaction with people, the society and its culture. Otherwise, in my
experience, we come back feeling that we have not been able to breach an
imaginary wall between the place and ourselves. We remain an outsider.
By Joey F., Guest Video Blogger: Heredia, Costa Rica
Watch a video of an espanol boda, or wedding in Samara, Costa Rica. Our guest video blogger, Joey, took this video while he was studying abroad in Costa Rica.
By Joey F., Guest Video Blogger: Heredia, Costa Rica
Watch a video blog by our guest video blogger, Joey. Joey is studying Spanish in Heredia, Costa Rica. Today, Joey takes us horseback riding, to some hot springs in the Rincon de la Vieja Volcano National Park, and on a zipline canopy tour. Click for more information about being an AmeriSpan guest blogger.
