An Introduction

I thought this would be a good way to keep in touch while I am in Venezuela for the summer.  I will try my best to keep up with the blog, post wont be too long (except for this one) and not everyday. I thought I would answer some of the questions I commonly get about my trip:

*What will you be doing?
    Besides becoming best friends with Hugo Chavez, I will be taking some classes, hopefully either teaching or volunteering and traveling. I am probably most excited about the idea of getting to travel to some parts of South America.  I hope to travel to Caracas just because it was the starting place of Independence movement of South America and Simon Bolivar lived there.  I would love to go to Colombia but the only way I would be able to this is if my host family would take me, so I have my fingers crossed.  I have five days between my two sessions, which I would like to go to Peru for.  Since third grade I have wanted to visit Machu Picchu (no one probably remembers my diorama of Machu Picchu with Polly Pockets).  Also in Peru I would like to go to Lima and Cuzco.  If I have any other free time I would LOVE to make it to Buenos Aires, just so I can pretend to be in the musical Evita but also Buenos Aires and Argentina has a whole different feel then the rest of South America so it would be really cool to visit. And there is always Cuba, but that will have to wait to its legal to travel there, probably. 

*Why Venezuela?
    As probably most of you know I am a Spanish and Latin American studies major (and Public Health but that didn’t factor in) so I cant really study in Spain.  I wanted to study in Mexico but as we know that wouldn’t probably be the best idea.  The public health side of me thought it would be an amazing time to study there but the U of MN and many other people tend to disagree.  The U of MN offers a program in Venezuela, which happened to have the last Spanish classes I need and Venezuela has a very interesting history, so I decided it, would be the best place for me to go.

Where in Venezuela will you be studying?
    I will be living in Mérida for three months. The city is located directly south of Maracabio and a twelve-hour bus ride from Caracas It is a very interesting city because it located at the beginning of the Andes, so it is surrounded by mountains and has a relatively mild climate (65-70 degrees).  I will be staying with the host family with one other student.  My host dad is a lawyer and my host mom is dietician.

If you guys have any questions, let me know!

Hasta próximo tiempo,

Meaghan