I have always loved to travel, but in 2022 I embarked on my biggest adventure yet. As part of my university degree, in which I study Spanish and Italian, I had to complete my year abroad, which in all honestly, was the real reason I chose my degree anyway. Who wouldn’t want to spend a year exploring new cities, cultures, and languages, under the guise of ‘study’? While plans for the year had been brewing years in advance, in my second year of university I had to start getting down to business and decide where exactly I would go and what I would do. This section of my blog is all about what I did during that time, as well as any other travel bits and bobs I get up to.
My first big trip took me to Italy, to the city of Bologna, also known as the foodie capital of the country (where else would I be?). While getting myself there was less than simple (thanks to Brexit, British nationals now need visas, and anyone who has experience with the Italian bureaucracy will know that this is NO easy task), after several months of stress and uncertainty, I was suddenly on the plane to my new city.
While this was technically an Erasmus ‘study’ scheme, I would be lying if I said my education was based in the classroom rather than randomly wandering the streets and striking up conversations with locals. To me, that was the best way to get immersed in the culture and actually become more confident speaking Italian. I learned all about how spaghetti bolognese only actually exists for the tourist, and how in actual fact the real dish you should be searching for is the famous ‘tagliatelle al ragù’ from which the classic spag bol derives its reputation. I made friends with shopkeepers, deli owners, window cleaners, market owners, basically, anyone who could suffer through my broken Italian (which thankfully improved over the course of my time there). I tried every classic dish that Bologna had to offer (look out for a post on these!). Several times, I walked the famous ascent to the Santuario Di San Luca, the path that contains the longest set of Porticos in the world, as well as LOTS of stairs. I hosted friends and family in my (tiny) single room but made up for it by being a fantastic tour guide.
As well as being, in my opinion, an extremely underrated tourist destination in its own right, bologna is also very nicely located as a starting point for various trips around the country. My travels took me on my weekends to loads of cities, such as the nearby Modena, home to the famous balsamic vinegar, the of course famous Venice and Florence, and though they say it was impossible my sister and I did manage to complete Rome in a day! while I have by no means seen the whole country, in fact, I’ve done no more than a fraction, I do feel I made the most of the short time I was there. it helps when no one seems to monitor any attendance to your classes! Check out some of my blog posts about my time in different cities if you’re looking for some recommendations!
After a (tearful) return to my home in England, I had to start preparing for the next step on my year abroad journey. While I had planned to go to Peru, and in fact had already skyped the families with whom I was going to live, the political situation in the country at that point unfortunately meant my university canceled the trip. So with just a few weeks before departure, me, and my other 2 friends who were doing a similar trip, had to come up with a new plan for the Spanish part of our year abroad. Visa restrictions meant that Spain was off the cards, as that would NOT have been possible to organise with 3 weeks to go, so we started looking at our options across the ocean again.
Our university recognised the difficulty of our situation, so relaxed the guidelines that we had to work within, basically saying we were free to do whatever we could find. In the end, after some research, we stumbled across a program that seemed similar to the teaching/host family situation we had signed up for in Peru. With scarce time for any real research about the country or the program (in hindsight, perhaps an error), before we knew it we were sat on a 14-hour plane to Buenos Aires. After getting over the first few logistical difficulties (think money, transport, SIM cards, not to mention a version of Spanish we absolutely did not recognise!) we began to explore this amazing city and got excited about our time there. Look out for my blog post about our first few days and the things we wish we had known beforehand!
Soon we found ourselves with a dozen strangers on a bus out of the city (or rather, into the middle of nowhere), to begin our ‘training’ to be camp counselors, which formed part of the program we signed up for. After a week of pure fun and silliness ‘learning’ to be a camp counselor, followed by a week of extreme reality shock of actually being a camp counselor, I said farewell to my new and old friends, and was on yet another bus, this time to the town that I would call home for the next few months.
Once I arrived, I quickly adapted to my new life of living with 2 AMAZING host families and working as an English teacher in an English institute. the town I was in was small, but the people were larger than life, and couldn’t have been more welcoming. I had never done teaching before really, and was thrown a little into the deep end, but found that I really loved it. While my time was peppered with (dreaded) visits back to the camp – I was often called upon as a counselor as I was one of the closest people, given I was just a mere 6-hour bus ride away! – the majority of my time was spent working in the institute, attending family events, going for asados at random people’s houses, and just getting stuck in with the Argentinian way of life.
I was also lucky enough to visit some of Argentina’s incredible landscapes, including trips to see the glaciers in the south, Iguazú Falls in the north, a more extensive exploration of Buenos Aires, and a 2-week trip at the end with my friends where we went from north to south (on a 30-hour bus!), seeing a range of incredible sights that I won’t ever forget.
The return home was a mixture of excitement at seeing my family, and heartbreak about leaving new friends behind, but mainly gratitude at what I had been lucky enough to experience. This section of my blog will document some of my time spent in these countries. It is a mixture of photos, anecdotes, stories, and yes, recipes from my break from British life. I hope you enjoy!
