By Joseph Barnette, CASA Chile 2019 (Vanderbilt ‘21)

No puedo creer que en tres semanas, voy a regresar a los Estados Unidos. Mi semestre al extranjero ha cambiado completamente el camino de mi vida. Estar lejos de Vanderbilt me dio la oportunidad de considerar lo que quiero hacer con mi vida sin que nadie más influya en mi opinión. Creo que mi crecimiento en Chile se puede dividir en tres etapas: orientación a la vida en un país extranjero, adaptarme a las clases en un idioma extranjero y...

By Alexis Roman, CASA Chile Fall 2019 (Brown '21)

Una semana me queda en Santiago. I got here in the winter, in July, my Chicago summer cut short, and now it’s summer in Santiago in December and in one week I’ll be back in the winter. Seasons aren’t what they used to be.  

As I prepare for the next seasonal inversion, my mind races to capture all the memories. The fear of forgetting looms beneath me. It tries to shake me, but living here for this long means I know what it actually feels like for the earth to tremble, and right now I am still....

By Leslie Benavides, CASA Chile Fall 2019 (Brown '20)

As I write this, exactly one week from my departure back to the United States and six months in Chile, I find it important to be explicit about my identities: I experienced Chile as a first-generation, brown university student, indigenous and latinx, low-income, brown-skinned woman. I also find it important to mention a small, but important detail: my semester abroad was the first semester of my senior year. Something you may find helpful is names: Eliza is a Barnard student I met here, Pilo is the...

By Peter Morrissey, SIP Argentina 2019 (Harvard '21)

On my last night in Buenos Aires this summer, my host parents invited over all of the extended family one last time for a sendoff dinner in the apartment. After dinner, 9-year-old Belisario went over to the home computer, typing away at something. Maybe twenty minutes later, while I was in the back bedroom watching How to Train Your Dragon for the second time with my 29-year-old host sister (Angie) and the grandkids, Belisario ran in to deliver me a paper. Without waiting for me to open it, he hurried...

By Kendrick Foster, SIP Argentina 2019 (Harvard '22)

Plaza de Mayo in downtown Buenos Aires, viewed from the Casa Rosada.

My host father finally fixed his amplifier, so my apartment along Avenida Cabildo in the heart of Buenos Aires vibrated with Phil Collins’ drumbeats for the first time in six weeks. We had discussed this for a while (and even had an...

By Rachel Danner, CASA Argentina Spring 2019 (Brown '20)

The day I arrived in Buenos Aires I had the best ice cream I’ve had in my life. It was passion fruit flavored (maracuyá in Spanish) and it had the seeds of the fruit included, which added the perfect extra crunch. I was in awe of the culinary prowess and explosion of flavors. I was also terrified. I had just gotten off of an eleven hour flight to Argentina and had arrived at a 8^th floor apartment in the heart of the city and met my somewhat (very) eccentric host mother. I knew no one,...

By Sophia Petros, CASA Argentina Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)

One of the things that has struck me, and has been the most refreshing, about my abroad experience has been the distance. Not only literally (yes, Buenos Aires is a long plane trip from Providence and Miami, where I’m from), but also in terms of lifestyle, seasons, and experiences. Though the time difference is only an hour between Buenos Aires and the East coast, my life this semester has seemed so far away from those that have come before it. It´s easy to think that with the internet and...

By Aidan Garrett, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)

After spending a semester abroad in Spain, I felt compelled to continue my abroad experience in Latin America, improving my Spanish and visiting South America for the first time. With nothing but positive memories from Granada, the decision to remain abroad was simple. Deciding between the CASA programs in Argentina and Chile, I ultimately settled on Santiago, eager to explore a city I knew almost nothing about.

As the initial thrills of acclimating to a new country waned, I longed for...

By Elizabeth Kimmel, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’21)

When I first arrived in Chile in late February, I truly had no idea what to expect. It was weird coming down for Brown’s spring semester because I had this really long winter break, and I think that also served to sort of build up the anticipation and speculation for what it would be like in Santiago. I know I had vague expectations of how I wanted things to go, but no true sense of what specifically I was hoping for. Looking back now, I feel incredibly lucky with every single aspect of my...

By Miranda Zhen-Yao Van-Boswell, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)

Vivir en la ciudad de Santiago como estudiante de intercambio ha sido una experiencia inolvidable. Cabe decir que este rincón del mundo es infinitamente distinto a los lugares que había conocido. Quizás porque soy hija de un estadounidense y una china, la mayoría de las...

By Andrea Vega Troncoso, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)

El Valle de la Luna en San Pedro de Atacama

Leaving Brown for a semester was not something I always had in mind. I had left my home and most of my family in the Dominican Republic to come study at Brown. To my parents, I was already far away—abroad. Pero...

By Jaia Clingham-David, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Cornell University ’20)

Before the semester started, I had very few expectations about what my experience in Chile was going to be like. But Santiago turned out to be the perfect place for me to spend my semester. My friends and family normally considered me to be a city-person, preferring glass buildings and concrete sidewalks to hiking in the wooded mountains. Santiago gave me that city life that I enjoy as well as the ability to travel to some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. People...

By Isadora Nogueira , CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Barnard College ’20)

En Valle de la Luna, San Pedro de Atacama

When I first came to Chile, my answer for “¿y por qué Chile?” were platitudes about the natural beauty of the Andes and the culture and rich city-life of Santiago. But now when I think of what I...

By Chris Packs, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)

Arriving in Santiago one week before the start of the semester, I knew I would struggle to choose my classes. Although I was already familiar with the concept of a shopping period—a two week window in the beginning of the semester to try out classes, as opposed to...

By Eleanor Shea, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Harvard University ’20)

When contemplating the location of my semester abroad, multiple people jokingly said something along the lines of: “Chile, huh? You know the Spanish there is a little different, right?” I have always been inclined towards the more difficult route, hurling myself into unknown...