‘’The most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.’’ – Randy Komisar

Een super mooie quote en helemaal waar. Het zou eigenlijk verboden moeten worden om na de middelbare school meteen te gaan studeren. Ik ben dan ook heel erg blij dat ik de keuze heb gemaakt om na mij Hageveldcarrière een tussenjaar te nemen en naar Midden-Amerika te gaan. Ik heb ontzettend veel speciale mensen ontmoet en ik weet zeker dat ik sommigen nog eens zal zien. Ik heb geweldige dingen gedaan, gezien en ook nog eens veel geleerd. Over mezelf, de cultuur en natuurlijk de taal. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat ik na deze ervaring veel meer kan bijdragen aan de studie International Business Administration, waar ik in september mee begin. Wie weet kan ik in het derde jaar van deze studie wel een half jaartje in Latijns-Amerika studeren!

In the two years since I left Latin-America, I have only become more eager to explore the rest of it. Hence, my travels in this region didn’t stop at the end of my very last blog post, rather was my concluding sentence an opportunity to close my first trip and introduce my next: a semester abroad at Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

From day one as a student in Rotterdam, I started doing research on the possibilities of participating in the exchange programme. Soon I figured Buenos Aires would be the perfect destination for me. The Argentinian capital, characterized by its beautiful architecture, its proud population of Italian and Spanish heritage, and its serious attention to food and wine. What else could I ask for? Or well, aim for. The selection process was made of several rounds, and when on the 6th of February I finally received the result of my application for the exchange programme, I couldn’t be more excited!

Now, after having moved into my new, lovely residence for the upcoming six months, I can genuinely say it didn’t start off too well: due to a delayed flight and thus a missed connecting flight, it eventually took me around 30 hours to get here.. without any checked luggage until yesterday. Exhausted from the flights, I was the last one at the airport conveyor belt to come to the slow realization my bags weren’t coming. I was left with only the dirty clothes I had travelled in, and ended up splashing most of my spending money on underwear and toiletries to carry me through the first days. Nevertheless, my stay so far has been an absolute pleasure!

More about that later…