March 27, 2017

First Day of School (and of real traffic in La Paz)—by Jordan Pryor

La Paz

The first day of school was, for lack of better words, a struggle. I believe that this was mostly because we were all still acclimatizing and somewhat still sleep deprived. The whole school thing started out a bit rough when we couldn’t find the school at all, even though we walked past it several times. Like any class, there were parts where time went quickly and also times that went slowly. Either way, we all survived our first lessons. It is quite interesting to learn from a native speaker one-on-one in comparison to classes in the United States. I won’t say it wasn’t difficult, but I am looking forward to the improvement these four days of classes will have on my Spanish. After our classes, we found a Peruvian restaurant, whose menu consisted exclusively of seafood… I’ll just say some of us liked it more than others. We then met with a professor from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés to travel to a museum as well as a haunted street. We spent the rest of the evening before dinner exploring local shops and small markets, which are on every street in La Paz. We also explored the Plaza de Murillo, a popular place for locals to spend time and also a place for many shops to sell various items. One thing to note about La Paz, and about Bolivia as a whole, is the number of indigenous people. It is especially easy to recognize the indigenous women as they have a very specific type of clothing and they are often times the women running the shops. After dinner with professors from the university, the group was pretty tired and we all turned in for the night.

New Country, New Experiences—by Lauren Reynolds

Plaza Murillo

Rise and shine! It is the first day of class! Getting up at 6:30 for class was not my first thought when going on spring break. The tiredness of all the travel and then the early morning made want to cry when I heard the alarm go off in the morning. The three times I hit snooze was not enough, but nevertheless I overcame.  It was all worth it, though, when we got our day started. This morning we ate breakfast together and talked about what was the most surprising to us about Bolivia. Something that is surprising to me is the cable car system that they have implemented in the past few years. It is called the teleférico. It looks like a ski lift and it takes you from La Paz to El Alto. The traffic here is crazy, so going the short distance from the two cities can take forever. La Paz is working on adding 7 more cable car systems in the next few years.

After our language classes we went to a Peruvian restaurant that was, to say the least, interesting. I keep thinking I like seafood, but when it comes down to it, I really don’t. I was coerced into eating clams and octopus. Later, we went to a museum and got to walk around the streets of La Paz. We learned about the different groups of people from Bolivian history and how they developed tools, household items, and their ceremonial costumes. Something that was really interesting to me was how part of the “Cholitas’” (indigenous women in Bolivia) outfits came about. These Cholitas are always wearing a traditional outfit of a ruffled skirt with a top and a bowler hat. The hat has not always been original to their outfit. It originated in England, and when the English men stopped buying the hats, some businessmen took them to Bolivia to sell. When they arrived in Bolivia they could not find any men because they were out in the fields working so they told the women that if they wore the hats that they would be more fertile. That was something all the women desired so they purchased the hats from the businessmen and that is how it became part of their

Pique a lo macho

traditional outfit. Later in the evening we met up with some professors from Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA) for dinner. The dinner was amazing. I ate a traditional Bolivian dish, Pique a lo Macho, which was beef tips, sausage (cut up hot dogs), peppers and onions, an egg, and a spicy sauce, all on top of French fries. I’ve made it a goal to try to eat true Bolivian food everywhere I go and so far it has been a success! Something I have noticed is that meals in Bolivia take way longer than meals in the States. Once we finished dinner we were all exhausted and went to bed because 6:30 was going to come really early.

San Sebastián & Trucha—by Connor Yarnall

My Spanish lessons began today with my private tutor, Cecilia. Cecilia is a native of La Paz and shared a lot about the cultures, customs, and people in La Paz. We talked in Spanish about the various social classes and indigenous groups that call Bolivia home. I also learned about the problems that the Bolivians have and the governmental structure. We continued for four hours but it seemed like only an hour had passed. I could not believe I was able to hold a conversation in Spanish for so long.

The doors to La Iglesia de San Sebastián

After my first lesson, we ate lunch at a Peruvian seafood restaurant where I had pulpa (octopus). It was the best food that I had in Bolivia until dinner tonight. After lunch, we traveled to the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore. I was exposed to artifacts of ancient, colonial, and contemporary eras. After the visit, we went to Plaza Murillo to see the Presidential Palace and La Iglesia de San Sebastián. I love ancient architecture and churches so this visit ranks near the top of my stay in Bolivia thus far. La Iglesia de San Sebastián was astounding and breathtaking.

We went to dinner with a few professors from UMSA to eat my best meal of my stay in Bolivia: trucha (trout). It was absolutely amazing and I would have to put it high on my list of best food I have ever eaten. The UMSA professors were great company and the food made it a fantastic night.

By Katie Werth

Getting to be in Annecy for three weeks was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. Being the student that knew the least amount of French in the group, I was very scared about living with a host family and not being able to communicate with them. I was very lucky and got fit with a wonderful family. They spoke English, but also taught me French. I was incredibly sad when I had to leave them.

The language course that I took was probably one of the hardest classes I’ve taken. It was a complete immersion class, so I learned how to speak French in French. It was a big struggle at first, but about one and a half weeks in I started getting the hang of it. The teachers were amazing and so were the other students. In one small classroom I got to meet people from all around the world. I think that getting to meet so many people from different countries was probably my favorite thing about this experience. It was really fascinating to hear about how differently things are done around the world and it gave me a new perspective on American life.

The city of Annecy itself is probably one of the most gorgeous cities on the planet. There are flowers and trees everywhere you go. The water in the lake is as clear as glass. You could see the bottom all the way in the center. One of my favorite things to do was get an ice cream and go for a walk around the lake. The mountain during sunset is one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever seen. I really hope that one day I will be able to go back to Annecy and spend all of my time exploring the town!

By Alexandra Womack

On May 27, 2015, a somber procession made its way to the Pantheon of Paris. It was bringing the coffins of four members of the French Resistance, including two women, Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz–whose coffins were symbolic, as they contained dirt from their gravesites—and two men, Jean Zay and Pierre Brossolette. Although the whole world may not have been watching, it seemed that much of Paris was there in person. Our class was fortunate enough to also be in attendance, watching along with several thousand French men and women as history was made right before our eyes. Tillion and de Gaulle-Anthonioz, along with compatriots Zay and Brossolette, are not the only members of the Resistance now found in the cool darkness of the crypt—they join Jean Moulin, an administrator and a resistor during the German occupation of the country who died after his capture and torture by German officers. Originally laid to rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Moulin’s remains were transferred to the Pantheon in 1964. The interment of Tillion, de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Zay, and Brossolette was a celebration of the spirit of the Resistance. These four heroes present new faces that promote the ideals of the motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” which dates from the French Revolution.

The presence of both Moulin and these four resistors gave all of us a unique chance to experience how cultural memory persists in France, and especially in places such as the Pantheon. The idea of these lieux de mémoire, or “places of memory,” is a foreign one to me; I can think of only a few places in the United States that act as a receptacle for our collective cultural memory in the same way as the Pantheon does for France. The French actively establish these “places of memory” and continue to maintain them through times of war and peace, abundance and strife. I was vividly reminded of this when I stepped into the building for the first time, three days after we had watched that stately procession. In the echoing space, it seemed that all aspects of French spirit shared space—Sainte Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, watched over us from great murals splashed across almost every wall; a marble statue that dominated the far wall of the building depicted intellectuals and soldiers alike seeking the attention of Marianne, who stood triumphant over the words Vivre Libre ou Mourir, “Live Free or Die.” The Pantheon of Paris lacks overzealous grandeur, despite its eclectic style; it is made beautiful not by its decorations but by the uniform message of cultural pride and remembrance that it presents. I was really moved by our visit to the Pantheon and it was an honor to be in the presence of the tombs of the people that France considers great enough to honor forever; of all the monuments and the places that we visited, the Pantheon was definitely one of the most moving.