Travel

Going back a bit to my notes from the first class-- or rather, the first one I attended since I registered late.

We talked a little bit about whether we would've wanted to travel the world for the last two years of high school. A lot of people said they would have-- of course, this would be preferable to school for anyone and maybe if all expenses were covered by someone else then by all means...

But I think it would be better to grow up a bit more before exploring the world.

My first real trip outside of the country -- real meaning I was old enough to remember it -- was a family vacation to Costa Rica last summer. It lasted just a week but I saw a lot -- there was a lot of poverty to see there. But also happiness within poverty. The people living in little shacks on the beach didn't seem to know the supposed luxuries they were missing out on, so they weren't unhappy about missing out on them.

My next trip was this past January -- one crazy week in Barcelona before an intense three weeks in Morocco for a UMD study abroad program. The academic context provided a lot on this trip. I learned a lot about development, saw it at work first hand and formulated ideas on its rather terrible execution through discussions with my classmates. I'm not sure I would've been able to get as much out of the trip and the class -- even with the academic component -- if I hadn't learned about certain things over the previous two and a half years. The sociology and political science classes I had taken, internship experience I had and the discipline and interest I developed in the news were necessary to understanding this foreign country and its problems in the context of the rest of the world and today's global issues.

-- Carolina Hidalgo