Greetings from the frozen tundra of Ohio! My name is Callan Swaim and I am a junior who attends Wittenberg University where I am studying Business Marketing and Spanish. When my face isn’t buried in books (like every college student) I play for the Wittenberg volleyball team, am involved in Greek Life, and hold a few jobs on campus. There is never a dull moment. 

This week we finished our orientations and had some time to explore Quito and the Otavalo market.

Studying abroad is all about adjusting. Some things are easier to adjust to than others, but it should be expected that you will come across many differences that can be difficult to get use to.

As with every new city one encounters, there are some things about the qualities, characteristics, and culture that you notice right off the bat. There are other things that remain a mystery, only to be revealed to those who stay long enough and immerse themselves deeply enough to deserve such enlightenment.

   The weekend has begun here in Paris, and that means it’s time for sightseeing! The last five days in Paris have been different than any of my other visits here in France. Unlike my other two times in the city of lights, I haven’t been shuffled around from one monument to another every day. It’s an odd phenomenon not seeing Paris “through the eyes of a tourist”. And I know this concept sounds presumptuous because I haven’t even been here for a week yet.

As I am becoming accustomed to life in Quito, my eyes are being opened to the richness and diversity of the Spanish language. In the United States different parts of the country use different words such as soda versus pop, or tennis shoes versus sneakers; however these small differences in words and phrases are nothing in comparison to the diversity of the Spanish language. In Spanish speaking countries differences in phrases are numerous.