I knew that I wanted to make my very last semester of college special, so what better way than studying abroad? I had to study somewhere in Latin America because of my major, but Cuba is actually one of the places I had never really thought about visiting. I learned more about the country in a couple of my major classes and became interested in the complicated relationship between our…
Apart from birds, squirrels, cats, and the occasional rat, I am not accustomed to seeing extensive wildlife in the cities of South Carolina. For this reason, when I studied abroad in Havana, Cuba this past spring, I was taken aback by the number of animals I found on the city’s streets. This is not to say that the animals in Havana bothered me or made me uncomfortable. On the contrary,…
Recently, on a College of Charleston led, semester-long study abroad program to Havana, Cuba, I went on an excursion to the mountain town of Las Terrazas in the province of Artemisa, Cuba. The excursion began on a Friday morning in late February at the corner of Calle 19 and B in Vedado, the Havana neighborhood we all lived in. My classmates, I, and our professor piled into a van driven…
During our time in Cuba, we spent lots of time visiting Habana Vieja, which was a taxi ride away from our neighborhood of Vedado. Habana Vieja is full of brightly colored old taxis, plazas with gigantic cathedrals, and parks with statues of José Martí. We even saw a little park full of cats. Our tour guide, Fidel, told us that the Cuban government gives the dogs and cats in the…
When I decided to go on this trip, I did not know what to expect in terms of food. I don’t eat foods that come from animals, so I was a little bit worried about how that was going to go. On the paperwork for studying abroad I specified that I was vegan, so I knew that there would be options for me I was just hoping they would be…
My name is Emma Burton. I am a sophomore at the college, and I participated in the Havana, Cuba study abroad program. I chose this program because I know that it is difficult for people to the U.S. to travel to Cuba, and I saw it as a rare opportunity to be able to live and study in Havana. My goals were to improve my Spanish, make local friends, and…
