Best semester abroad! Past Review

I studied abroad in Fall semester of 2019 and I loved it! Like most study abroad students, I had my reservations about coming. While of course there are moments of frustration when you can't communicate yourself in Spanish, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. You will not only grow immensely in your Spanish abilities, but in confidence, cultural knowledge/awareness, understanding about yourself, and most importantly, your dancing skills haha. (I would highly recommend the dance class- it was awesome). CLA had a lot of things I was looking for in a program. I loved that they were a small organization, run by locals who knew the culture and I could answer my many questions using their own experiences. Fabi and Samantha were awesome and made me feel comfortable talking (even when my Spanish was rough) giving me more confidence to share. I often felt that we had actually known each other longer than we had! haha. Interestingly, I have a lot of other friends who have studied abroad in a Spanish speaking country and their reports seem to be similar. They had a great time but spoke a ton of English with their large group of students in their program, not making many friends with the locals. Being a small program, I was encouraged to speak a lot of Spanish and had the chance to interact with other Mexican students and exchange students, all in Spanish! Regarding the schooling, I really enjoyed my Spanish for foreigners classes. Not only was the location super cool but the classes were great too and I loved the complimentary conversation classes offered through CAADI. The program also did a lot of fun excursions. The city itself is a really great location too. Full of history, there are a million museums and interesting architecture. The night life is also super fun. I didn't realize how quiet my university city was until I returned from the night life of Guanajuato! And of course the food. So yummy! I miss the street ice cream so much. :'( I am also celiac and finding gluten free food can be challenging. However, it was actually really easy to find food to eat! All of the corn products are great. They even have some natural foods stores that carry other allergen free products in case subsisting on corn tortillas is too hard haha. All in all, a wonderful experience with this great program and in such a magical city. Thanks for everything! I will treasure these experiences forever.