After a successful trip to Peru in summer 2017, the Spanish Department prepares for a trip to Argentina and Chile from May 28 to June 7, 2019.

The experience is available to students in any level of Spanish.

“When we came back from the [Peru] trip, I had some students who told me they were already saving to go on another trip, and I told them I wasn’t planning another trip. They said, ‘Well I’m saving for it.’ So, I decided to go ahead and plan one,” Spanish teacher Christine Oswald said.

Oswald let the students choose where they wanted to travel.

“I had a little group get together, and I presented different itineraries to them. I gave them different options, different countries,” Oswald said. 

Students were given the choice to go to Spain, Chile and Argentina or just Argentina.

Sophomore Laney Tvrdik was one of the students who helped choose Argentina and Chile.

“Since Argentina is so out of the way, you’d never go with your family, we were like ‘OK, we want to go there.’ Chile is something else too, so we thought, why don’t we just do both at the same time and knock two out of the way?” Tvrdik said. 

Students will participate in various hands-on activities during the trip, such as learning to tango.

“We’re working on incorporating a visit to a local school because that was such a huge part of the trip that we went on to Peru. It was a highlight of that trip,” Oswald said. 

Early enrollment for the trip is about $5,700. However, tourism is increasing in Argentina and Chile, so the price will increase after March.

The price includes all airfare, hotels, a tour director, a private motor coach and two out of three meals a day. 

“The Tour Director is with us the whole time. They sit in the restaurants and eat with us. They’re in the hotels. They are there to take care of us,” Oswald said.

Lunch is the one meal not included, which is about $10-$15 dollars per day. Students should also bring additional money if they want to purchase souvenirs.

The good thing about the payment is, since we started so far in advance, it comes out to like $367 a month for 14 or 15 months. Students a lot of times split that with their parents,” Oswald said. “When the student is paying roughly $180 a month and the parents are paying it, parents are much more open.”

Oswald encourages Spanish students to go on the trip.

“Obviously, it improves their Spanish. There’s no doubt about that. They find themselves communicating in Spanish, listening to it all around them and trying to speak on their own, which is awesome,” Oswald said.

Another benefit of the trip is the cultural awareness that surrounds them in the different countries.

“You get a lot of experience. In the classrooms, you don’t really get to talk to anyone indigenous, besides your teacher, and even they may not have grown up [in a Spanish-speaking country], so you don’t get to learn their culture. When you go abroad, you get to talk to people, you get to realize what their life was like, and you get to interact with everyone,” Tvrdik said.

For many students, a trip abroad is eye-opening.

“They come away a different person. They grow, they mature, and in many ways, I know it has encouraged a lot of the students who were on the Peru trip to continue learning Spanish and continue wanting to travel to a variety of countries, not necessarily the most common countries,” Oswald said. 

See Oswald is Room 219 for additional information about the trip.