Hi! My name is Andrea Kimpson and I am a rising Senior in the Honors College. I am double majoring in Economics and International Studies, with a concentration in Latin America and the Caribbean. I also minoring in Political Science and Spanish. This summer, I have had the opportunity to participate in the CofC abroad program in Trujillo, Spain, partially sponsored by the Xavier de Salas Foundation. I chose the Trujillo, Spain program because I was looking for a program that would encourage me to use Spanish constantly. This program offered the full immersion experience necessary to improve my conversational Spanish skills. I would be able to live with a host family, interact with locals, and truly live as the Spanish do. I set goals to improve my conversational Spanish skills, learn more about the history of Spain, and to make connections between the history of Spain and the history of Latin American countries I have studied. To prepare, I investigated some of the practicalities of living in Spain, including the currency and typical greetings. I also revisited some of my classes that discussed Spain and its linguistic differences, trying to refresh myself on how the language would sound from native Spain Spanish speakers. In my following blog posts, I hope to share with you some of the incredible things I have been experiencing abroad!