CAPA WORLD

What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when you're a vegetarian in a country known for its meat-centric cuisine? In this week's post, Shivani navigates life as a vegetarian abroad in Argentina and shares tips (and some clever tricks) on how to thrive and enjoy eating out in the city. Want to know what else to expect in Buenos Aires? Let Shivani guide you through her Argentinian vegetarian experience so far!

Will you represent your study abroad city as one of our official CAPA bloggers or vloggers for Summer 2019?

Each term, we select a team of student bloggers and vloggers to share their study abroad experiences on the CAPA World blog. Depending on your Summer program length, each student on our team of storytellers will receive a grant of up to $300 along with up to $90 as an explorer fund to help you create awesome content for the CAPA World blog.  You can choose to produce blogs, vlogs, or Instagram TV vlogs!

Besides helping finance their adventures, previous CAPA bloggers and vloggers have loved the experience for a bunch of different reasons. Without further ado, here are 9 reasons to become a CAPA blogger or vlogger:

In her first post, Shivani breaks out her packing lists and shares how she researched and prepared to leave for Buenos Aires. She also considers what she'll be missing out back home while studying abroad, but muses at the opportunity to live like a local and document her time in this global city. Read her open letter about her anticipated journey overseas!

In this week's post, Nora writes about learning how to tango at a My Global City event held at a local dance studio in Buenos Aires.

What’s was great about this study abroad experience is that we got a lot of free unstructured time to just explore the city and travel and do our own thing, but there were a few preplanned activities called “My Global City events.” The event that I think everyone was looking forward to the most, myself included, was the estancia trip. This was a trip an hour outside of the city to a ranch where we would ride horses, hear from real life gauchos, and watch live performances over a free lunch. Sounds amazing right? Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about that one. I was seriously sick all weekend. It was a huge bummer!

Yes, CAPA global cities are bursting with people from around the globe and are inevitably full of social and networking opportunities. They're also home to some pretty amazing quieter places though, and are host to tons of activities that give the introverts among us a chance to recharge and perhaps discover another, more peaceful, side of a bustling metropolis. Here are 10 of our favorites in Buenos Aires:

1. ENJOY THE PARKS & PLAZAS. While Buenos Aires isn't a city particularly celebrated for its acres of green space, there are still plenty of parks and plazas that offer an opportunity for a moment of solitude among the millions of commuters and tourists filling city streets. For convenience, we love Parque Lezama in San Telmo with its proximity to the market where you can pick up a bite to eat. Jardin Botánico Carlos Thays, another favorite, is a lush oasis with plenty of shade and pretty historic greenhouses. Bring a book, sip a mate and chill. The Borderless Project shares their top 8 parks in BA, worth a read. It's not bad on a rainy day either with a visit to the Planetarium.

In this post, Niah gives us a lesson in fashion before giving back to the local community.

When you study abroad in Buenos Aires, there's a few cultural celebrations throughout the country that are worth looking into attending! Here are five for your list: 

1. Tango Festival

Argentine Tango is famous around the world, but no place celebrates it more than its home city of Buenos Aires. Every August, Buenos Aires hosts a tango festival that brings tourists and locals out into the street. Performances, lessons, and open air parties take place day and night in the city, and professional dancers from around the world gather to take part in the revelry.

Meet Shivani Pandya, an official CAPA Blogger in Buenos Aires for Spring 2019:

University: University of Pittsburgh
Major: Bioinformatics
Study abroad location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Internship or volunteer placement: TBC

In this post, Elizabeth talks about arriving at her homestay in Buenos Aires and her first explorations of the beautiful Recoleta neighborhood that she will call home for the semester. 

My first week here has introduced me to new foods, taught me new words, and taken me to some pretty extraordinary places.  I’ve eaten delicious milanesas and empanadas, seen more of the varied and stunning architecture of the city, and looked at beautiful works of art.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to walk around one of Buenos Aires’ most colorful neighborhoods-- La Boca.  With art in just about every corner, the streets of La Boca are imprinted with stories of immigrants, labor, poltical protest, tango, and much more. Although it’s impossible to sum up the area’s complex cultural, political, and economic heritage briefly, much of La Boca’s recent history--and its transformation from a center of industry to space for artists-- centers around one man: artist Benito Quinquela Martin.

Only a very small percentage of US students intern abroad. The experience alone can make you stand out from your peers in a pile of resumes once you graduate and will no doubt be a conversation starter in an interview. If you put the effort in and set goals for yourself before you begin, it can be even more than a conversation starter. You will have opportunities to learn some truly important life and career skills that you might not gain in a domestic internship.

Here are just 5 skills (out of many) you can gain from interning abroad.