Matthew is a sophomore in the Honors Program at UGA who studied abroad in Argentina with the UGA en Buenos Aires program for six weeks in the summer of 2014. He was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee before coming to Athens for school. Matthew is 19 years old, a Leo, and enjoys long walks on the beach!
What is one piece of advice you'd give future students traveling with your program?
Embrace the experience. Live in their culture, not yours. Meet new people; don’t just stick with other English-speaking kids from your group. One of the hardest things for me to watch in the program was the kids that weren’t getting anything special out of it.
These kids sheltered themselves from the experiences. Some of them would never go out to see the nightlife and, if they did on some rare occasion go out, they wouldn’t try and get to know any of the locals. Sure, they would go to class and probably still picked up a good bit of Spanish, but they would sit out on all of the real experiences that made the program so special.
They didn’t get to experience Milion, a mansion in the middle of the city of Buenos Aires that some brilliant man converted into a massive, luxurious bar. They didn’t get to witness the rich culture and ingenious lifestyle of the citizens of this beautiful, twisted, magical city. They didn’t get to play drinking games with a crowd of Canadians, Australians, and Dutch at their hostel in Iguazu while avoiding a tropical torrent just outside.
How has this experience impacted your future?
I was extremely lucky to go on this study abroad trip because I had a legal internship that also counted for college credit. This helps me professionally in a host of ways - I can say that I had a legal internship, earned college credit, and learned the Spanish language simultaneously from just that one part of the trip.
On top of that, South America is an increasingly relevant continent and I learned a lot about what was happening outside of the US that I wouldn’t normally have been exposed to.
What was the best place you visited outside of your home-base city?
On top of exploring Buenos Aires, we traveled to visit the famous Mendoza wine region and to see the Iguazu Cataracts. Mendoza had some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen - luscious grape vines growing with frost-tipped mountains looming in the background.
Iguazu was a fantastic experience as well. The Iguazu Cataracts are considered a new natural wonder of the world and were actually flooding when we visited - I had the unique privilege of seeing this tremendous set of waterfalls when they were flowing at 40 times their normal volume. The flow was so strong that it destroyed some of the tourist footbridges and paths on the site.
Describe your favorite must-have food that you tried abroad.
The food was fantastic. I had several of the best meals of my life in Argentina. The four main foods there (or at least the four main foods I ate while there) were steak, pasta, pizza, and empanadas. Argentina has strong cultural ties to Italy and I had outstanding pizza while there - my personal favorite was from "El Cuartito."
Along with the Italian food, Argentina has a massive dairy industry and you can buy incredible cow-based dinners there for $10-15 - often marked by the words "parrillada," meaning grilled. A parrillada dinner typically includes 6 or 7 different kinds of meat - 4 or 5 of which were always tremendous.
The other 2 or 3 were usually blood sausage or some sort of cow innard that I wasn't too interested in eating.Every time I ate pasta there, my mouth couldn't believe the incredible smells and flavors flowing forth from what had always been a rather boring dish back home.
Finally, empanadas were the key to consistent vitality. If in a rush to get to class, you could stop into a cafe and pick up a couple empanadas for a buck or two each. Most of the time, empanadas were delicious little pockets of happiness.
The times that they weren't as great were when they were bought from the sketchier/lower-quality cafes or restaurants (although some hole-in-the-wall spots did have surprisingly impressive empanadas).
