¡Buenas a todos! (Hello, everyone!) My name is Andrés Vargas, and I am thrilled to share my travels in charming Colombia. This trip has been a long time in the making, and I would like to provide some context on how I got here.
I had a rather vagrant upbringing compared to most people. Born in Sacramento, California, I spent most of my formative years away from the Golden State. From a young age, I had the privilege of living abroad due to my father’s profession in the foreign service. My childhood and adolescence were split between three distinct locations: Cairo, Guatemala City and Indianapolis. It was wonderful to make friends from all over and learn about different cultures firsthand. However, I knew I wanted to explore more and experience life from a more local perspective. That is when I decided to study abroad in Germany for a year and learn the language from scratch. It was one of my toughest but most enriching experiences, and by the end of it, I realized that traveling was my passion.
I decided to double major in International Studies and Spanish at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington while continuing to study German as a minor. IU is known for its prominent business school, but not many are aware that its language and global department are among the best in the nation.
