Thursday, November 3, 2011

My Nephew, Colin Beacom, Studying in Spain

My nephew, Colin, is doing a full school year of the Study Abroad Program in Spain.  He is in Barcelona and lives 5 minutes from the beach.  He has told me the food and wine in Spain are great.  That his experience so far has been wonderful and his Spanish is improving too.  He is doing a blog about his experiences in Spain at Beacom Travels.

In fact, Colin has sent me 6 Spanish recipes and one of them will be the recipe of the week tomorrow.  The recipes are in Spanglish, part Spanish and part English.  So my interpretation is what you will get tomorrow as my Spanish is very limited.  My wife and I tried it just the other day and loved it.

Spain is known for Tapas which is really snack food found mainly in the bars and nightclubs throughout the country.  These are usually easy simple foods and the one tomorrow falls into the category.  The country is well known for its cuisine and contribution to the culinary world.  If you have an opportunity to try Spanish cuisine, please don't pass it up.  Enjoy Spain's wonderful foods.

Now I need to get on my soapbox and talk a little more about the Study Abroad Program at colleges and universities throughout our great country.  Our youngest of 4 children went on the program twice.  He did a London program the first time in a spring semester.  He truly enjoyed the experience and will even admit how much it help him to grow personally.  Because of his going on this learning adventure, Claudia and I were able to take advantage of it and visit him at the end of his stay.  We were able to experience London and Dublin on our visit.

He must have enjoyed it because for the fall semester of his senior year, he did it again and went to the Netherlands.  Through both of these programs, he was able to see and experience much Europe.

His significant other, Stephanie, also experienced the London program and changed careers because of it.  She is now a Study Abroad Coordinator at a university in the northwest and enjoying helping others have a great experience.

I believe that everyone should be exposed to as much as possible in their life.  My personal opinion is that every college/university student, if possible, should do one semester abroad in a Study Abroad Program at their school.  We now live in a global world and everything that anyone does effects the whole world in some way.  Besides, life is too short not to take every advantage of seeing all we can of this great world we have been given.

This belief probably comes from the fact that I spent 3 months in Mexico shortly after college with 2 of my brothers and my first wife.  We saw much of Mexico as we traveled throughout it and believe it was one of the great experiences of all 4 of our lives.

Tomorrow's recipe is PA AMB TOMAQUET (bread with tomato).  Enjoy!

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