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After traveling to Spain in high school, Nolan Pick ’07 (Salisbury, Md.) wanted to step out of his comfort zone and try something different. Fascinated by South America, he chose to spend a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“I chose Argentina because it is one of the most stable countries in South America, and I heard how beautiful it was,” explains Pick, a double major in Spanish and economics & business. “I wanted to see if the ‘Paris of the Americas’ really lived up to its reputation. I wanted to see the balcony that the movie Evita made famous, experience the neighborhoods where the tango was born, and learn about daily life in a country that recently experienced an economic crisis.”
Through the Lafayette-approved program at Butler University’s Institute for Study Abroad, Pick completed five courses in Buenos Aires, all of which were conducted in Spanish by native Argentine speakers. His studies included Tango and Literature, Contemporary History of Argentina, Literature of Argentina and Latin America, Economic Growth, and Social and Economic History.
Pick lived with a widow and her maid in the Recoleta section of Buenos Aires. His host mother was a German immigrant who has lived in Argentina for over 40 years.
“I had a great experience and learned so much from both my host mother and her maid, including local slang, history, and customs,” Pick says. “It was difficult to communicate with the maid at first because she is from a northern province of Argentina, but after a while I was able to talk with her and my host mother without much of a problem.”
Though he spent most of his time exploring all that Buenos Aires had to offer, Pick traveled outside the city on several occasions. He took weekend trips to Pinamar and Mar del Plata, both beach resorts in the Buenos Aires province, and traveled to historic Colonia in neighboring Uruguay. He also visited Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world located in the Tierra del Fuego province, and the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia. He also went on a four-day hike on the Salkantay trail in Peru, ending at the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains.
One of Pick’s most memorable experiences from his time abroad was being in the city to witness local reactions to Argentina’s victory over Mexico in the World Cup.
“When Argentina beat Mexico, horns were honking all over the city, people were jumping up and down and singing in the subway, and so many people gathered around the obelisk and Avenida Corrientes that they had to shut down the streets to traffic,” he recalls. “For hours it seemed like the entire city was in the streets waving Argentine flags and celebrating the victory!”
After graduation, Pick plans to continue his studies of Spanish and is currently looking into graduate programs or other opportunities in Russian language studies, which he began at Lafayette.
Pick is a member of the Hispanic Society of Lafayette and International Students Association.
Lafayette offers a variety of faculty-led and other study abroad programs. For information, contact Roxanne Lalande, director of study abroad programs and professor of French in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, (610) 330-5918 or lalander@lafayette.edu. Her consultation hours are 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. Monday and Wednesday in 409 Pardee Hall and 9:30 a.m.-noon Tuesday and Thursday in 1 Markle Hall.