I am Luis Felipe Suárez and I’m student of
Industrial Engineering at Icesi University. I don’t work but at this moment of
my life I have a lot of projects to develop. One of them is the EUDII
(University Encounter of Industrial Engineering), where students, teachers and important
enterprises discuss key subjects that are selected according to their impact
within the industrial context in the region, the country and the world, however
that is another topic. I love to eat beef, it’s my favorite along with the “dulce
de leche” ice cream. I don’t like spicy food or some typical dishes like Tamal.
Also, I like to wear comfortable clothes, specially the sportswear with loud
colors that catch attention.
I’m writing this blog as a task for my English class,
but it’s the perfect moment to write about my travel life. Yes, I like to
travel, along with sports that are my favorite activities in life. I’m not the
most traveling person in my family or among my friends either, but the few
trips I’ve made are all unique, because everyone has a good story to remember. In
this blog I’m going to write about one trip in particular, it is when I went to
Indiana University for a student exchange in 2009.
When I finished my high school at Berchmans
School, my mom told me about a possibility to go to United States to improve my
English. At that moment of my life I didn’t want to go because I wanted to
start university immediately. My mom talked apart with my girlfriend and one
day she encouraged me to leave Cali and meet other places. After two weeks I took
the decision to leave. Initially I tried to go to a high school but they didn’t
accept me because I was 18 already. The backup plan was Indiana University,
more expensive and almost 2 hours from the place that would be my home. At the
end, after one month I was on an airplane going there.
I learned a lot of things there; I met people
of the entire world as UAE, Japan, Kazakhstan, Hungary, China, South Korea, Kuwait,
Venezuela, Turkey and other countries. When you leave your country and star to live
in another one with different language and people of different cultures its remarkable
how much you learn in a couple months. Many things caught my attention, for
example a man cannot touch an Arabic woman, eventhough in the shoulder (it
happened to me), the Japanese couples don’t grab their hands each other in
public, the Arabic women cannot leave a classroom if there are men in front of
the door and that the Korean and Chinese people change their names to an American
name because it’s easier the pronunciation.
If you are living abroad it means that you have
to accommodate to the laws and culture of that country. For example, in my case I got two transit
tickets; the first one was because I passed by the right a motorcycle and when
the policeman gave me the $142 dollars ticket said to me: “I’m sorry man but
welcome to America”. The second one was for speeding, the policeman was hidden
behind a wall and when he saw me, he turned on the police lights and after few
meters he stopped me; the speed limit was almost 45 miles/hour and I was 60
miles/hour, that was another $142 dollars in a ticket. That week I didn’t take
lunch.
This trip meant too much for me, I opened my
eyes to a new world. When I came back to Cali everything was different to me. I
recommend go to an academic exchange if you can and If it is at a university,
much better because you meet people around the world and feel the university
experience in another country. The US universities are like small cities, they
have stadiums, dorms, restaurants, bars, cinemas and all you need to live in
the same place.
Definitely the best experience I have had.
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