This is a blog for UMass Amherst students in the Spanish and Portuguese Integrative Experience sequence.  Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to share their experiences, communicate with each other, and reflect upon the way in which their service learning, internship or studies abroad relate to their studies and shape the way in which they relate to their major.  I hope you take this opportunity to remain in touch with each other and to share with your classmates and future cohorts of students.  Please post anything that you want to share with us, being aware that the blog will be open to the world – so make sure you don’t post things you would not want other people to see.  I encourage you to share your thoughts and impressions, as well as any tips you have for other students interested in following a program like yours.  As you all know, I am also very interested in news – both the local news from the place you visit and the news about the US as covered there.  Don’t hesitate to post links to these and any comments you have about them.