If there’s one thing I learned during my jam-packed first week in Uruguay, it’s the value of being humble when working in a foreign country.

I like to have everything under control. But when I arrived in Montevideo two weeks ago, struggling to recall the Spanish terms for airport security, I wasn’t in control. When I impatiently boarded the 522 bus to Pocitos instead of the 149 because I didn’t trust Google Maps, I wasn’t in control. And when I was getting lunch from a corner store on Calle Colonia and I anxiously (and accidentally) ordered a well-done steak, I definitely wasn’t in control.

As I sit down to reflect on my time during the Penn Abroad internship in Uruguay, I am filled with a sense of nostalgia and gratitude for the experiences I had and the lessons I learned. The journey has been transformative, and I wanted to share with you how this adventure has left an indelible mark on my perspective.

The best way to learn more about a culture is to spend a lot of time there. I spent my summer in Montevideo, but I also traveled to other countries while I was there, and while I loved them all, I got to know Uruguay in a different way. When you spend five days in a city you obviously experience it like a tourist. You pack your day with every important site. You leave your accommodation early in the morning and you come back late at night, exhausted from a busy day of trying to see as much as you can before your journey back home. This was my experience when I visited Buenos Aires and Rio with my fellow GRIP interns. We loved those cities, but not in the same way as Montevideo.