For the last eight weeks, five Proctor sophomores have been immersed in Costa Rican culture, living with local host families, and learning an incredible amount of Spanish. Proctor in Costa Rica affords a language and cultural immersion experience to Proctor sophomores every winter and spring. Studying at the Monteverde Institute Costa Rica and living with local host families, students not only learn an incredible amount of Spanish and continue their regular sophomore level courses, but immerse themselves in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world. The sophomores studying on Proctor en Monteverde this winter reflect on their winter term abroad. 

Our final trip while in Spain was to Málaga, down south in Andalucía and in the same region as Sevilla. Everyone met at the bus station as we normally would. And blast off, on the bus to Madrid, then to the subway, then finally to the high-speed train. Three hours later were walking through the streets of Málaga to get to our hotel, taking in murals and graffiti, as well as the warmer temperatures. The rest of the afternoon consisted of free time to wander the city, shop, and explore. I got lost. Then we joined back with Ryan for a little orientation, getting gelato, and seeing an ancient Roman theater in front of an old Moorish castle. The day wound down with an excellent dinner at a Spanish-Argentinian fusion tapas restaurant. 

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” -Gail Sheehy

Proctor Academy's Mountain Classroom program nears the final stages of its ten-week adventure across the United States. As the group enters full circle and the independent student guided expedition, the growth of this group comes is palpable. Read more from this week's update.

This is our last week at home before heading to Florence for the final trip. It’s a week of wrapping up personal works, finishing our term long book project, and enjoying the last cups of Chocolat Viennois from Le Festival, the café where we have Literature class.

Our day officially started at 1:30 pm when we met up at the aqueduct to head out to Madrid. We filled the bus for the hour-long drive we had all come to know well. We arrived and ate our bocadillos in the gardens in front of the Palacio Real. We sat absorbing the sun and enjoying the good weather as we finished up our lunches.

Proctor's Mountain Classroom program continued their rambling journey, venturing through Yosemite National Park, dealing with wind evacuations, sickness, and unexpected challenges as they prepared for solos in Joshua Tree National Park. Read more from the past week on Mountain Classroom below! 

To be blunt…This week was kinda crazy. There we were, at home in Aix, giggling over our German lessons and researching cool things to do during our free time in Munich with little success to find anything better than an apparently sub-par aquarium when right under our nose, Storm Ciara was raging her way across northern Europe.