Introduction

Hello! Welcome to my blog detailing my time interning in the Azores Islands this summer! This blog has two main purposes: 1) It will essentially serve as a journal so that I can remember and reflect on all of the wonderful details of this trip and 2) It will keep all my friends and family (you!) updated on how and what I am doing!

So some background information:

What am I doing in the Azores Islands?

I am in the Azores Islands as an Atlantis Project Fellow. The Atlantis Project is an internship program open to students around the world, giving them the opportunity to either shadow doctors in a hospital, to study the Portuguese language, or to teach the local Azoreans English in a program called Base5 (or do some sort of combination of the three, which is what I am doing!) The summer is divided into three sessions of the program, all about six weeks long. I am in session 2 which starts today, June 25, 2013 and ends in the beginning of August. However, I arrived in Sao Miguel of the Azores Islands on Friday, June 14, 2013 after spending a little over a month studying abroad (and stuffing myself with carbs) in Italy! Therefore, I got to spend about two weeks with the students of session 1 in Sao Miguel, getting acquainted with the program and the island. It was super helpful because I got to learn all of their wisdom. They were also just fantastic people, so I had a blast.

Where and what are the Azores Islands?

In case you're wondering where and what exactly the Azores Islands are, I will tell you! The Azores Islands are located here in between Europe and the North America in the middle of the Atlantic ocean as seen below.

There are nine islands, and I am staying on São Miguel, also known as the "green island", which is the largest and most populated island with about 150,000 inhabitants. The Azores Islands are owned by Portugal, and therefore everyone speaks Portuguese. When the locals refer to "mainland" here, they mean Portugal. There is also a very large Azorean population in Boston, Massachusetts. By no means are the Azores a third world country or anything like that. They're part of a successful nation (though Portugal is in the middle of a horrible economic crisis, much worse than America's.) They have also been named the top ten places to travel! Though, they have not yet been flooded by tourists like the Caribbean has, which is really nice.

 If you want to learn a little about the Azores or love learning about culture and travel, watch this travel channel episode! It's the show "No Reservations"- Anthony Bourdain. It's fascinating.
 http://vimeo.com/35670303

TTFN!