So I’m writing this almost exactly a week after we arrived back in the US and must I say I miss it already. This trip was my first experience studying abroad with UGA and I’m so glad I did it. It was an eye opening experience where I learned and I had a great time while doing it. For the 10 day stay I feel as though I have learned 100 times the knowledge. For example I found a new love and appreciation for coffee. I also feel spoiled because I got to drink the worlds 3rd best quality of coffee, being able to wake up on campus and walk to the dinning hall and drink this morning to night. As a consumer purchasing a bag of coffee from the store the story of the farmer who brought the bean to become this amazing drink we know as coffee, isn’t common knowledge. Without this trip I wouldn’t have this perspective of all the effort the farmer puts into these little beans. This coffee bean to cup trip adds to my life experience list as I have another abroad trip under my belt. It’s a once in a life time experience, where I got to study something I love like coffee in a beautiful place like Costa Rica and all the while get college credits for completing it. This is something that is hard to accomplish when visiting another country as a tourist with your family with out the connections like UGA Costa Rica. For example all of the intimate trips to the local farms would not be an option as a tourist. Then being able to see coffee production small and large scale, we were able to learn the processes like cleaning, drying, and roasting both ways. This made me relize how little I knew about coffee before this trip, so much as I didn’t even know it was a cherry. Im very grateful that I had this opportunity to travel and see a different part of the world. I would recommend this trip to anyone that is seeking to gain knowledge about coffee, friendships, and overall travel experience.
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