How did I learn English? When did I get bit by the travel bug? What motivated me to start a travel blogging? Through pictures and mini tales, I give you a little introduction and background of my life today!
I was just about 8 when I had my very first English conversation during a parade at Disney World, which ironically was my very first trip outside of Puerto Rico as well. I was able to do so just with the limited knowledge I had gathered from going into the library and teaching myself English through dictionaries and storybooks. When I came back, I remember asking mom for cable television “para poder aprender inglés.”
Tank jou, Mickey!
Soon enough I was addicted to Discovery Kids, National Geographic and the Travel Channel. Even with the closed caption, I didn’t understand much. However, I knew the shows were related to what I was learning in my history & geography classes. It was about other cultures, long plane rides away from my island. As wildfires, they ignited my passion for languages & traveling
And so my first journey started: Learning how to speak English by myself.
Then, when I was 13, I got my first computer with Internet. I remember how my online habits included blogging on Kiwibox about my life as a teenage nerd, looking at pictures & reading stories in English about all those places from TV, all while excitedly flipping though a Webster Spanish-English dictionary & chatting with my virtual Norwegian boyfriend through the then-chatting-sensation ICQ program, of course.
And this blogger was born.
A couple of hundreds of entries later, I finally decided to take my bags, leave my family behind, and go after “the American Dream.” I moved to the USA to go to college in Aug 2005.
Venice, Italy - one of the stop of my first Euro trip (6/2005)
And a world traveler was born. Between 2005-2010, I traveled extensively, mainly during my study abroad experiences in Egypt (2008-2009) & Morocco (Fall 2009).
Abu Simbel, Egypt
Marrakech, Morrocco
Now here I am, 6 years later, working & living in the United States solo, after graduating with 2 degrees from the University of Tampa last fall. Languages, travel, and blogging made all of this possible. Ironically, they will also help me become a digital nomad.
My name is Maria Alexandra & I’m about to embark on yet another journey: Become a nomadic translator & writer, sprinkling Latin spice all over the world.
So it begins! Are you ready!?
Question of the day: What motivated you to start travel blogging?
