I had a similar story. And de facto I've heard such advice, but from a group of people - it's nice to see it grouped. I would add one point: you DON'T need a _l

I had a similar story. And de facto I've heard such advice, but from a group of people - it's nice to see it grouped. I would add one point: you DON'T need a _local_ representative of CIEE. I did it with a US-based one, http://culturalvistas.org/ http://culturalvistas.org/ (I guess there are more).