By: Victoria Henry (Rutgers), Emilia Tapsall (UVA), Hannah Guzzo & Manuela Higuita (UConn)

I discovered one of my favorite past times is travelling. Studying abroad in Europe truly has its advantages, and opportunity for traveling is one of them. Like many of you, one of the places I visited this semester was Barcelona. Barcelona is the perfect blend of a beach resort and city life, and has made my personal list of favorite destinations. In addition to being in a gorgeous city, what made this weekend trip to Barcelona so significant was the fact that I travelled alone. Although it was awesome meeting up with friends for dinner and to check out the Barcelona nightlife, I found pure satisfaction in exploring the city during the day alone. Traveling alone gives you the opportunity to see the things you want to see, meet new friends from around the world, and feel accomplished for organizing your own trip. I would highly recommend, at some point in time throughout life, everyone take a solo trip.

My favorite travel experience was going to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. I was able to meet so many new people from all over the world. They ranged in all different ages from 18 to 60 years old, and some few all the way from Australia just for this one weekend in Munich. It was a really great experience that I was able to share with new friends that I made in Florence as well as friends from my college that were studying abroad in different countries in Europe. We all got together and had an unbelievable weekend wearing crazy outfits, drinking delicious beer, going on carnival rides, and eating unbelievable food. I wouldn’t trade that weekend for anything because it truly sums up how great studying abroad is. You can be in a completely new city and find people from all over the world you connect with, and that will be friends with you for the rest of your life.

I loved my journey to the Italian Alps during midterm break. I spent five days in a B&B up in a mountain in the small town of Champorcher. This “town” was made up of a pharmacy a church and maybe four houses. It was an incredibly beautiful place, waking up and looking down on the clouds and being surrounded by huge peaks was breath taking…literally too! The air is much thinner up there, and made even easy hikes a more strenuous activity. On that trip I was able to visit museums of the history of the alps, take a gondola up to one of the highest peaks on Mont Blanc, and I even came across an alpine wolf when driving home late one night. This was the trip of a lifetime I will always remember.

During break I traveled with two friends to Bruxelles, Berlin, Prague, and Budapest. While traveling I was able to try so many delicious types of food and see so many great things. We learned so much through the tours that we took, museums that we visited and monuments that we saw. I also got to meet so many great people at the various hostels that we stayed in. There were various times that we got lost throughout the trip, because we did not speak the language, but it was all part of the adventure and made the trip that much better. With out a doubt every city had something new and great to offer and I made so many memories that I will cherish forever.