The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

April Johnson
 January 11, 2017
Welcome to my blog! My name is April Johnson and I am an undergraduate student studying at Harvard University. I am a pre-med concentrating (majoring) in Neurobiology and obtaining a secondary (minoring) in Astrophysics. At Harvard, I manage a café, serve as a production assistant at a theatre, and play on the women’s club soccer team. I was born in the Philippines and came to the United States when I was 7 years old. I have lived in Southern California ever since but left my sunny oasis for the arctic-like winters of the East Coast (for the New England Clam chowder) for college. I started traveling as soon as I got to college, with a trip to Italy my freshman year. I loved that trip for getting me hooked on traveling and I have been to Hawaii, Iceland, Panama, and Greece since then! Every trip ends with me wishing I had more time so I’m extremely excited to be spending a whole 5 months in Austria! I chose to study abroad in Vienna for several reasons, the main ones being its central location in Europe, music, coffee culture, the influence of the Hapsburg empire, and the Ball season! For me studying abroad is the perfect way of rounding out my liberal arts education at Harvard. After taking a majority of science classes in my first 2.5 years, spending a semester abroad in the heart of Europe to take classes centered around culture and society will be a much needed breathe of fresh air. I’m excited to see what I can learn both inside but mostly outside of the classroom. There is an endless amount of things I want to do while in Vienna, so I feel that attempting to enumerate all of them would be greatly limiting. So I’m going to keep this list open but here are the top 10 things that I definitely must do: 1. Attend the masquerade ball 2. Visit at least 20 different cafés and find my “spot” 3. Uncover Vienna’s Jazz scene (i.e. go to Jazzland) 4. Carry a full conversation in German 5. Go to the Opera 6. Go skiing in the Alps 7. Traverse the Grossglockner Road 8. Spend many days roaming the halls of Vienna’s Imperial Palaces 9. Visit a hot spring (can it beat Iceland’s Blue Lagoon?) 10. Go to Salzburg and relive The Sound of Music I have five amazing months ahead of me that I know will flash by in an instant. Europe literally seems to be in the palm of my hands. Follow my blog to catch me in a new country every weekend and discovering Vienna as my day job!

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April Johnson

<p>April is a junior at Harvard University studying Neurobiology and Astrophysics. When she is not in the lab or looking at the stars, she likes to force her friends to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack, get away to the beautiful beaches of Southern California, and plan spontaneous trips. April is studying in Vienna, Austria this spring to drink lots of coffee, learn some German, and finally learn how to Waltz.</p>

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