This summer, I participated in the IES Abroad Music History and Performance Program in Vienna. Although I had traveled outside the United States before, I had never been as far as Vienna and had always been with my family. Through living in Vienna for six weeks, I learned a ton of valuable lessons about traveling abroad that will help me in my future career!

I know exactly what it will feel like to come home. It will be past midnight, and it will be a quiet, warm, humid Tacoma night. I’ll lug my heavy suitcase, which will be full of the smell of Dublin, to the backdoor of my house because I never learned how to open our wonky front door. In the kitchen there will be an abundance of new plants that my one of a kind roommate Aidan will have curated. Every piece of furniture in the house will have a new location.

Prague

Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic, is bisected by the Vltava River. Nicknamed “the City of a Hundred Spires,” it's known for its Old Town Square, the heart of its historic core, with colorful baroque buildings, Gothic churches and the medieval Astronomical Clock, which gives an animated hourly show. Completed in 1402, pedestrian Charles Bridge is lined with statues of Catholic saints. ― Google