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In my last blog post, I talked about how to plan for an overnight trip, using my experience visiting Berlin back in March as an example. In this post, I am going to share some of the places my friend and I visited while we were there and encourage you to visit them, as well! Part of my advice for planning an overnight trip was to make an itinerary of places to see, so hopefully some of these places from our itinerary will make it onto yours.
Salut, mes amis!
If you don’t know me, my name is Jenna Hughes and I am currently studying in Paris.
When you get to your city (wherever that may be), it can be overwhelming! There are tons of things to do: trying new foods at the local restaurants, seeing the big sites and if you are like me, shopping a little (or a lot).
I was originally planning for my next few blog posts to be about my 10-day mid-semester trip, considering my last post was about budgeting for that trip, and I even had a few drafts written, but those drafts may be gone… after these past few weeks, I’ve decided that I’m going to highlight the not-so-fun parts/more challenging aspects about being abroad.
I finally embraced the American student studying abroad aesthetic and brought a suitcase to class. A carry-on—lest anyone be alarmed; I am not traveling back to the U.S. for another seven weeks—and the class was short and the coming day long, so it followed me and a bag of “Literatura Freiburg” loose-leaf tea (Mitbringsel: small gift for my host) to the train station, where we bought a cappuccino and a bottle of back-up water and waited for the ICE 370 to Prague.
Italy is famous for its cuisine, Spain for the nightlife, Switzerland for the scenic view, but I didn’t know what was Hungary famous for. The only thing I was looking forward to doing in Budapest was to take a thermal bath. It is so relieving to know that you are going to a location to relax and do not have a time-crunched itinerary.
Tuesday, June 4
Coming from a rural background and never having lived in a big city before, I was worried about adjusting to a more urban lifestyle by coming to live in Vienna. I didn't know how my Appalachian identity would fit in here. Remarkably, it fits in pretty well.
Back home, so much is different from my life here. I have to drive to get anywhere back home, the supermarkets have all I need in one stop (cosmetics, groceries, and pharmacy), and it's quiet since there is not much to do during the week. But luckily, despite its size Vienna still feels kind of like a large town.
Being an introvert in Japan is an extremely humbling experience. Everything is new and overwhelms the heck out of me. It was my first time traveling alone to a new place, and I remember having a panic attack as soon as I boarded the first plane. Not only that, BAM! Orientation started immediately, so I had to deal with new people and new locations.