Inside Student Blogs

This week has been such a whirlwind. I just got back from my nine day trip through Florence, Rome, and Madrid. Then on Monday, we started classes, and I guess pretty unsurprisingly, I already have homework. But maybe I should recap my past week first. I think one really fortunate thing that students studying abroad can hope for is that they know other people studying abroad. I probably saved like about $150 dollars by stay with friends instead of staying at a hostel. I had planned most of my trip with my friend Ashley, who is also in my program in Vienna. But instead of Rome, she went to Livorno, a small costal city near Pisa, to meet up with her dad.

My first destination was Florence, which I would like to say is such a beautiful city. All that history and culture is just bunch up into this tiny little city. When I was there, I was able to see all the big sites like the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio. One of the days, we made our way up to Piazza Michelangelo. If you ever make the trip to Florence, this is definitely the spot to go to just look out over Florence. The view from up there is simply stunning. I unfortunately made the mistake of waiting till Monday to go see the David at the Academia and the Uffizi. Monday is the day all the museums close.

From Florence, I took a train to Rome to visit my friend from school who was studying abroad there. Unfortunately, classes had already started for him, and he was really busy, so I had to explore Rome by myself. My dad was really jealous and happy for me to go to Rome, because he said that Rome is definitely one of the cities in this world that everyone needs to visit sometime during their life. I don’t think I can disagree with that. Seeing all the old ruins from the Roman Forum and Coliseum were so surreal. Walking around Rome is really easy so I was able to make my way around quite easily also seeing landmarks like the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Vatican City.

My final destination was Madrid. I think enjoyed Madrid the most, although it was the city I saw the least of. I think by the time we got to Madrid, we were both pretty exhausted. But what I did experience in Madrid was the food and the nightlife. Tapas are just so good, and extremely inexpensive. The clubs are also kind of insane. The one we went to was seven floors!

But in all honesty, I am just glad to back to in Vienna. I named the post what it is because I think Vienna is perfect the way it is. After doing some traveling to other major European cities, some are either too big or small, or too touristy, where I think Vienna is like a smaller big city, that isn’t overwhelmed with tourists. Until next time, Auf Wiedersehen!

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