When most people ask me about my semester abroad, the first question I get is, “Where did you travel?” Traveling is likely the priority of many students going abroad. Everyone wants their passports to reflect how they made the most of their experience. However, studying abroad does include another aspect, which is in its name: studying! While putting all schoolwork aside to travel the world may be tempting, it is unrealistic. When I was studying abroad in Prague, I took 5 classes all with varying degrees of course load. While I was still an active student, I made sure to leave time for traveling whether it was CEA CAPA excursions or personal trips. I used these trips to my advantage to inform and contextualize my work with my own experiences. 

Edinburgh, Scotland was one of my favorite places to visit as all the cobblestone streets and quaint alleys were unique and charming. 

One of the first personal trips I took in the semester was to Berlin, Germany with three friends. I learned a lot on this trip about balancing my life as a student and my personal experiences, particularly the importance of dedicating the school week to getting work done. When I would travel it was almost always from Friday to Sunday, so I made sure to have all of the work I needed to have done for the next week before I left. If I had any outstanding assignments, I loved using the train rides like the four-hour one from Prague to Berlin to grind out some work. On this trip to Berlin, I remember doing a reading assignment for a class, and on the train ride, two of my friends did a video assignment for their Czech class. Doing this not only helped the long train ride go by faster but it took any lingering thoughts of deadlines out of our heads so we could enjoy all Berlin has to offer.  

The Victory Column in Berlin commemorates Prussia's victory in the Second Schleswig War and was a highlight of my trip. 

In Prague, I took two classes focused on art at Anglo American University called Writing About Arts & Culture and Prague Art & Architecture. Due to these classes, I made sure to visit plenty of museums and architectural sites to inspire my assignments. One trip that stood out to me was when I went to Stockholm, Sweden with a friend. The city was beautiful, filled with Nordic architecture and history. We went to Moderna Museet which is a modern museum that was so inspiring to my writing and how I viewed modern art. This visit helped me with my schoolwork as it inspired me to delve deeper into modern art and how it affects its viewers.  

My favorite part of Stockholm was Old Town as it displayed all the historical architecture that makes the city unique.

There are two excursions within the Czech Republic that I took with CEA CAPA that particularly stand out to me. The first is Český Krumlov which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its historic castle and the town’s unique preservation of medieval Czech architecture. This was our overnight trip and became one of my favorite places I visited while abroad. While in Český Krumlov, we ate an authentic Czech meal, toured the castle, and did a walking tour of the town. I learned so much about rural Czech culture and how it has evolved. This trip allowed me to be more immersed in Czech culture which helped to inform my studies, especially in my Czech cultural classes. While the information wasn’t particularly curated for my coursework, the more I learned about the everyday life of Czech people and the history that has defined them, the more context I could gain about what I was learning.  

The hills of Kutna Hora were filled with beautiful medieval and gothic buildings. 

The other excursion I took with CEA CAPA was to the mining town of Kutna Hora. This trip was much more of a surprise to me because I didn’t know much about the town and what to expect. Similar to Český Krumlov, Kutna Hora is a smaller town but has a few main attractions that make it truly worthwhile to visit. During this excursion, we had a tour guide who took us first to a church completely decorated with real human bones which was fascinating and slightly disturbing. After, we had a walking tour of the town which included visiting the St. Barbara's Cathedral, a classic example of Czech gothic architecture.  

 The highlight of this trip was the mine tour where we went into a silver mine and got to walk through it. There were points where the mine was as short as four feet tall and as narrow as 15 inches wide. This made the tour so immersive and fun. While we may have banged our heads a few times, and my jeans got soaked, this excursion taught me much about another aspect of Czech culture. In many of my classes, we learned of the previous domination that mining had in the Czech workforce, so seeing it firsthand was so important to my studies by contextualizing it for me. Czech culture, whether it be the food culture highlighted by bread dumplings or the history that the people have lived through was truly highlighted in these CEA CAPA excursions.  

The view from a lookout point in Český Krumlov illustrates the charm of this medieval town. 

Whether it be the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, or the castles of the rural Czech Republic I gained firsthand knowledge of the many cultures of Europe through my travels. This was all made possible by my emphasis on my classwork to get it done throughout the week but also by letting it be informed by my experiences traveling. It is so important to make the most of your time abroad and by remembering that you are there as a student first it is not a hard feat to achieve. I look back fondly on all my trips abroad as it allowed me to gain a more well-rounded worldview of being a student.