What has made my study abroad experience even more special was that we are given a week long break during the middle of the semester. It serves as a great time for us to travel for a longer period of time with new friends we have made on the trip, and it is also a great time for our families to be able to travel over here. It is so amazing to be able to see our families and have the opportunity to spend some time with them. Several students’ families came over to visit them for the break and some went to Paris and different cities throughout Italy. Another group of students went to London, Ireland, and Switzerland. My parents decided to come and visit me for the midterm break and I loved having some time to travel with them and experience a small piece of Europe together. My parents first flew into Rome and I took a train from Albano to Rome to see them. Since we only had one day in Rome, I took them to my favorite part of the city. I took them to The Colosseum because it is my favorite part of the ancient Roman Empire that still stands today. We took a tour of The Colosseum and I got to tell them as much about the structure that I had learned so far. For the rest of the midterm break, we decided to travel outside of Italy. I have always wanted to travel to Germany and so my family and I decided to travel there. We first flew into Munich and spent two days there. I loved Germany from the beginning, it is so beautiful and I love the language and the people are so nice. In Munich we rented a car so that we could travel throughout southern Germany via their famous autobahn. This may have been my favorite part about the break, it was amazing to see Germany’s beautiful countryside and driving through the small towns along the way to our next destination. We traveled from Munich to Rothenburg and stayed one night there. My parents actually have artwork of Rothenburg hanging in our living room that my dad’s mom brought back from Germany. I was an amazing experience to get to see it in real life. From Rothenburg we drove to Wurzberg. I loved Wurzberg in particular because it is mainly a college town and I was fun to get to talk to a lot of the university students I met in restaurants and stores. From there we drove to Frankfurt where my dad was born, I loved a lot of the shopping Frankfurt it was also wonderful to see where my dad was born. He hasn’t been back to Frankfurt since he left when he was one year old. So it was great to go to Frankfurt with him and my mom. Lastly we drove from Frankfurt to Prague, Czech Republic. I was blown away by the beauty of Prague. Before going to Prague, I did not much, if anything at all, about the city. And it was such an adventure to experience a new culture like that. I am so thankful that I got to go to a country that before this semester I would have never figured I would have visited.

Rothenburg, Germany