by Zachary Stringham| Spring 2025 |
This semester, I studied abroad in Leipzig, Germany. During my time there, I traveled to many different cities in four different countries. My regular week consisted of school and exploring Leipzig, Monday through Thursday, and traveling places on the weekends. Two of the big trips that I took were a week-long trip to Turkey and a week-long trip to Italy. I took the trip to Italy alone during my free travel break, which was essentially our spring break. While in Italy, I traveled to Venice, Florence, and Rome, and saw so many famous sites and statues. In Venice, I was able to see the city and explore the canals while also seeing the beginning of Carnival. I went the weekend before Carnival started. It was so cool getting to eat the local food and see all of the people dressed up in costumes. In Florence, I went to two different museums and saw the statue of David along with the Duomo Cathedral and other large sites. In Rome, I was able to walk around the city and I saw the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, and St. Peter’s Basilica during the Jubilee year.
During the week-long trip to Turkey, I saw Istanbul and Cappadocia. This was an educational field trip, so the entire group was together, and it was all scheduled and planned ahead of time. This allowed me to experience both solo travel and group travel. In Istanbul, I saw the Hagia Sophia along with a ton of other historical buildings and mosques such as the Blue Mosque. In Cappadocia, the group went around and toured the underground caves the Christians made when they were being persecuted. This was really cool to see the way that Christians coped with being attacked back in that time.
I learned so much as I studied abroad, including lots of history and many things about myself. Leipzig is full of history. There are museums everywhere you turn, and I got to go to many of them because of the field trips that my public history class went on. My favorite museum was probably the Museum of Fine Art because I am somewhat of an artist, so seeing all of the intricate paintings was very impressive.
This experience affected me in many ways, but my biggest takeaway has to do with friends. When I began the study abroad program, I was excited to go see cool historical places. However, as I traveled, I realized that the only thing that made my experience at a grand place like the Roman Colosseum any different from a tiny German church was the people that I was with. This revelation made it so that I paid attention to the difference between group traveling and solo traveling, and I have decided that group traveling is the best. Although solo travel is fun because you get to do whatever you want whenever you want, I discovered that what makes traveling fun is not the places that you go but rather the quality of the company that is there to share it with you. That’s what really makes life entertaining.
