London Visuals

Vienna

The buildings here are different here than back in my hometown. There aren't any skyscrapers but rather the they were all about the same height. They all have a contemporary style to them rather than Gothic. The landscaping is in order and is consistent. I am not sure what I expected but it wasn't this. The city is smaller city than it appears to be especially considering it is one of the smallest cities in Austria. There was a big culture shock in Vienna mostly because of the language barrios (they speak German). Those that did speak English knew very little or if they did it was hard to understand with the accent and how quickly they talk. The city itself just seems so busy, people just seem to be constant go, go, go. One thing that astonished me was that you had to pay to drink water at a restraint and also to use public bathrooms. This is because they are a capitalist country and they think why I should let you use my facilities if you won't give me anything for it (unless of course you dine in). I am just so used to having those kinds of things in America be free to me that I really took it for granted without even realizing it.

The Emotional Rollercoaster

  When I first found out that I was going to be studying abroad in Great Britain, I was feeling a lot of different emotions, and some of those emotions changed during the course of my stay and some stayed the same. At first I was excited that I was even getting to go at all. I didn't feel like I was actually going to go until I actually was on the airplane getting here. I thought someone was going to say to me "oh just kidding you not actually going, you have to stay home this summer." I was nervous about a lot of things like flying for the first time or not making a new friends. I was put more at ease about the group of students I was going with the more we got into the swing of things. At first I only recognized faces and knew a few names in the pre-departure meetings and now that we have spent so much time together I know everyone and I feel like I had a good group of students to study overseas with. I don't think I can say that I was ever upset or mad at anyone else in the group at any point so far. A lot of us I feel were having the same types of emotions and such that we were able to express them amongst each other. I am an introvert, so I have learned that if I am mad at a situation to just remove myself for a while and go up to my room and let myself calm down so I don't do anything too irrational. There are definitely some times where I think we have grown tired of each other, but that is normal when you spend a lot of time with people. It's kind of like family, you argue with the ones you love the most because in the end they have to forgive you. Any emotions we do end up having were either rationally hashed out between the people it involved or they just wrote about it or expressed it in some kind of way and kept it to themselves. There has been a lot of anger starting among some people because of different views on different things but everyone is entitled to their own opinions and if someone doesn't like it then they can change the subject. I think just being able to adjust to how everyone on this trip acts towards different situations makes it easier to adapt to everything else that may happen because of it.

Prague

  The buildings around Prague kind of remind me of small town houses, but most are like small businesses. I never really had any high expectations for Prague because I am not going to lie, it is a country I did not know much about but I loved it a lot, I was not disappointed and I would definitely go back. I guess if I really did have to describe what my expectations for Prague was, it would be like a city with large/ high buildings. But that was not the case a lot of them were about average height. I did notice that in Prague there is not a lot of landscaping. It seemed like there were a lot of buildings that were closely put together and what little landscaping there was, was at a park or in a garden. A decent amount of Prague had something Gothic to it that helps learn about the culture. I didn't realize how much Gothic things there are in most of Europe until I learned what it was for something to be considered Gothic. At this point if you don't know just look for buildings that have points on the top like a triangle and if they look really old. Some of the cultural insights I have learned from this critique are overall just realizing for yourself how different stuff is everywhere you go. I think when I get back home that because of this trip I will realize how not everyone does things exactly the way I do, especially in other states when there may be more farmland than city or vice versa.