Austria
On May 9th, 2017, I departed on my journey to study abroad in Salzburg, Austria, which was partly motivated by willingness to improve my proficiency in German. However, for as long as I can remember myself, I always wanted to visit Austria. During the early childhood years, my grandmother told me stories about my great-great grandfather who was from Lower Austria, and the dream to visit has never left me. When I arrived to Ausria, I noticed many similarities between the Ukrainian and Austrian culture, especially, the cuisine. It has probably something to do with a fact that part of Ukraine where I am from has been under the control of the Austrian-Hungarian Emprire for more than 100 years.
Every day I walked by the Salzsach River to College for my classes. The view of the city opened as you walked upstream toward the center of the city. It is quite amazing how quickly the river flows from the mountains.
My journey began when I moved in with my roommate to an Austrian family. The moment we met, we conversed in German and after about 20 minutes of speaking in German, my tongue started to hurt from continuous attempts to pronounce properly German words. Nonetheless, they were impressed with my level of fluency, as I was the only one in my study abroad group to be able to speak German. I often needed to approach strangers to ask for directions, order food in the restaurants, and buy things in the supermarkets in German. Prior to coming to Austria, I thought that almost every Austrian speaks English, however, that stereotype faded when I met at least five Austrians that did not speak English.
My love of the mountains prompted me to scale Untersberg, the highest mountain that stands at 1,973 m (6,473 ft). The views that open from the top are breath-taking, although, I did not expect to see snow on the top in June.
In Hallstatt, a small village with ancient history, I have seen a traditional practice of skull painting. It began as a way to commemorate the dead that could not be buried in the town due to lack of space. When an existing grave was reused for a new burial, the skull or bones were transferred from the grave to the charnel house or ossuary as part of a second funeral. The identity of the deceased family member was preserved by decorative paintings and inscriptions.
Still, the views in Hallstatt are mesmerizing. In fact, tourists liked the place so much that Chinese are building a replica of the town in China with all its attributes.
There is no other place on Earth like Vienna where every corner of the street has some special place in history. Vienna has many opera houses and is well known for its music legacy. You can find just about any form of architecture in the city from Contemporary to Hellenistic. Vienna has always been a fertile soil for artists and intellectuals, and a lot of the creativity and big ideas have happened in the city’s numerous coffeehouses. There’s something special about these places that makes one conducive to creativity. Also, many international organizations are based in Vienna like the UN. It is clean and safe and the city has a very high quality of life. No wonder it is one of the best cities to live in.
You can easily imagine that you are in Greece if you stand close to the Austrian Parliament building. The Austrian Parliament, being a legislative branch of the government, plays a center role in Austrian politics. Its National Council is directly elected by the people, while its Federal Council is appointed by the State diets. When it is time for new elections, the parliament becomes a battle ground of political parties for the votes of the citizens.
More importantly, the Federal President and the Parliament keep each other in check to make sure that both governmental institutions act in a rightful manner, according to the Constitution. The Parliament building itself is meant to represent democratic form of governance, as you can see by the Greco-Roman style. Anyone can visit the building who wishes to see how the parliamentarian session works. This wide accessibility tells you about the direct connection and openness between the government and its citizens.
Italy
While in Austria, we had an opportunity to travel on our own. The three students from UF decided to tour Italy and visit Venice and Florence. In Venice, we stayed for three days at Airbnb in Venezia Mestre, the host was very kind and met us on the train station to give advice and guide us to her apartment, which was located about 20 kilometers from the city of Venice, that also meant we had to take a bus to get to the city. The night before departing from Venice to Florence at 7:25 A.M., we returned late from our travels and went to sleep at 2 A.M. It is not hard to guess that nobody set more than one alarm to get going in time, and it is 6:52 A. M. our host is knocking on the door for check out, all our things are in different places around the apartment, and we had to catch a train that was about 50 minutes away (if you count the time waiting for a bus, and then getting to the train station).
Fortunately, the host knew a taxi driver that arrived at the apartment building in 3 minutes. We were on our way to the city of Venice at 7:01 A.M. However, my friend Josh, suddenly tells me that he forgot his passport in the drawer. I barely made it to the train while Josh returned for the passport. Thus, I went to Florence on my own. It is there that I learned to be resourceful and adaptive. Traveling alone is a journey of discovery of your inner self that I would advise everybody to take at least once in a lifetime. Also, if you plan to visit Florence, then do so during the first Sunday of June, when state museums have a free entrance, and you can visit places like Galleria Uffizi, Galleria dell’Accademia, Palazzo Pitti, and Medici Tombs.
Czech Republic
My experience in Prague was extraordinary. I went to Czech Republic to visit my family friend, yet as any student traveling abroad a budget is something to consider when choosing your travel destination and the cost of transportation is one of the things to take into account. I tried to take the cheapest possible way to get from Salzburg to Prague and decided to travel with Bla Bla Car - a carpooling service that connects you with somebody traveling in the same direction to share the cost of journey. When the driver picked me up from train station in Salzburg, he chose the fastest route though Germany instead of going straight through the Austrian-Czech border (because Autobahns do not have speed limits you have to abide by, unlike Austria). The driver was Czech and spoke bad English, but I could pick up certain words in Czech because of similarity to Ukrainian. Also, there was another passenger with us — a Czech girl who spoke some English.
When we got to the German-Austrian border, we stopped at a border check established after a refugee crisis, and the German police ordered us to show our passports then told us to drive to the station for check-up. Suddenly, on a way to check-point the driver switches places with a Czech girl, who's frustration prevented her from driving smoothly right to the police tent. The police saw everything though video surveillance and ordered full-body and bag check with questions of our purpose of gathering together. They took our passports and after an our the police officer comes back and takes me and a Czech girl to the side only to tell us that our driver cannot legally drive because his driver's license was suspended. That meant that somebody had to drive a manual transmission car from Passau, Germany to the Czech border). Fortunately, I knew how to drive one but more in theory and in practice and the Czech girls skills were rusty at best. So, until the Czech border (60 kilometers), I was driving poorly on the autobahn. After we crossed the border, the driver and I switched places, and we reached Prague in ten hours — a trip that should have taken 4 hours. From this experience, I learned about cross-cultural communication in stressful situations. Also, the German Polizei were very polite.
Germany
Munich is where my plane landed for the Study Abroad program in Austria. We spent unforgettable four days there and visited Nuremberg, various places around Munich like the BMW museum, and the English Garden. Also, I was impressed that many taxi cars were high-end premium BMWs and Mercedes-Benz. One time, I found a nearest taxi to drive me back to the hotel at night, and I was astonished with the kindness of the driver with whom I had a chance to talk about the way things are in Germany as well as hear his personal story. In the end, when I told him that I was a car enthusiast and enjoyed the ride in his Mercedes E-class, he stopped at the nearest car park and let me drive the car around the parking lot, leaving fond memories of that experience.
