Europe – Page 137

One of the most incredible sights in Scotland is the Isle of Skye. The Isle of Skye, or ‘Cloud Island’ in Old Norse, is the second-largest of Scotland’s islands located in the highlands. It is only 50 miles long thus many famous sites can be explored in one trip. So, when my boyfriend came to visit last week, that is exactly what we did.

Many of my friends studying abroad have had members of their family come out to visit them. Being so close to my family I wanted them to come visit me so badly so that I could show them all the amazing things I have seen since being here. However, some of my family do not have passports and the others can’t afford a trip to Europe. But, by saving money and doing extensive planning my boyfriend was able to go on a week-long trip to see me. Of course I showed him around Glasgow by going to our favorite restaurants, museums, and exploring the University. We took a trip to Edinburgh to see the Christmas Markets and even though I had just been there the week before I still bought more gifts for myself and others. I also tried mulled wine for the first time and fell in love with the fruity drink.

Blog Post 8 — Glasgow Riverside Museum, Tall Ship

In the middle of the week we took a bus to Inverness where we stayed for two nights. Inverness was a beautiful town in the Highlands and I fell in love with it the minute we got off the bus. The buildings were old like Glasgow but since it was a town in the country it was much less crowded, cleaner, and more small-town. Being from Montana, I love the country small-town vibes. There were Christmas decorations everywhere on the streets, the people were so kind, and the shops were incredible. We found an old bookstore that is nearly as old as the town itself. When we walked into the shop with all wooden walls and floors I instantly smelled the wood furnace heating the place. It reminded me so much of my great-grandparents’ ranch in Montana, I couldn’t help but smile and stare at the fire while my boyfriend sifted through the old books.

We stayed at the Kingsmills hotel near the edge of town which was just as beautiful. The staff was so nice and let us check into our room early since we took the morning bus into town. Our room was big and a part of it was in one of the small towers coming off the building.

The second day in Inverness we took a bus tour through Isle of Skye. We saw the Urquhart Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, Kyle of Lochalsh, River Sligachan, Portree, Old Man of Storr, and the Kilt Rock. It was a beautiful trip and our driver stopped at a few places to allow pictures of the amazing gorge and cliffs near the sea. The driver also brought a huge bag of carrots and stopped to let us feed some highland cows near the road. I can’t decide which part of the tour was my favorite because every small excursion was amazing. It was the best thing I have seen in Scotland so far and it meant so much to me that I could share the adventure with my boyfriend.

The highlands were interesting to me because even though the basic Scottish culture is still the same I noticed differences between the people in Glasgow versus the people in Inverness and Portree. The highlanders had more of a small-town attitude. I am not sure how to describe it best, but it reminded me of my cousins, aunts, and uncles in Montana. They took so much pride in the place they lived and it seemed like when you grow up in the highlands you never leave and to them there is nothing wrong with that. It seemed like accents were a bit thicker and just different than people in Glasgow but not harder to understand. Though, I may just be getting used to how people talk in Scotland.

My boyfriend and I’s two-year anniversary was on November 21st and he came to visit just a week later. We said the trip was to celebrate our anniversary and Christmas since he would be out of town visiting his family for Christmas when I return to the States. At first, I was worried that it would bug me not getting him a Christmas or anniversary present, but that was not the case at all. This trip is the best present we could have ever given each other and it is memories we will carry forever.

I am currently sitting in my dorm feeling a bit under the weather so I thought that I would take a moment to explain the program that I decided to go with when choosing where I wanted to go and why I chose this program. There is a lot when it comes to studying abroad and I won’t lie when I say that it can get a bit overwhelming at points. You first have to decide that you do want to study abroad and from there you have meetings to attend to, people to meet in order to be able to first choose where you want to go, then you get to the process of deciding where you want to go. However, when it comes to deciding that, you have to decide a layer of things, such as if the program/location offers major/minor fulfillments, the level of support that you would like, language requirements, GPA and more. I remember when I had gotten the first things done and I was deciding where I wanted to go I either wanted to go to Japan but when I learned that it was more competitive and lower levels of support I decided that maybe it wouldn’t be the best option for me. I knew I had always wanted to explore Europe (I had gone to England when I was in 8th grade) so I narrowed down my options in general location. I had taken Spanish for a long time so an easier location if language would have been a requirement was Spain but I decided that I wanted something different and I wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t really a top choice for a lot of other students. England was an option but location-wise within England it wasn’t ideal but on my application I put England as my second choice. Then what really got me thinking was the level of support I would like in a program. If you are going to be studying abroad, you will get this explained to you in your meetings but generally there will be a scale of whether a program is no support, low support, medium support and high support or something close to that. Basically it’s how much you would like your program to be involved. I prefered something medium to high because I am very nervous when it comes to being out of my comfort zone.

That’s when I stumbled upon AIFS (American Institute for Foreign Studies) in Austria. I will admit that not once had I considered Austria at first. However, when reading through the program and reading all of the positive comments made about the location and program itself I decided, why not? Though Austria speaks mainly German and I had no experience with speaking German, there was no language requirement for the program so I thought that I would be okay. Then I looked at pictures of Austria and Salzburg mainly as that is where the program resides. I have lived in Denver Colorado for my whole life so when I looked at the pictures of Salzburg online I was surprised to see that Salzburg looked similar to Denver with the mountains being so close by. I’ve grown up with mountains and that is what makes a place home for me so to see that there were mountains nearby put me at ease.

Going back to the support area of the program, AIFS is at a high level of support which has been great for me. They had planned out things for us to do and day excursions and weekend trips for us to go on. We went to Munich in Germany, Vienna, Prague in Czechia, and then Innsbruck. In between those trips we had outings that we could go on. Some of those outings included: Austrian pastry tasting, a tour of some of the lakes and mountains, visiting a local sausage stand, an Austrian cooking course, going to the Christmas Market and many more fun things. These outings really pushed you to get to meet your peers and to get out and do something which is something that I struggled with in the past. Because of those outings, I have made some excellent friends and connections with some of the students from the other schools. The program in general is pretty small at around 29 students total which is nice because you can meet everyone pretty easily. The staff working in the study center are all very nice and are always willing to help out if needed. The perk of being in a high support program is that they do give you the locations of the doctors that speak english and tips about a variety of things such as travel, safety, food etc.

While the program is not set on a school campus and is very different than what I was used to back in the States with needing to walk to different buildings for classes, the study center is just in a random building with two main study rooms that are used for teaching. When you are in between classes whether you have another class right after your first class or if there is another class in between your first class and your second class, there is an area with chairs and tables that many students sit at in between classes so that is another opportunity to get to know your fellow classmates and make some new friends.

From the beginning AIFS has always encouraged students getting together and even push you to interact with others with the day trips or with field trips during the classes. I made my first few friends literally on the first day of arrival since they had set up a city tour for the students who made it on time (there were some students who didn’t make it until later). That is something that I appreciate a lot because as someone who doesn’t really enjoy putting myself out there all that much, the program pushed me to do so and now I have many friends from DU and from the other schools who I will definitely stay in contact with when we all return in two weeks time.

Overall, my take of AIFS is very positive and I would definitely recommend just checking Salzburg, Austria out. I did not think of it at first but I am glad that I did now. The program staff are all wonderful, the teachers are also amazing and you meet some amazing people. I have no regrets in where I ended up and I am also very sad to be leaving soon.

Category: Europe

Take Me Home, Country Roads

AIFS – Austria