Pages and Pages of Paige's Tales Abroad

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from Poland.  We have only really been learning about the negative events that have occurred there. I was excited to form my own opinion. Our class loaded the bus and drove about two hours to the Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside of Krakow.  We descended the 54 flights of stairs to one of three levels we would eventually explore.  Our tour was around two hours and we still only saw 1% of the mine.  The mine opened in the 13th century making it one of the oldest salt mines in operation.  I didn't know that the term "salary" came from being paid in salt at that time.  Our guide encouraged us to lick the walls to taste the salt.  We was unsure at first, but before we knew it we were all sampling the walls at different times during the tour.  We also had the chance to sample concentrated brine which tasted like very salty water. The different chambers in the mine were beautiful.  Some had live animati...

Free weekends are so fun because we get to go anywhere we want (as long as we are back by class time on Monday).  This free weekend we decided to head to Berlin, Germany. Kelsey, Annie, Jenny, Zach, Faviola, and I all boarded the four-hour train together, but we wouldn't stay together for long. The train was already very full.  One fun thing about the train company we booked is they oversell their trains.  We all scattered to try to find seats.  I think we walked the entire length of the train. Twice. Jenny and I gave up and sat on the stairs at the end of one of the cars for about an hour.  By that time, enough people had reached their destinations and exited the train.  Zach came to get us and we were reunited in a compartment together.  Once we reached our stop, Kelsey was the expert navigator and told us we only needed to go three metro stops to get to our hostel.  We had purchased metro tickets numerous times before, but we must have ...

Where my last blog ended is right where this one picks up.  After saying goodbye to our classmates, Jenny and I took six stops on a water taxi back to the main train station early the next morning.  We were taking in our last minute views of Venice.  Train stations have become home to many of us on this trip, but this one seemed a little different.  Our tickets were through the company Italo and we found a representative to help us out.  We saw that our ticket to Rome started at a different station.  The representative said it was no problem and told us that our train actually started at this station and said it wasn't necessary to go to the other one just to get on the same train.  Our spring break on our own was already off to a great start.  We were still about twenty minutes early for our train so Jenny and I set up camp in the Italo lounge area.  We were just taking it easy when I saw a guy walk in with a Creighton Blue Jays jacke...

I found that the perfect recipe for our class trip to Vienna, Austria and Venice, Italy included sundresses, palaces, art museums, and gondolas.  We heard from study abroad groups past that this was “THE Trip” of this program, and we couldn’t wait to get started. We left the dorms bright-eyed and ready to start our two-week spring break.  Jan retrieved us from the dorms with a surprise.  His son, Damian, would be joining us on our adventures. Damian is twelve and his job was to count us regularly to make sure we were all together.  I am surprised that one of us hadn’t been assigned that job earlier, honestly. Damian made sure that 26 of us were on the bus and we were off.  The four hours to Vienna flew by.  The countryside was gorgeous heading south to Austria.  The bus ride went something just like this: sleep for 30 minutes, write three postcards (I still have a problem with buying way too many), and wa...