Throwback Thursday: Studying abroad in Vienna, Austria

Growing up I always wanted to study abroad. I'm not sure how or why it stuck in my head, but it was something I wanted to do if the opportunity was presented and possible.  My brother studied abroad in Zurich, Switzerland for a year and my parents and I flew over for 2 weeks over Christmas in 2004.  It was the first time to Europe for me and my Dad and we had an amazing time.  I was a senior in high school and my brother was a junior in college.  It was the last big family trip we did together.  I'm so happy I was old enough to remember it and enjoy it.

We flew into Zurich and spent a few nights in the city.  My brother stayed in his apartment and my family stayed in a hotel a quick strassenbahn ride away.  After a few days in Zurich, we headed to Munich, Schliersee, Innsbruck, Interlochen, Zermatt and back to Zurich.  It was an amazing two weeks!

I studied German in high school and college (I minored in it) and after visiting Switzerland, I was itching to study in a German speaking country.  I didn't want to go to Switzerland since my brother was there and for some reason I didn't want to go to Germany, so I decided on Vienna, Austria.  It was an international program but the program had their own school, rather than going to a European University.  I would have loved to do the latter, but most of the classes did not transfer to my finance major and I would not have graduated in 4 years if I did that.  To prep for the semester away, I took some finance classes the summer before and focused on my German minor while abroad.

I went to Vienna knowing one person.  Alyssa and I took a few German classes together at Miami and had some mutual friends.  We started chatting about our study abroad (once our mutual friend told us we were applying for the same program) and coordinated our travel.  We ended up living together with another girl we met on the program as well.  The three of us have remained very close and they both came to my bachelorette party this year and are coming to my wedding (two of the guys will be representing at the wedding too!).

I absolutely loved Vienna.  The history and culture were so rich; there was always something or somewhere to explore.  I loved the Schonbrunn and the Hofburg (Palaces), Museums Quartier, Stephansdom, the heurigeres in Grinzig and most importantly, the Christkindlmarkt at the Rathaus (Christmas Market at City Hall).

Vienna was an amazing semester.  We lived in our own apartment in a building full of every age group.  We took the u-bahn to school every day. We grocery shopped. We traveled everywhere.  We were broke but had the time of our lives!