Traveling

Budapest,  Hungary

So, we were supposed to put two pictures on the side of our blog as part of the set-up process. The first picture I chose was a picture of a girl running. I run a lot and enjoy it, simple decision. However, the second picture I chose was a picture of the rooftops of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, taken from the top of the Old Town Hall. I chose this picture because running represented the present, and this photo of Prague represents the future. This summer, I will be visiting Europe for the first time on Dr. Ryan's Eastern/Central Europe trip. I have only been out of the country once before, only going as far as Canada, so this is going to be a whole new experience for me. I have spent the entirety of my life thus far in the "New World", where no building has been standing for longer than 400 years. Visiting Europe, a place where every city has a million stories from thousands of years of history, is going to be amazing. To an American suburban teenager, Europe is a magical land of winding streets and beautiful buildings and foreign languages. Sure, I've stood on the roads of Boston in the wake of American revolutionaries, which is very cool. But Europe is foreign and untraveled by me. With its huge cities and long, complex history, it has a mystery and sense of epicness I can't wait to encounter.
We will be visiting Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, and the Auschwitz concentration camp. Not all these places have happy stories to tell and beautiful sights to see. However, even the largest crime scene on earth is somewhere I am glad to be visiting. Though it won't be a cheerful visit by any means, it will be an awakening one, and it will give me a feeling of being part of the world in a way I could never get by reading of the past in a book in a classroom. Not only will this visit be an incredible experience in shaping who I am, hopefully it will begin a life-long journey of traveling. This trip will be important because it will open my eyes to the significance of experiencing other places and other cultures.Traveling is something that I would like to continue for the rest of my life, but I need a starting point. Hopefully, this summer will be it.