After the school year ended and the last month wound down I got a chance to reflect upon some experiences that I had while I was abroad on my program. I also got a chance to take a few more trips in this free time that I was granted.
I got a chance to take a trip to Berlin for a few days, followed by Krakow in Poland. This last from the 10th to the 18th of May.
In Berlin I got to see the Berlin Wall, followed by the Brandenburg Tor and much of the Tiergarten on the first night. I then made it out to checkpoint Charlie and their Cold War museum there the next morning, followed by the Berlin Dom and museum island, where I got to see three of the five museums. The next day was the Holocaust memorial and Jewish museum, both moving experiences.
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I was mostly interested in going to Poland in order to see the unique culture that the people there have, as well as some of the important places in Pope John Paul II’s life. I arrived on May 13th, staying until the 17th. I saw a bunch of unique places, ate pierogies, and met a few great friends.
The theater has been the main center for Polish culture for more than a century, as this is how Poles have been able to show their past when it was not allowed in their schools and universities by law.
The Jagiellonian university has been another important piece of Krakow since the 14th century. It survived the many different regimes that ruled Poland for numerous centuries.
The salt mine at Wieliczka is definitely worth the trip! There are many miles of mines that run underneath the area, and you can see some of best parts of them, including this chapel that some of the workers made.
I then made a trip with my parents to a number of other places in Europe during our last few weeks here. We got to see Paris, the Alsace region where some of our family is from, Baden-baden, Fusen and the Neuschwanstein castles, Salsburg in Austria, Nurnburg, the Marksburg castle, Cologne and its cathedral, as well as many other places.
As my time here closes I think its definitely good to reflect on how thankful I am to Texas A&M, my parents, and the many others who were able to help make this trip possible. All of the people who contributed have given me the best prolonged experience of my life. I know that tons of people never get the chance to have this kind of an experience but I strongly recommend that anyone who has the chance does so as soon as they can. You’ll love every moment of it.
Auf wiedersehen!
Stephen Harden