Full Name: Leah Scalzadonna
Major: Journalism
Year: Senior
This past August, Leah Scalzadonna embarked on an 8 day trip to Germany, Italy and Switzerland with her longtime friends. She spent two days each in Munich, Venice, Lucerne and Frankfurt.
Her Campus (HC): What program did you go abroad with?
Leah Scalzadonna (LS): EF College Break.
HC: What made you decide to go abroad?
LS: I’ve always wanted to travel, so when my friends told me they booked this trip, I was dying to go with them! At first, I decided not to go because the trip was during the first week of school. After going back and forth for months, I decided that school will always be there and I can catch up, but I might not have the chance to go to Europe with some of my best friends ever again. Venice is literally sinking, so I had to take the opportunity while I had it.
HC: What was a typical day like abroad?
LS: Busy! We would have to be ready to go by 8 am, and take a bus to our destination for the day. A lot of the places we went to, like the Neuschwanstein Castle in Munich, were a few hours away and required a lot of walking to get to (my legs were sore for days after getting home!). Whenever we arrived somewhere, we would typically have a guided tour and then a couple hours of free time before we returned to our hotels and got ready to go out at night.
HC: What was your favorite place that you visited?
LS: Switzerland, by far. It’s so beautiful and clean there, even the air feels better!
HC: Looking back is there anything you would’ve done differently?
LS: I definitely would have packed differently. Germany had a heat wave when we went, and our hotel had no air conditioning or fan, and the windows were broken. Five of us shared one small room, so it wasn’t really an option to wear clothes twice in that kind of weather! Always bring a spare set of pajamas.
HC: Do you have a favorite meal that you ate while traveling?
LS: The pizza in Venice was amazing! I wasn’t hungry when we went to dinner but I ended up eating the entire thing anyway.
HC: What was the best part of your trip?
LS: My best friend lives in Germany, so getting to meet up with her in Frankfurt and have her show us around was really cool! There was also an amazing book store in Venice that was stuffed to the brims with all kinds of old books in tons of languages.They even had a staircase made of books! I could have spent hours there.
HC: What was the worst part of your trip?
LS: I got the flu the second day there! Luckily, pharmacists in Italy are more like doctors and I was able to find one on the way to Switzerland. But my fever was so high that I barely remember Italy and was unable to travel up the Swiss Alps. I definitely want to go back so I can get to the top one day!