This time last year I was blessed with the travel opportunity of a lifetime: my aunt had granted me the ability to backpack throughout Europe as a high school graduation gift. At the time I had never left the country before, so a trip that included multiple different countries over the time span of two and a half weeks seemed like a dream. The trip began in London and ended in Rome, everything in between was decided on a day to day basis.

London was the first stop on our eighteen day excursion. This eased us into a different country because there is no language barrier and things are mostly the same as in America. Here we witnessed the changing of the guards, took tours around the city of London, and went on the London Eye. This stop was almost exactly what I had assumed it would be.

The next country we visited was France. My aunt surprised me with a hotel room that had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower and to this day still can not put into words how beautiful it looked when it twinkled at night. We climbed up the thousands of stairs to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower, visited the Lovre, and ate crepes for almost every meal.

Amsterdam was an interesting place to visit. We took a tour through the city which included the Red Light District. Just that area alone is enough to remind you that you’re no longer in America. It was interesting to see how the general population still remained seemingly the same with the less strict laws that were implemented. Here we also visited the Anne Frank House. This was a chilling experience because I remembered very clearly reading the story of Anne Frank when I was younger. It was jarring to actually see the house and the artifacts that survived the years with my own eyes.

Germany was one of the more chilling stops on the trip. Here we visited a concentration camp called Dachau. I had always found the Holocaust very interesting to learn about while I was in school, so the chance to see a concentration camp in person was one I simply could not pass up. From the moment you leave the welcoming center and begin the journey towards the concentration camp, the entire atmosphere of the environment and the people around you changes. We walked through the paths of the concentration camp guided by the audio tour, very well aware that the footsteps that had made these trails in the ground belonged to prisoners. We were allowed in the gas chambers, which, thankfully, were never used to take people’s lives. All my thoughts on Concentration Camps changed when I stepped foot on one.

The next location we visited was Austria. This was a break from the constant cities that we were surrounded in. We had jumped from London to Paris to Belgium to Amsterdam and Munich, perhaps the most “city” out of all of them. Austria was much more quiet and it was nice to spend time off in the mountains. One of the days, we had taken a ski lift to the top of the mountain in order to see the view of the country. On the way up I was worried that the clouds would block the view and we would not be able to see anything, but I was wrong. The clouds gently laid over the mountains, creating even more of a relaxing effect to each picture I had captured of the scene. This was a well needed break from the heavily populated cities we had been in.

The last stop on the trip was Italy. Here we stopped in two different places, Venice and Rome. Venice was one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been in. The buildings were all pretty and the canals throughout the city created a feel you could not find anywhere else. Here we took a boat ride throughout the city so that we could see it from all angles and the views from the water were just breathtaking. Rome was much more sight-seeing than Venice was. While in Rome, we went to the Coliseum and the Vatican. The atmosphere in Italy was enough to ensure that I would be coming back, whether for a Study Abroad program or just for more traveling time.

Some people dream of having the opportunity to backpack throughout Europe. I am grateful enough to have an Aunt that loves traveling in such a way that she decided to give me the trip of a lifetime as a graduation gift. Traveling is such an important aspect of life that I hope to continue to do as I get older. You cannot truly understand a culture until you’ve experienced it, and this trip helped me to become a much more open minded individual. I cannot thank a person enough for that.