Long Study Tour: Prague/Vienna Extravaganza

Something that genuinely never occurred to me before spending a lot of time in foreign countries is that… English names for countries and cities usually aren’t the names that the native language has for their place. 

Prague is actually Praha. Who would have thought?

Vienna = Wien, of all things. And apparently Wiener Dog just means Viennese Dog. That at least adds up, because there were so many freaking wiener dogs running around that city. 

The Czech Republic = Czechia, and hey, did you know that Czechoslovakia doesn’t actually exist anymore? Maybe I’m late to this piece of knowledge. Someone feel free to criticize me for that one.

After that brief moment of revelation, let’s get into the absolute coolness of study tours. Studying abroad is fantastic because you get to learn in and about an area of the world you never would have experienced otherwise. Much like the Grinch’s heart, I think my mind has expanded threefold from my moment of arrival in Copenhagen to now. What’s even better about DIS specifically is that whatever you’re mainly learning about, they’ll just… take you to the place that has all the cool stuff about that topic!

It’s a really tailored experience that allows all of us to interactively learn about the stuff we really love. As a person in the Art and Cinema Core Course, I got to visit Vienna (home of some of the greatest and most innovative art movements in the world) and Prague (the European capital of super cool film, basically). 

And if I can try to convince anyone to do the European Art and Cinema Core for a second, I’ll just let you know this: we got to spend all of our time either in museums or watching movies. Really a creative dream-come-true.

Vienna was full of the most beautiful art pieces I’ve ever seen:

Prague is one of my new favorite places, not to mention the inspiration I got from learning about all their innovations in film:

“Why do I make movies? I’m looking for terra incognita, a land on which no filmmaker has yet set foot, a planet where no director has planted his flag of conquest, a world that exists only in fairy tales.”

Karel Zeman

Plus, in Prague, my class and I got to go to a screening of the new Icelandic movie Summerlight… and Then Comes the Night. The author of the book that the movie is based on gave an introduction as well. I learned so much about Icelandic culture and attitudes just from watching this, and again, I just love being surrounded by so many creative endeavors for a whole week. And if you want to know my review of the movie, you know where to look (ava.mckinney on Letterboxd 😉 ).

Here’s one takeaway from this trip that I think applies to all people, regardless of whether or not you’re about to study abroad. Traveling to a new place with a specific focus can actually be really worthwhile. So often, going on a trip can be overwhelming because you just know you’ll never be able to really immerse yourself in all that a place has to offer. So, like a study tour, if you decide to travel somewhere with specific goals in mind (eg. art, film, cuisine, even learning about maybe a specific person), you might realize that you feel much less overwhelmed and much more knowledgeable by the end of the trip! And after all, knowledge is one of the most exciting and cool things to gain from the world.

Okay everyone. Enjoy your week, and I’ll get back to enjoying being in the comforting cradle of Copenhagen once again. 

All the best,

Inspired and Tired Ava