By ebetts
There's something to be said for studying in a more isolated place. You concern yourself with exploring a country rather than a continent. But for many people, part of the draw of spending a semester in Europe is the opportunity to travel to much more than your host country (thank you Eurozone). It's definitely easy to get caught up in and overwhelmed by the myriad of travel possibilities. Four to six months can go by in the blink of an eye and your weekends are numbered. But as amazing as seeing everywhere from Bucharest to Oslo to Paris seems, my biggest piece of advice would be to shorten your laundry list.
I think our generation has an addiction to numbers. We make lists of things we've done and places we've been then share that with the world on every social media we like or vaguely understand. There's nothing wrong with this - personally I enjoy living vicariously through people's virtual adventures. My point here is that there's a reason you chose whatever city/town/rural village to study in so you might as well spend a good amount of time getting to know it.
Instead of jet-setting for Easter weekend, I decided to stay put in Berlin. And let me tell you, Stay-cation 2k15 has been nothing but a success. I realized when I first got to Berlin I was so concerned with acclimating and making this city my new home that I never let myself just be a tourist. So in the past 72 hours I have gone to the zoo, visited the Victory Tower, explored Easter markets, wandered aimlessly through courtyards, eaten fantastic food and overall finally discovered the Berlin I was looking for.
As amazing as traveling is, it's also time consuming, exhausting and quite a strain on the purse strings. So to all you current and future globe trotters out there don't forget that staying in place can be just as much of an adventure.