A little while back, I had written about the best method for finding and booking hostels. Having had one of my best hostel experiences while traveling around Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, I decided to write a follow up post giving a little shout out to the hostel I stayed at while on the trip: Wombat’s hostel chain. We stayed at Wombat’s in both Munich and Vienna so I was able to get a really good feel for the chain overall.

First and foremost, it was the cleanest and most professional hostel I’ve been too. Not to mention the staff were actually nice, a.k.a they liked there jobs, and were really knowledgeable about their respective cities.

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Since you are going to be doing some traveling while you’re studying abroad, you’re going to need a place to stay. There are many options out there: hotels, campgrounds, other peoples’ couches, and hostels. While hotels are nice, they are usually pretty expensive, and it can be hard to accommodate large numbers of people.

Believe it or not, there are actually websites out there that will help you rent a couch in some random person’s apartment for a night, but let’s be honest – who wants to curl up on the couch of stranger they don’t know in a foreign country.

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I headed south of Scotland for a weekend in London.  I met up with two high school friends – Andrew, who’s studying in

Tower Bridge

London, and Sara, who’s close to Amsterdam – and it was great to finally see some people from home other than the people I came to St. Andrews with.  It’s kind of funny because I’m pretty sure when we were all in high school, none of us would have thought in three years, we would be meeting up to tour London.  We had a great time, and there is a good possibility I’ll go back next semester.

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Beach in Barcelona

The title’s pretty lame, but anyways, I finally made it out of Scotland for the first time since I came to St. Andrews. It might have been one of the greatest weeks of my life. I went with a group of guys from Holy Cross, and the five of us spent Saturday through Tuesday in Barcelona and Thursday through Sunday in Rome. Wednesday was a travel day, nothing really too interesting. It was my first experience dealing with international airports, customs, and Ryanair, but overall I would say we were pretty successful in our travels.

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Loch Ness

So this week was pretty ordinary. On Thursday, I was able to get in nine holes on the Strathtyrum course. Had my best round yet and didn’t lose a ball – a victory in itself. In my anthropology practical on Wednesday, I learned how to make rope out of reeds, and weave baskets from willow branches. Needless to say, I’m beginning to like that class. My class on the Mongols was cancelled for the second week in a row. Just in case anyone has been keeping a tally, I have only been to that class once in the last three weeks.  And I finally had the chance to catch up with my best friends from Holy Cross – skype is proving to be very valuable.

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