Author: Madelyn Bilbrey

Oh Right, I’m Not in America

Written by: Leah Injaty

“Legend has it that Charlemagne was led by a white deer to cross Main River to flee from his enemies,” said the guide on the Frankfurt Tour. I blinked. Charlemagne? I thought he was European, how did he get over here… Oh right, I’m not in America. That’s a phrase I’ve repeated to myself over and over during the last few days, and it brings a smile to my face every single time. A reminder that this is just the beginning of one of the best adventures of my entire life.

My semester kicked off in a town everyone told me didn’t have much to see, but I beg to differ. I craned my neck up to see the top of Frankfurt’s St. Bartholomew Cathedral, where the Holy Roman emperors were elected and crowned for centuries. It was intricately decorated with small biblical statues and sharp crockets along the pinnacles. To be fully honest, I didn’t realize what was so mesmerizing about European architecture from the pictures during the trip planning phase; it was simply a grand building that I would admire for a few moments and then move on. Standing at the base where the emperors paraded out of the cathedral into Römerberg, the red brick walls engulfed my vision, and I wondered how exactly people in the 13th century managed to construct such an artistic and grand monument with a lack of modern technology. Cathedrals, with their grandeur and history, are now one of my most anticipated places to visit all over Europe.

(Image 1) St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral

(Image 2) Römerberg

Trip planning wasn’t my only purpose over this past winter break, however. Only 9% of people keep their New Year’s resolutions, and call me crazy, but I think this may be my year. I never really had a why when I’d commit myself in the past to ambitious goals where nothing would ever go wrong, and I’d be in my perfect bubble, being ignorant of all the chaos of life as a student. However, everything I do in France contains so much more meaning now. Whether it’s my morning walk to campus by the lake or scouring the Carrefour near campus for the last remaining shower curtain, my resolutions are no exception. Now, journaling every day means I get to hold onto the little moments of a time that I want to remember forever. Going for a morning run means I’ll have more stamina to lose myself in a foreign place all day without breaking a sweat. Having a consistent sleep schedule means that I can make my no-reservation-required 6 AM train without regretting my life choices for the rest of the day.

I carried these hopes with me as I admired the vibrant architecture of Metz from the shuttle taking students from Frankfurt Airport to the GTE campus. I mainly lived in modern cities and suburbs my whole life, and although I’ve seen lots of European cities through pictures, being in Metz felt like home, like a city I could get lost in with no stress. Even the train station was so grand that it looked like it could be a tourist attraction. It was nostalgic, almost like following a miniature train going round and round in a beautifully decorated historic miniature city, except I was the passenger.


 Metz’s train station

It wasn’t long after that we arrived at the La Fayette dorm, where I tried my hand at speaking French with the staff… after not practicing my French consistently in almost 3 years. Surprisingly, I’ve been able to get around pretty well this past week without Google Translate by trying to explain myself using simpler terms that I’m more familiar with, even if I sometimes butcher the gender or conjugation of words pretty badly. French has become a part of my daily life now, and I dread the day I return to the United States, where it’ll inevitably be put on the shelf as a side hobby instead of a way of life. Part of the culture shock for me was experiencing different feelings when speaking a different language. Different intonations, different communities, even different in the way French sounds pleasantly musical. It instilled a worldly confidence in me that I could connect with the people of this new place on a deeper level, instead of panicking whenever the occasional French person I ran into in the U.S. would speak fluent French to me.

Before I had the chance to properly reflect on these mixed feelings of pride, uncertainty, and awe, it was time for the purge, also known as the donation session. It was a flurry of hundreds of jet-lagged students clamoring over trash cans and Britas and Swiffers (oh my!) left by previous GTE students. Although hectic, donation day was one of my favorite parts of the first week, as it not only saved me money and effort in procuring most of my essentials, but I also got the chance to interact with a lot of people in an unusual setting, all working together to find our perfect haul.


I put a lot of pressure on myself before the semester started to know how to feel when observing the beauty of Europe and what to blog about before even experiencing anything; almost like my brain was so averse to procrastination at the start of a new semester that I wanted to get it all out of the way early. But that’s simply not possible. To travel is to be patient, to live in the present moment without expectations, to be humble in the face of great beauty and great challenges alike, even if I delude myself into thinking I know a place just through photos. My experience will never be the same as that other travel blogger or photographer or whoever else. It’s so unlike the regular hustle and bustle of student life, where every day is a battle to stay on top of things and get ahead, except there’s always more you could be doing. Time used to be a limited resource necessary only to complete what was necessary. I wanted more time only so that I could be done early and pray for more time later, which never comes. Now, time is still a limited resource, but only because I want more time to pause and immerse myself in my surroundings, because I want to be in the moment longer, rather than be done with it. Without that, I wouldn’t have appreciated the nuance of Mozart’s opera or the stunning view from Main Tower in Frankfurt, nor my everyday interactions with café employees and friends-to-be that I previously only knew online. When work picks up and those heavier weeks inevitably get the best of me, I’ll look outside the window at the French lake, or take a walk to a French café, or remind myself how I’ll take a French bus to the fancy French train station in Metz this weekend, and the insatiable urge to take it all in for a moment will come flooding right back.

A Big Fat South Indian Wedding

Written by: Leah Injaty

Weddings—you hate ’em or you love ’em. Well for me, I had no idea what to expect since I’ve never even been to an American wedding, let alone one across the globe. And so there I was, taking my first international solo flight after requesting a 2-week holiday from my super fun summer internship in Chicago. My dad and younger siblings had flown into India a few weeks earlier, since my sister was apparently supposed to intern at a local hospital, until she got sick from the “bacterial culture shock” in her stomach shortly after the wedding and had to leave early. I had no idea who the bride and the groom were, but apparently we had met the groom when he came to the US for the first time, and our dads are good friends. All I cared about was that I hadn’t visited my family in India since I was 12, and I was being invited to the epitome of Indian festivities, a $200k Indian resort wedding with dresses, food, and traditions I’ve always wanted to experience, so there was no way I would pass it up.

When I landed at Kempegowda Airport in Bangalore, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I couldn’t connect to the airport WiFi without some mysterious code that I had no idea how to get. I tried asking some fellow travelers, but none of them spoke English well enough to point me in the right direction. Unsure of what I was supposed to do, I copied everyone else and filled out a slip of paper before entering customs, where they asked me a slew of questions about my purpose for traveling to India. After getting through customs, I passed through the fanciest duty-free store I’ve ever seen, with overly polite employees coming at me left and right asking if I needed help when I slowed down to look around. Outside the store, I finally found a kiosk where I could scan my boarding pass and get the WiFi code. It was at that moment that I gained a deeper appreciation for modern technology; I have no idea how people did this back before phones were ubiquitous.

Kempegowda Airport Duty-Free store

Fast forward to the wedding, after visiting my aunts, I was floored when I discovered from my sister that we would need six different dresses for all six events in order not bring bad luck to the couple. Keep in mind the entire wedding was 2.5 days. We stuffed our suitcases full of said dresses and drove to the resort, which was absolutely stunning. Apparently guests closer to the family got to stay in the resort, while the majority of people came to just the reception on day 2. What are these six events of South Indian weddings, you may ask? Let me fill you in on their cultural significance as well as my individual experience.

Haldi

Did someone say water balloon fight? No, seriously. They brought out water balloons at a traditional ceremony. Haldi is a wedding ritual where turmeric water is poured on the couple as a blessing, and to give them “radiant glow” for their wedding, as yellow is considered auspicious. You’ve never seen this much yellow decor in your life, trust me.

At first, they were sitting ducks as we poured bucket after bucket of turmeric water over their heads, until things got a little more chaotic. I was having a little too much fun until, in a battle for the bucket, a few people turned on me, and I got a face full of the turmeric water, which didn’t sit well with my contacts. By the time someone brought water balloons, all hell broke loose, and all the prim and proper aunts and uncles went inside to get away from the splashing. Needless to say, my dress did not survive very well. Afterward, there was a “rain dance” where we ran underneath an array of sprinklers above our heads and danced to popular Bollywood songs in a big circle.

(Image 1)  My dress before Haldi

(Image 2) Moments before disaster

(Image 3) My dress after Haldi

Mehndi

Or as we Americans call it, henna. Mehndi has strong cultural significance both in weddings and in general. In weddings, mehndi designs symbolize the love between the bride and groom, and the cooling effect of the eucalyptus that it’s made of is said to calm the nerves of the bride. Typically, wedding mehndi is the most elaborate mehndi a bride will receive in her life, with polished designs covering her hands, forearms, feet, and halfway up her calves. The bride isn’t the only one who gets to have mehndi, however. Artists traditionally do mehndi on all the women close to the bride, but even men are opting to get it done in modern times. There was even an adorable little kid we kept seeing throughout the wedding, and he told the artist he really wanted Spiderman drawn on his hand. We even befriended some other young people in their 20s who were friends with the groom at this event, whom we frequently met up with throughout the wedding.

My sister and I, after getting mehndi

Sangeet

Despite having an Indian name, it was essentially what you’d think of when you hear about an American wedding reception. There was food, crowd games, and dancing, and this event even had a dress code of “Western formal” instead of the typical Indian dresses (although I don’t think that’s the norm). My siblings and I are some of the only kids in our extended family to grow up in America, and we coincidentally look very western compared to our extended family, so this event made me feel a little less like a neon sign sticking out in the crowd. I spoke so “American,” in fact, that the groom’s father even had trouble understanding my English, and so there were many moments of my dad and sister “translating” my English to… English with an Indian accent.

I arrived fashionably late, and when I did, I saw my teenage brother on stage with a bunch of older ladies in their sarees playing that crowd game where the announcer says an item that you have to grab from the crowd, and the last person who comes back onstage is eliminated. He continued to be ahead of the game, sprinting through the aisles and grabbing items, but the real kicker was when it was him against one other lady. The announcer shouted “gray hair,” and my dad furiously ripped out some strands of his hair and yelled for my brother to come take it, and he did! As you can imagine, my brother stood victoriously on the stage as the other lady patted him on the back. Afterward, my sister and I, along with our new friends, went onstage for some dancing in, again, a big circle (for some reason that’s how Indian dancing always goes).

(Image 2) My “Western” outfit for the Sangeet

Varapuja

Coming from “vara,” meaning “groom,” and “puja,” meaning “worship,” varapuja is a ceremony to honor and welcome the groom before the wedding ceremony by the bride’s family. The family symbolically washes his feet and offers him flowers, rice, turmeric, and sweets. They also perform “aarti,” which is a ritual where one moves a lit wick in circles while reciting a prayer, and then moves their hands over the flame and then to the forehead to offer prayer.

Aarti being performed

We got up bright and early on the second day to watch the ceremony, not before changing into our fourth dress of the event. Seriously, we spent at least half the time changing outfits. Since I don’t speak Hindi, I struggled to follow along with what they were saying during the ceremony, but this had inspired me to later start learning Hindi on Duolingo, which I semi-successfully have kept up with. It was at this point that I started to realize just how much money was spent on all these beautiful decorations, but it was totally worth it in my opinion. They held a mini photoshoot for the couple right after, and everyone gathered around to watch. My family also took our own pictures, even my brother and dad, who don’t typically take them, because the scenery was absolutely unreal.

Reception

If you thought the Sangeet sounded like a wedding reception, you were sorely mistaken. This wedding reception had it all: fireworks, a walkway of flowers, smoke machines, and photographers for the 1000+ guests. And no, I did not accidentally add a 0. We didn’t get much time to talk to the couple since they had to greet everyone one group at a time as the guests came on stage to give gifts and take photos. We spent most of our time doing a complimentary photoshoot, eating at the buffet, and socializing.

My family in our fifth outfits of the weekend.

The reception meal was the only one not served on a banana leaf, which came as a surprise. Usually, we’d go to this one giant room with banana leaves at every seat, and the servers would come around with a food item and ask if we wanted any, like an assembly line. I always ended up taking too much and had to stay behind to finish; everything just looked so good that I couldn’t pass it up. I even tried taking a bite out of the banana leaf itself out of curiosity, much to my sister’s horror. The meal at the reception had a fancy menu with all the options, and you could go to each station to get your desired food. From the botanical theme to the fairy lights strung outside elegantly, everything about this event came straight out of a fairy tale.

Flower Bridge

Wedding Ceremony

Canopy for the wedding ritual

At first, we watched from a distance as friends, family, and priests performed aarti and other rituals, and then we all gathered around them, with me standing right behind the couple. One of the rituals involved sprinkling handfuls of rice in front of them before throwing the last few grains onto their heads as a blessing, and we took turns doing this in groups of two. When I said earlier that they tied the knot, I meant that literally. In some South Indian weddings like this one, the couple finalizes their marriage by tying a long red string called a “thali” around the other’s neck. Drums beat ceremoniously in the background as they finally tied it around each other, as everyone cheered for the newlyweds.

 Priests pouring rice in front of the couple

As the sun came up and the festivities calmed down, we took some final pictures and had the chance to get to know the couple when there weren’t as many people. The bride confided in me that she didn’t sleep much since the wedding started, which wasn’t really a shocker. Although I did find out that the couple was going long distance again right after their wedding, which was a shocker. I truly hope that despite all the stress, they got the wedding of their dreams. After a few last pictures and hugs, we said our goodbyes and continued the rest of our travels in India.

It’s safe to say that I think weddings are officially ruined for me; I don’t think anything could surpass the grandeur of this one. Some of the ladies there commented about my sister and I really “making the most” of our first wedding experience, and I wholeheartedly agree. The friends I’ve made, from the Spiderman mehndi kid, to the family friend who hired a stylist for herself but had her style me and my sister, to the 20-somethings who were having the time of their lives, all have stuck with me to this day as a sense of community I’ve never experienced before. I can’t wait for my next trip to India to see not only my actual family, but this new family I’ve found.

À la prochaine,

Leah

Countdown to Georgia Tech-Europe!

Written by: Leah Injaty

As I’m writing this, there are exactly 55 days till I arrive at the Frankfurt airport and begin my 4-month stay at the GTE campus in Metz, France. It feels like forever, but also I know I’ll be cramming my travel preparations as soon as finals season is over in December. From buying the perfect winter boots to preparing my 15-page Visa application packet, there are so many moving parts and deadlines to the whole study abroad process that I never would have expected. However, as an emerging “real” adult, I try to give myself grace in learning a new experience, and I take solace knowing that there are 180 other students in my shoes.

France has held a special place in my heart ever since I stepped foot into my first French class in my freshman year of high school. I had never learned a foreign language before, and it felt like I had unlocked some sort of secret code to speak to my classmates in the halls, like a kind of language you’d make up with your friends in elementary school. We had fun coming up with English equivalents to French phrases (bonne idée = bunny day) and bonding over how we couldn’t roll our French r’s. Gradually, we went from learning basic phrases like “On va au cinéma” to reading more complex passages about Francophone (French-speaking) countries like Morocco, to watching French music videos and movies that discussed a variety of topics about French culture and political movements. Somewhere along the way, I found myself being roped into not just the language but the music, food, and traditions of Francophones across the globe, and the way speaking a new language empowered me to engage with said culture in an entirely different way.

Eventually in my senior year, I had the opportunity to obtain my Seal of Biliteracy, which involved researching a French-related topic throughout my last semester, writing a paper, and giving a 10-minute spoken presentation all in French. Let me tell you, memorizing a 12-page speech on the French Revolution was not easy, especially remembering how to say all the dates. It felt like I was back in elementary math class when I had to remember that 1789 was pronounced “mille sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf,” which translates literally to “thousand seven hundred four-twenty-nine.”

My (second from right) French Seal of Biliteracy ceremony

After all that hard work and thanks to my enthusiasm, I had the honor of receiving the Outstanding French Student of the Year Award for my graduating class, in which the prize was a copy of Les Misérables in French that I swear is at least 3 inches thick. As life got busy, it’s been sitting on my shelf since then, getting rusty along with my French language skills. One priority I have for my study abroad semester is to rediscover my passion and skill for the French language, so I hope that we can learn together through this blog! I’ll make sure that by next summer, I’ll be able to read this wonderful classic without having to look up every other word.

(Image 1) An endearing note from my French teacher

(Image 2) My giant copy of Les Misérables compared to the size of my laptop.

Back when I was a prospective transfer student and heard on a tour that Georgia Tech has a literal campus in France, my heart jumped out of my chest. Studying abroad in France had been a lifelong (well, more like teenage-lifelong) dream of mine. Despite Geor+gia Tech’s strong reputation as a STEM school, I secretly carried more excitement for GTE than for any other opportunity upon receiving my acceptance letter.

Now, when I hear people talking about Francophone places I’ve visited, I don’t just get that exciting feeling of talking about something I’ve studied, but also about someplace I’ll get to see and experience outside of just literature and film. However, France isn’t the only reason I’m excited about this trip. I’ve had a strong sense of wanderlust throughout my adult life; maybe I blame it on the fact that I moved around a lot as a kid. I’ve been the new kid countless times throughout my childhood, but it was never a scary thing for me; in fact, I love the idea of reinventing myself over and over, to define myself however I want without the baggage of the past. That’s something amazing that travel brings out in me: the opportunity to enter a place that has never seen a trace of me and to feel like I’ve belonged there my whole life.

Despite knowing how stressful travel can be, I can’t help but romanticize walking through the streets of Paris, gliding through the canals of Venice in a gondola, skiing for the first time in the Alps, as well as those random interactions and funny moments that no one ever predicts. There’s probably a million travel blog posts on the internet about every single country and tourist experience I’m going to have next spring, but what will be undeniably unique is the people I meet, the moments we share, and the challenges we face together. And so I hope that on top of sharing the cool places I’m going to, I can give you a taste of what it’s like to experience all the little moments of joy that I know are coming my way.

À la prochaine,

Leah

Meet Leah! GTE’s Spring ’26 Blogger

Written by: Leah Injaty

My name is Leah, and I’m so excited to share my travel adventures with you! I’m a fourth year Math and Computer Science double major at Georgia Tech, and I’m thrilled to be starting my study abroad semester in Metz, France, very soon.

Ever since my first solo trip in NYC at 18, I’ve fallen in love with exploring new places. Since then, I’ve successfully secured internships and opportunities that allow me to travel, taking me to Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Tampa, and even India. Studying abroad in Europe will allow me to unlock an even greater cultural experience that will truly open my eyes.

Aside from traveling, my hobbies include dancing, knitting/crocheting, logic puzzles, board games, and reading. My hometown is San Jose, CA, where I live (when not in school) with my parents, my two younger siblings, and my super energetic husky.

À La Prochaine!

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

I didn’t expect the end of my semester to look like this.

I’m back home in Bangladesh, and my desk has become a small, messy museum. Magnets are scattered like proof, each one a tiny receipt that says I’d been there. A skyline here, a car tyre there, a flag, a mountain, a little cuckoo clock. Next to them are packets of food I carried back from different countries, things I kept telling myself I’d save for the “right moment.”

The funny part is that I am in the right moment.

If I open them now, they will still taste like the places they came from, but they will also taste like the fact that I’m not there anymore. That is what this farewell feels like for me. It is not really sadness. It is more like my brain is still in transit even though my body is already home, like I’m waiting for the next signal to tell me where to go.

This semester felt like a fever dream.

Sixteen weekends, 163 trains, around 850,000 steps, and more photos than my phone deserved. Some days felt loud and unreal, like you keep looking around and thinking, no way this is my life right now. Other days were ordinary in the best way, and I only realized later that those were the days that made everything feel real.

I keep thinking about how quickly small routines appeared. Early mornings with a packed bag by the door. Late nights walking back with tired legs. Halfway in, “foreign” stopped being a feeling and became something practical. I stopped hesitating at ticket machines, and I learned how to move through new places with a mix of Google Maps and instinct.

Travel was not always smooth. Sometimes a train did not show up, or a connection got messy, and you just had to be patient while you were tired and hungry. What I remember more than the inconvenience is how quickly we would find an alternative and keep going.

The harder part, honestly, was the fact that travel does not pause your responsibilities.

The pressure of studies while still moving around was rough. I wanted the semester to be endless weekends and perfect photos, but deadlines do not care what country you’re in. There were times I was somewhere beautiful and my brain was elsewhere entirely, thinking about assignments and what I had not started yet.

Over time, I got better at managing that. Not perfect, but noticeably better. I learned time management in a way I never had to before because mistakes showed up instantly. One wrong assumption and I’d be too exhausted to enjoy a place I’d been excited about, or I’d miss a connection and watch a weekend unravel. Eventually, I learned something simple: freedom is not “no structure.” Freedom is having enough structure that you can actually enjoy what you are doing.

Week 1 me would genuinely faint at what my weeks became. I still can’t believe how much I walked, and I didn’t know I could navigate that much, think that fast, and still keep going in places where I didn’t speak the language. At some point, being lost stopped feeling like failure. It started feeling like a normal part of life that you solve and move on from.

That might be the biggest change I’m bringing home. I don’t feel like I became a completely different person, but I do feel more capable. It’s the kind of confidence that shows up when something doesn’t go to plan and you don’t spiral. You pause, think, and start figuring it out.

Now that I’m back home, the roads make sense again. The language makes sense. I can go anywhere without checking anything. I expected that to feel like pure relief, and some of it does. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss the chaos too. Not because it was easy, but because it made me feel alive in a way I didn’t expect.

If someone asked me for advice for doing a semester like this, I’d keep it simple.

  • Give yourself buffer days. Delays happen, weather changes, and you will be more tired than you think.
  • Respect your energy. If you never rest, you can be in amazing places without actually being there.
  • Stay ahead of your studies when you can. Traveling while caught up feels completely different from traveling while stressed.
  • And take photos, but don’t live your whole semester through a lens. Take short videos too, because they bring back the sounds and the motion in a way photos can’t. Some of the best moments won’t photograph well, but you’ll remember them anyway.

If I’m being honest about what I would do differently, it mostly comes down to pacing. I would stop treating rest like something I have to earn. I would plan heavier academic weeks more carefully around travel. And I would leave more room for the unexpected, because the most memorable parts were rarely the ones I planned perfectly.

Now I’m in Bangladesh, and my magnets are still here, lined up like proof. It’s strange how physical objects can hold something that big. A magnet isn’t a memory, but it points to one. A snack packet isn’t a country, but it carries the smell of one when you open it. And for a brief moment, you’re back there.

This semester changed me in ways that don’t show up in photos. I came back with proof of places, but I also came back with proof of myself. I proved to myself that I can survive uncertainty, navigate discomfort, and build a life somewhere unfamiliar.

This semester changed me in ways that don’t show up in photos. I came back with proof of places, but I also came back with proof of myself. I proved to myself that I can survive uncertainty, navigate discomfort, and build a life somewhere unfamiliar.

So this is my farewell, not just to the semester, but to the version of me that arrived at the start of it and didn’t yet know what he could handle. And even though I’m home, I don’t feel like it’s all “over.” It feels more like I’m carrying it forward, more intentionally now.

Signing off,

Mahir 🙂 

When the Sun Doesn’t Rise

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

I learned something in Tromsø that still doesn’t sound real when I say it out loud: the sun doesn’t rise in late November. The darkness doesn’t budge. We checked the sunrise time so we could decide when to wake up, and Tromsø didn’t give us a time. It gave us a date. January 16. It was November 28.

I reread it three times because my brain was trying to auto-correct it into something normal. I’ve lived my whole life with the sun as a background constant, a promise that even if today is rough, tomorrow will still arrive with newfound light. Tromsø took that promise away, casually, and replaced it with something stranger: time measured by sky color and when the city turned empty.

On the bus ride to Tromsdalen, I kept looking out the window like I was trying to catch the moment my sense of reality would recalibrate. Everything outside was white. Not white as in pretty snow, as well as white as in an overwhelmingly large amount of snow. Snow piled into mounds taller than me. Roofs wearing thick layers of it, like the town had been accumulating winters for years. Houses and sheds looked tucked into the landscape instead of built on it.

Our Airbnb sat up an incline that immediately humbled us. It looked manageable until we were actually on it, boots slipping, hands full. Kyler wiped out first, and I laughed for about two seconds before realizing I was next. I was. We made it up eventually, a little bruised, a little breathless.

That first night wasn’t very glamorous. It was hauling groceries from the nearby COOP, shaking snow off our shoes, turning the Airbnb into a temporary home, and getting ready to watch Clean Old-Fashioned Hate from a place that barely felt connected to the rest of the world. But it felt special anyway, because we were about to do something completely ordinary in a setting that was anything but.

We watched GT vs UGA from near the “top” of the world, and yes, we’re convinced we were the northernmost people in the world doing it. Inside, it was the same tension I’ve felt so many times, and outside was this silent Arctic night pressing against the windows. Sports are ridiculous like that. You can travel all the way to Tromsø, where the sun won’t rise for weeks, and still find yourself cheering at a screen like you’re back home.

The next morning, I opened the curtains and the sky was painted in pink and electric blue, like someone had turned global saturation up. It wasn’t sunrise, not really. More like the world blushing briefly before returning to darkness. We walked to the Arctic Cathedral, and then across the Tromsø Bridge. That view was the first time I truly understood where we were. The whole island laid out beneath us, tucked into fjords and mountains on either side.

We wandered through snow-covered streets and ended up at the Christmas market, which looked like something built out of childhood memory: a huge Christmas tree, wooden stalls, fairy lights stitched into the dark. My friends went for reindeer hot dogs, whale salami, moose salami. Later we grabbed lunch, and I had baked Norwegian salmon that genuinely might have been the best salmon I’ve ever eaten.

What kept catching me off guard was how quickly time moved. It was around 1 pm and the day was already slipping into darkness again. Not gradually. The sky just started shutting the blinds.

We stopped by the Arctic museum, went down to a small dock, and the wind tried to pick a fight with us. It shoved us around like toys while we tried to keep our footing and still get the photos we came for.

After that we walked along the coast toward Telegrafbukta, and somewhere along the way the trip stopped being about sightseeing and became about feeling like kids again. We made a snowman. Started a snowball fight. Threw ourselves into the snow like it was a mattress. Cannonballed into drifts. Made snow angels. There’s something about snow that resets you. It lets you be ridiculous.

That same night we headed out for the northern lights, and we were already negotiating with disappointment. It was cloudy everywhere. We drove and drove and drove, chasing forecasts and hope, and every time I looked out it was just… grey darkness. And then we crossed into Finland, and the clouds finally loosened their grip.

The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere. No city glow. No distractions. Just a parking area and a sky that suddenly remembered it had secrets.

And then it happened.

The aurora didn’t show up like fireworks. It didn’t arrive with a single dramatic burst. It was more like the sky began moving, slowly at first, as if it was stretching after a long sleep. Green spilled across the darkness. Pink followed, softer and stranger. The lights darted and shifted like they were alive, all across the deep blue canvas.

We stood there looking up, and I don’t even remember what I said because I think I mostly just made sounds. At some point we all ended up lying on our backs in the snow, staring upward, squealing like we were watching something impossible, because we were.

It genuinely felt like the sky was dancing.

I set up my tripod. Arthur pulled out the drone. Took more photos than I can count. Part of me was trying to capture it, and part of me knew I couldn’t. Not fully. Some things are too big to fit inside a frame. Still, I tried, because trying is part of loving something. We drank hot chocolate and ate biscuits. I attempted to track the North Star for a star trail shot and it didn’t come out how I wanted, which normally would have annoyed me, but out there it didn’t really matter.

Then we got back to Tromsø around 2 am, half asleep and still wired, and ate salmon pasta as our victory meal.

The next day was softer. Less chasing, more wandering.

We explored the city, and at some point we booked a sauna and polar plunge. It sounded like a good idea. It also sounded like a terrible idea. I don’t know what possessed us but we did it anyway.

We went into the sauna first, and then walked straight into the ice-cold water. We stayed in for five minutes. It was awful, obviously, but not really. It wasn’t pain so much as a full-body reset, like the cold flipped a switch and everything else disappeared. We got out shaking, ran back into the sauna, laughed through the shivering, warmed up, and then did it again. I’d never experienced anything like that before. It was brutal, but in a weird way it was also very invigorating. And afterward, wrapped up again, it felt like we had earned something. Like we had met the Arctic on its own terms for a moment, and survived.

One of my favorite sights from Tromsø was the colorful wooden houses down by the dock. They looked like something from a fairytale, bright against all that white and dark.

Later we went to a park and ended up trekking through snow that looked flat until you stepped into it. At one point I straight-up dropped into waist-deep powder and just stood there for a second like… bruh. The lake was frozen, the trees looked dusted over, and the woods made everything feel a little enchanted.

And then, just like that, it was time to leave. Flight back to Paris.

Paris after Tromsø felt like switching worlds. The cold disappeared and suddenly there were headlights, traffic, people everywhere, and those orange streetlights that make everything cinematic. We spent the day walking until we couldn’t feel our legs, catching all the iconic Paris landmarks in passing, letting the city be the last loud, bright send-off to the semester. And when the Eiffel finally sparkled that night, it felt like a closing scene.

It felt like the perfect ending to the semester’s last trip. Not because it was the most “productive” day, but because it was a goodbye that matched the scale of what the semester had been.

A full stop before finals.

A deep breath before the sprint.

If I’m being honest, I don’t remember Tromsø as a list of events. I remember it as a feeling.

I remember the surreal truth of a place where the sun doesn’t rise. I remember how snow reshaped everything, softened everything, made even a simple walk feel like a tiny expedition. I remember the way the sky turned pink and blue as if it was trying to apologize for the darkness. I remember the wind pushing us around on that dock like it was amused by our confidence. I remember rolling around in the snow and laughing until my stomach hurt.

And I remember lying on my back in Finland, staring at green and pink lights moving across the sky, feeling my world expand.

That night did something to me. It made me stop, properly stop, in a way I haven’t done in months. It made me appreciate the sheer beauty this world carries. It reminded me that I’m lucky. Lucky to be here. Lucky to see this. Lucky to have friends to share it with. Lucky to be young enough to throw myself into snow without worrying about looking stupid.

Tromsø made me feel small and grateful. Paris made me feel present and sentimental. Together they felt like the perfect closing scene to a chapter I’m not ready to end.

Now I’m back in Metz, staring down finals week, bracing for the brutal part.

But the world doesn’t stop being beautiful just because I’m stressed.

And sometimes, if I’m lucky, it reminds me.

Winter Weekend in Europe

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

I used to think winter in Europe was just like in the movies.

You know what I mean. Snow falling in slow motion. Warm, bustling Christmas markets. Golden lights. People holding hot chocolate. And it is like that, until the wind hits your face and you realize the cold is very real, too.

I’m from Bangladesh. I’m not built for this.

Vienna was my reminder that Europe does not do winter halfheartedly. We trained in, and the city instantly felt composed. We started with the Vienna State Opera, then wandered along the museums and the kind of grand buildings that made me slow down to appreciate them for a bit.

And then evening arrived and Vienna switched on.

Stephansplatz was glowing. Gold fairy lights hung overhead along the streets and kept catching on red ornaments. We passed St. Stephen’s Cathedral and strolled through the Christmas market there. We ended up at Rathausplatz after, and it really did feel like the center of it all. Decorations so grand, people everywhere, friends and families clustered together, and the magnificent Rathaus lit up in the background.

The food did its job too. Hot chocolate, chimney cakes, bretzels, and that sweet smell of cinnamon wafting through the air and making the cold feel less aggressive for a moment.

The next day I daytripped to Budapest and met up with three friends, and suddenly the weekend stopped feeling composed and started feeling fast. We went up to Buda Castle, into the National Gallery and the library, and then found ourselves watching the sunset. At 4 PM… winter daylight is genuinely ridiculous here.

But it was worth it. From up there, we watched the Pest side slowly wake up across the Danube. Lights came on early, one by one, and the whole city turned this beautiful shade of orange. The Hungarian Parliament stood out across the river, tall and imposing, not just part of the skyline but the thing the skyline was built around.

And then it started snowing.

Not the “cute flakes” kind. Real snow. Massive flakes. The kind that made everything feel ten times colder. We took a hot chocolate break and just watched Budapest in the snow for a bit, hands wrapped around the warm mug.

We went to Fisherman’s Bastion after, got the views, and then immediately made a classic mistake on the way down by taking the wrong bus. It was just the driver and us, and neither side understood the other, so the whole situation became guessing, hand gestures, and awkward laughter. After a long detour, we made it to the Parliament and the Shoes on the Danube.

Eventually I headed back to Vienna, and the wind there was not playing around. The gusts kept pushing me sideways as I walked, snow coming down hard enough to start whitening the streets and piling onto cars, while the red trams kept moving through it all like clockwork.

The next morning, we went to Schönbrunn’s Christmas market, and then it was time to head back to Metz. The train ride back was its own drama. Let’s just call it another Deutsche Bahn tale, by now we can assume what that means.

I got back and the fever hit that night, like my body waited until I was safely home to finally crash. The annoying part is that it makes the whole weekend feel even more real in hindsight, because the photos look magical and my memory of it is basically: lights, snow, wind, hot chocolate, repeat.

And with a trip to the Arctic Circle coming up… oh boy. I better brace up.

Life Between Platforms

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

Four hours used to feel far.

Back home, a four-hour trip meant something serious. In Dhaka it could mean traffic, planning, being stuck in a car long enough to traverse half the country. In Atlanta it usually meant a road trip, gas stops, maybe a Buc-ee’s if you were lucky. The distance felt heavy and you had to commit to it being a grand trip.

Then I came to Georgia Tech-Europe and got a Eurail pass.

Suddenly four hours became “Oh, it’s just one train.”

My semester here has been stitched together by platforms and departure boards. When I think back on these months, I know I’ll remember the bigger moments in Prague or Florence, but I have a feeling the quieter memories in between cities will sneak up on me just as often. The hours in motion. The time when you are not really anywhere, just floating through a corridor of tracks.

It starts on the platform.

There is a particular kind of early-morning cold that exists at train stations. You are half awake, wrapped in a hoodie you regret not washing, backpack heavier than you remember packing it, suitcase wheels rattling over uneven tiles. The sky is still a dark blue, the station lights are yellow. Someone is clutching a coffee, someone else is already eating a suspiciously early croissant. Your friends huddle in a circle around one phone, double-checking that this is, in fact, the right train.

The first weekend I did a “long” trip, anything over two hours sounded daunting. I checked the Eurail app every five minutes. What if the connection was too short? What if the platform changed at the last second? What if we got on the wrong half of a split train and ended up in a different country? My sense of distance was still in car mode. Trains felt like magic, but also like they might betray me.

Then came the really long ones.

On the fourteen-hour overnight ride to Prague, time stopped behaving in a normal way. The train left one city in daylight and arrived in another with a completely different language and architecture, and my brain never got a clean transition. We cycled through every possible train activity. Studying. Trying to read. Failing to read. Having snacks that definitely did not qualify as a real meal. Watching dark fields slide past, dotted with tiny clusters of lights.

At some point in the early morning, a few of us woke up dazed and stiff from dozing off in the wrong position. The cabin was quiet except for the hum of the tracks. Outside, there were patches of fog and little toy-like houses. No one said anything for a while. Everyone was half in their own thoughts but still sharing the same experience.

Not every long journey is that cinematic though. Some are just pure survival. In Switzerland, our gondola coming down the mountain broke down, then the train itself broke down, and what was meant to be a light connection of an hour and a half turned into a race against time. We basically launched ourselves out of the carriage and sprinted down the platform so fast that the conductor actually looked alarmed. On paper it was a zero-minute transfer. In reality it was a blur of stairs, backpacks, and the motivation of knowing that missing this train meant sleeping on a bench for the night.

Other nights, we did not even have a bench. In Chiasso, in the middle of the night, we ended up trying to sleep on the floor of a train station when it was four degrees Celsius. With no actual doors separating us from the outside world, the cold cut through every layer we were wearing and settled straight into our spines. The station echoes differently at that hour. Every passing person’s step feels huge. Every announcement feels louder. I remember thinking that this was still technically part of my “study abroad experience” and wondering if future me would ever look back on it fondly. (Right now the answer is still no.)

And that is what trains gave me this semester more than anything else: frames. Pieces of time where life was temporarily narrowed to a window and some tracks and whoever happened to share the row.

Planes never did that for me. Planes are about getting it over with. Cars are about controlling the route. Trains are different. They turn travel into something you inhabit. You are not just going from Metz to somewhere else. You are living through the distance between.

I realized how much my sense of “far” was changing one random weekend when I caught myself saying, “Yeah, it’s just a quick three-hour train.” Three hours. “Quick.” My past self would like a word.

But that is what Europe and its rail network quietly do to you. They shrink the mental map. Cities that once sounded like separate chapters suddenly sit on the same double-page spread. Paris, Madrid, Milan, Prague. In my head they are no longer disconnected points on a globe, but rather stops, transfers. Places where I once sprinted up or down concrete stairs with my backpack bouncing behind me.

Of course, it is not always peaceful. Sometimes “life between platforms” looks like running through a station, scaring everyone around you because your first train was late by eight cursed minutes. It looks like frantically scanning departure boards in a language you do not speak, trying to decode which “Verspätung” is going to ruin your carefully planned itinerary. It looks like hauling your backpack down a platform that seems to go on forever, past thirty calm people who absolutely know where they are going, while you definitely do not.

Sometimes it looks like other people’s disasters too. Friends who sleep through their stop near Munich and do not realize until they are well past where they were supposed to get off. Friends who hop off at what they think is their stop and end up stranded in Strasbourg with no trains back. Friends who took an early-morning train in such a daze that they forgot their suitcase, which is probably still commuting Metz–Luxembourg somewhere out there.

But even those chaotic moments have their own kind of adrenaline memory. The relief when you fall into your seat and the doors close behind you. The way your group dissolves into a communal sigh of relief once the train actually starts moving.

And then there are the returns to Metz.

Late at night, on the last connection home. The carriage is dimmer and quieter. Everyone tired but our minds still replaying the weekend in fragments. A cathedral here. A wrong tram there. A plate of something you cannot pronounce. People scroll through photos, send updates to family, or just stare out into their own reflection in the window.

You pass through small towns lit by a handful of streetlights and think about how many versions of “home” you have now. Bangladesh. Atlanta. Metz for this brief chapter. The train is literally moving you from one to another, but there is a part of you that feels strangely stationary, like you are watching your own life slide by outside.

That is what I will miss when this semester ends. Not just the convenient access to a dozen countries or the ability to say “We could do a day trip there.” I will miss the in-between part. The platform adventures.

When I go back to a world of highways and airport security lines, I think some part of my brain will still be tuned to the rhythm of European trains. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there will always be a departure board flipping to a new city and a voice saying, almost casually,

“It’s just one train away.”

Prague, Read Like A Clock

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

Fourteen hours on a train does weird things to time. We arrived in Prague around 11 a.m., hungry and a little dazed, and dropped our bags at the hostel. We went to a Czech spot nearby, where I got a beef goulash. Peppery, steadying, and totally carried by the bread, I give it a solid 7/10.

We let the afternoon take the lead. Kafka’s Head appeared like a trick of light, a mirrored face that assembles and dissolves as 42 stainless steel layers rotate on their own choreography. From there we wandered through Klementinum, peeking at cloisters, hoping to see the historic library, only to find it closed for the day. So we detoured through City Hall, paused in St. Nicholas Church, and drifted past the spires of the Church of Our Lady before Týn. As we exited, the Old Town Square pulled us along with everyone else, and there it was: the Astronomical Clock.

A mechanical marvel, the Astronomical Clock came to life in the early 1400s, kept working through fires and repairs and still stands mightily in the centre of Old Town Square. We stared for a while, pretending we knew what everything meant, before doing what every modern traveler does when faced with medieval complexity: we pulled out our phones and looked it up. Here’s the short, actually useful version of how to read it.

What you’re looking at:
The colorful circle in the middle is called an astrolabe, and everything that moves on it is telling you something.

  • Colors: The background is split into three parts. The blue section is daytime. The orange band shows dawn and dusk. The black section represents night. The center, where all the hands meet, marks Earth—and specifically, Prague’s spot on it.
  • Numbers: Three kinds: Roman numerals for the regular time we use now, Gothic numerals on the outer ring for Old Czech Time, and Arabic numerals in gold for Babylonian hours that divide daylight into twelve uneven pieces.
  • The golden hand: This is the one to watch. It points to both the Roman numerals (modern time) and the Gothic numerals (Old Czech Time).
  • The sun icon: On the same rod as the golden hand. It moves up and down through blue, orange, and black, literally following the position of the sun in the sky. It also passes through zodiac symbols as the year turns.
  • The moon sphere: Half silver and half black, it rotates to show the moon’s phase, just like you’d see it outside at night.
  • The zodiac ring: The dark band with golden symbols for the twelve signs. Each tiny section around them represents a few days. Wider sections mean longer days in summer, narrower ones shorter days in winter.

The calendar plate: Below the main dial sits a large circle with painted months and holidays, added later in the 1400s. Above, the little windows where the apostles appear each hour.

  • Modern time: Find the golden hand and see where it lands on the Roman numerals. That’s your hour. If you’re visiting in summer, add one hour for daylight saving.
  • Old Czech time: Look at where the same golden hand points on the Gothic numerals. Count forward to 24 to see how many hours remain until sunset. Back then, a new day began when the sun went down, not at midnight.
  • Babylonian time: Track the sun icon and check the small Arabic number near it. It tells you how many daylight hours have passed since sunrise. The hours change length as the seasons change, which is why it’s mostly symbolic today.

Once you’ve read it once, the hourly show with the apostles feels like a bonus instead of the main event. The real beauty of the clock is that it turns time itself into public art. It’s a piece of science that people have been reading in the open for centuries.

We stepped away from the crowd and followed the light to the river. The Vltava was calm, bridges glowing. Near Náměstí Republiky we found a set of giant colorful mirrors, and Chris, Kyler, and Matthew did a photoshoot there. Dinner was at Giovanni’s, pizza that easily earned a 9/10, and when we came back out, the tower was glowing for the Signal Festival. Butterflies of light fluttered across stone, and every building seemed to hum. Later, we found a basement packed for a Czech punk band. Afterwards, we crossed Charles Bridge under a light rain, and watched the whole city shimmer in that golden European streetlight glow.

The next morning began slower. The city felt softer in daylight. We crossed one of the bridges and started a mini-hike towards a hill-top where the Petřín Tower was. From a distance, I tried to convince everyone that it was actually the Eiffel Tower. We climbed through the park, stopped to breathe in the view of red roofs below, and made our way toward Strahov Monastery.

From there, we followed the crowds uphill to St. Vitus Cathedral. The line wrapped around the church, curled into itself, and then disappeared behind the main entrance. It looked endless. Prague Castle loomed above it all, wide and unbothered.

Lunch was not Czech, not traditional, not even close. We found a Mexican restaurant tucked between souvenir shops and went in half as a joke, but it turned out to be one of the best meals of the trip. A 9.5 out of 10, maybe a perfect 10 if I wasn’t trying to sound objective. 

After regrouping at the hostel, we hopped on a tram to Eden Arena, home of Slavia Praha. The match against FC Zlín was already in motion by the time we reached our seats. The ultras section pulsed like a living drum—chants rolling, flares burning red, flags swallowing the stands. We did not understand a single Czech football chant, but still joined in unison. We left hoarse and thrilled, ears still ringing.

Dessert was a chimney cake, warm and sugared, with a name too dramatic not to order—Spirit of Dubai. Pistachio and chocolate, crisp on the outside, soft inside, everything you want after a day that stretched far past its energy budget.

Sunday came quietly. Some of our group left early for Metz. The rest of us had breakfast at Globe Bookstore & Café, a mix of shelves and chatter, where you can eat and read and forget which one you started doing first. I give it an 8 for the plate and a 10 for the calm it carried.

We spent the afternoon drifting through side streets, vintage stores, and a small antique shop where the owner gifted me a 1950s Austrian ten Groschen coin. Later we grabbed banh mi (8.5 out of 10) and wandered through an art exhibit that Jason disliked so passionately it became its own entertainment. By the time we returned to the station, the sky had turned the same silver-blue as the clock’s dial, and for a moment the weekend felt perfectly looped.

Prague leaves you with that sense of slow turning. The city never hurries you. Time doesn’t just pass here. It circles like the clock, and if you stand still long enough, you feel yourself turning with it.

A Night at Metz’s Arsenal

Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf

The Arsenal (not the football club) is a former 19th-century weapons depot that now hosts one of Europe’s most admired concert halls. It sits a short walk from the Esplanade, right next to two older neighbors: the Templars’ chapel and Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, a fourth-century basilica turned cultural space. Metz kept the history and traded ammunition for acoustics. In 1989, architect Ricardo Bofill reshaped the site into the hall we know today, opening it with the kind of confidence that dares great artists to test the room. People still talk about the sound.

The Grande Salle seats about 1,500. It uses the classic shoebox shape orchestras love, all warm wood, clean lines, and a volume of roughly 13,600 cubic meters. The proportions are in the same family as Vienna’s Musikverein, and every interior choice serves clarity. You hear the bow hair, not only the note. A soft piano line reaches the back row without anyone leaning forward.

Tonight’s student concert was the ideal first listen. Free with reservation, right after classes at 19h. The Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est played under Adrian Prabava, with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason at the piano. Florence Price’s Concerto for Piano in One Movement opened the night. The first entrance was a small lesson in acoustics. The piano line sat clearly over the orchestra, but it never felt separated. In the middle section, when the rhythm leaned into something more dance-like, the woodwinds answered cleanly and the hall kept the details intact. You could sit anywhere and follow the inner parts without squinting with your ears. Mussorgsky’s Tableaux d’une exposition showed the other side of the room. The Promenade stepped forward with brass that had height but no glare. Fast character pieces stayed transparent, so the strings could move quickly without turning into one block of sound. Percussion landed with weight and then decayed naturally. The room does not add drama, but rather allows the music’s own shape to be heard.

What I liked most was how the story of the place and the sound in it met in the same evening. The original Arsenal Ney went up in the 1860s under Napoleon III. In the renovation, one wing was removed to open a terrace, and most of the new hall was tucked underneath it, leaving the Jaumont stone façades to carry the street view. That is why the complex still reads as Metz and not as something that landed from elsewhere. It is also why the acoustics feel so natural. The architecture frames the sound instead of fighting it.

Metz takes music very seriously. The Arsenal, BAM, and the Trinitaires all sit under the Cité musicale-Metz umbrella, and the city holds a UNESCO Creative City of Music label. Translation for students: there is usually something worth hearing, often at prices that do not hurt your grocery budget.

If you have walked past the Arsenal on the Esplanade and never gone in, watch for the next student night. Take a seat and listen to how a whisper carries through the hall.