“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely

Allison Horowitz Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana CIEE Study Center in Budapest, Hungary From the Corner of Raday and Kinizsi “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” (Mark Twain) When I entered the study abroad office at Tulane for the first time, I had my heart set on going to Paris, France. I had been taking French thsince the 6 grade and I felt that Paris was the logical place to spend the fall semester of my junior year. Now, over a year later, I am forever grateful that I decided to do something different, take a chance, and spend a semester in Budapest, Hungary. The four months I spent in Budapest will remain one of the best experiences of my life. Not only did I learn a tremendous amount about myself, but I learned so much about a country and a region very different from my own. By the end, I was also able to see the similarities, the most important realization. I will never forget my shuttle ride from the airport in Budapest to our first residence, the hostel. To be honest, I was unsure that I had made the right choice. Maybe the missing of my connection in France was a sign. I was not supposed to be in Budapest. As I stared out the window, at the city I would call home for the next four months, I ...