Caleb Terry, senior business major from Benton, Ark. is soaking up adventures in Austria as he studies abroad this semester.
Terry, who has wanted to study abroad since his senior year of high school, left for Austria mid-January, and will complete his three and a half months stay in just a few more weeks.
“I’ve always loved traveling, but when I applied for Ouachita and saw all of the study abroad programs, I knew I had to take advantage of it while I was here,” Terry said.
Austria was Terry’s choice for studying abroad for a few reasons. He knew that Austria was the most central location in Europe that Ouachita partnered with, and that it only had classes Monday through Thursday, therefore, offering perfect travel circumstances.
“Because Austria is so central, pretty much every place is accessible in only a weekend trip,” Terry said. “I wanted to do a lot of traveling and see as much as I could, so this was a big factor.”
While in Austria, Terry is staying with a host family, going to school Monday through Thursday, and on the weekends either traveling independently or on school sponsored excursions. So far he has visited London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome, Budapest and other places. He says that Rome and Dublin have been his favorites.
Although Austria has been exciting and new, there are a few things Terry misses about Ouachita and home in general. He misses being able to play loud music and drive his own car.
“All I have been doing since I’ve been over here is riding buses and trains, so I’m not sure I even remember how to drive at this point,” Terry said.
He also misses the ease of communication in America and hanging out with all his friends back at Ouachita.
However, Terry was surprised at how similar the cultures actually are, other than a few small differences like people in the south being generally nicer and the differences in food and transportation.
One of the funniest things that has happened to Terry during his stay happened after the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. An Irish girl overhead Terry and Matt Miller, senior business major from Aubrey, Texas, another Ouachita student studying in Austria, talking.
She came up to them and told them how much she loved everything about America, the culture, the movies, and the people. She told them that her favorite movie was Forest Gump and that she had a dream of one day living in America with her American husband.
When she said this, Terry immediately pushed Miller down onto his knee, the girl pulled off a ring that she was already wearing, and Miller “proposed” to her.
A crowd of people came around and everyone was celebrating the newly engaged “couple” when a reporter came up and interviewed them.
“They were in the biggest newspaper in Ireland the next day because of a fake proposal,” Terry said.
