What are you doing this summer?

What I did on my summer vacation… 

Summer may bring memories of long lazy days at the pool or beach, or maybe that summer job you had as a teen or college student.  However, this summer is certainly different for some of our OT students and our OT program.  For the first time, we have a cohort of students taking a full schedule of classes this summer, taught by several of our fantastic faculty members and adjunct faculty.  Meanwhile, other students are completing their level II fieldwork experiences with support from our awesome academic fieldwork coordinators. 

But perhaps summer makes you think of vacations, traveling, time with family & friends, and time to indulge in some favorite leisure occupations.  One of our OT students traveled to Germany earlier this summer with the College’s concert choir – engaging in a meaningful occupation related to music.  Rising senior, Nathan Tindell, shared these comments and photos from his trip.   

Our first day took place in Frankfurt and it was quite fun as we explored Römerberg, the old town, and several other locations in the area. It also started my gelato addiction as I had one almost every day of the trip. 

For the next couple of days, we were in Prague, Czech Republic. This had to be my favorite city as we had a lot of free time exploring the old city with tons of shops and food. We were able to explore Prague Castle too, where a massive cathedral was located behind the castle walls. The inside was stunning and massive. A group of us climbed up 300 stairs to reach the top tower of the cathedral where we had an amazing view of the whole city! That night we had our first concert at the museum of music which was quite a fun experience including steps that played music when you walked on them.  

Our next stop was in Leipzig where we performed at Bach’s Church and had a very meaningful moment where we sang a Ukrainian Prayer of Peace for 2 Ukrainian Refugees. We also performed at Schumann-Haus, one of the many museums we toured that day. The next day we visited a concentration camp on our way to Salzburg. It was quite heavy, but they did a wonderful job making it both a memorial and a historical monument to show why history cannot be repeated.  

Once we were in Salzburg, we were surrounded by mountains. We started that day by visiting the fortress, which had a lot of fun views and areas to explore, including a marionette museum.  

Afterward, I organized a group to go to one of the tallest mountains in the area which we traveled to through the bus system. We took a ten-minute cable car to get to the top and the view was stunning! We then explored downtown Salzburg, a few museums, and a large garden! 

 Our last new city finished in Trier, where we had our largest performance. We performed in an evensong mass in front of about 150 people and there was so much love and support from everyone there! On our last day, we went back to Frankfurt, and I enjoyed trying local food including apfelwein, flammkuchen, and green sauce. It was an amazing time!