Mayfield plans trip overseas to Austria
Former Warren County High School valedictorian Lindsi Mayfield leaves next week for Vienna, where she will spend the fall semester studying in the Austrian capital.
“This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities,” she said. “I’m a history nerd and I’ll finally get to visit all of these places I’ve read about.”
Mayfield, the daughter of Gordon and Nancy Mayfield, is a junior at David Lipscomb University. She will travel with 20 of her fellow collegians in the study abroad program to the western European country.
While there, the marketing major will matriculate at the Austro-American Institute of Education and take courses in German, Western humanity and the history of Christianity, for which she will receive 16 credit hours.
She said she is a little nervous about the trip – particularly about flying over alone – but she is excited more than anything else. She is concerned about communication, however, as she knows very little German.
“I can only say ‘thank you’ and that’s just because of Wayne Newton,” she said.
In addition to her studies, Mayfield and her fellow students from Lipscomb will also use their location in Vienna as a base to venture out into the rest of Europe. Trips planned already include a 10-day jaunt to Italy, a six-day trip to Paris and Normandy in France, a trip to Prague, Czech Republic and a trip to Poland to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
During their weekends, the students will also be allowed to use Eurail passes to take other small-group trips.
Asked what she will miss most, Mayfield said she’ll miss the kinds of food she’s used to eating, speaking in English, and Wal-Mart.
“There won’t be a Wal-Mart five minutes away,” she said in mock exasperation.