Johnny
Johnny speaks
I'm Johnny, I'm a 20 year old American and I love travel and foreign languages! I recently spent a month in China traveling around the country, blogging almost every day, and it was awesome! It was my first time in Asia, and my first time overseas. My only previous trip outside the US was a jump to Canada for a week in 2006. I started this blog about my trip to China mostly for family and friends, so they can see a little of where I'm going and what I'm doing, but also to preserve the memories and emotions of my travels.
After graduating from high school in 2010 I moved to Germany where I studied at German language immersion schools in Munich and Dresden for about 5 months and decided to continue blogging. Now I'm back in the US studying international relations at a university in Atlanta, GA, preparing for my next cultural excursion abroad!
Travel Blog Posts
May 23rd 2011
So here's a little bit of what I've been doing recently while I'm home! May 20-22 In celebration of my brothers 18th birthday, 9 of us took two cars and drove to Carolina Beach for a weekend at the beach. Josh brought his girlfriend and some friends and we enjoyed really sunny weather the whole weekend. We all stayed in a big suite at an oceanside hotel with a great view of the water. Some of slept on the ground some nights, but it was fun nevertheless. Mia got to come too so we had a lot of fun playing different sports on the beach and swimming. We watched a movie every night with all of us in the main suite bedroom, crammed onto the two queen beds. Then on Sunday we went to the aquarium, ... read more
April 12th 2011
This weekend I flew to Cincinnati, Ohio to see my dad's side of the family. I hadn't seen anyone of them since I had been back from Germany so I was really excited and I'm glad the weekend went well. We did a lot. On one rainy day we went to the Cincinnati Museums, which are now located in the old Cincinnati train station. We went for the special Cleopatra Exhibition, which is only in 5 cities in the US! Cinci is the smallest of the cities where it's being held. It was a really fantastic exhibit. I had been to an exhibit like it here a few years ago about the Titanic and they were both very entertaining and educational. We were given audio guides and the freedom to walk through the exhibit at our ... read more
Land of the Free
Published: March 8th 2011North America » United States » New York » New York » Manhattan
March 4th 2011
Our last day, like the previous 3, was full of walking, which I loved! We started from our hotel towards 5th Avenue and walked all the way up to 74th Street to the Whitney Museum of American Art. But before reaching the museum we stopped at the Rockefeller Center to see the ice-skating rink and the famous GE building. The skating rink looks really nice with a golden statue on the wall in the center and flags from a lot different countries along the sides. I see now why everyone thinks of the United States as "a mixing pot of cultures". In New York City I heard more different languages than I did in all of my time in Europe combined. There are so many people from so many different places. I think a lot of ... read more
From Sea to Shining Sea
Published: March 6th 2011North America » United States » New York » New York » Manhattan
March 3rd 2011
We started our third day in New York in the Financial District near Wall Street. We got off the subway and saw the Trinity Church, a small church jammed into a small square of real estate, with towering skyscrapers above. We walked down past Wall Street to see the Charging Bull sculpture first. It's featured in one of my favorite movies, "Hitch". It's a more popular attraction than I thought; there were tons of tourists there getting their picture with the bull. We walked back to Wall Street and right down past the New York Stock Exchange. It felt weird being out on the calm, quiet street knowing that it was complete chaos inside with people selling and buying. Security is really tight inside and you can't get in as a tourist anymore. Apparently, a while ... read more
Liberty and the Phantom!
Published: March 5th 2011North America » United States » New York » New York » Manhattan
March 2nd 2011
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island My great grandfather came to the United States through Ellis Island so, naturally, I was excited for our Liberty Island/Ellis Island trip today. We woke up early, because we had reserved tickets for the Liberty Island ferry at 12pm. Later, we found out that because we reserved online we got to wait in a tiny line to go through security instead of the anaconda line for people who bought tickets at the dock. The security was pretty tight and we almost didn't make it onto our ferry, but we got seats on the top level. We had read that for the best views you should ride on the right side of the ferry to the island and the left side on the way back. This was absolutely great advice, because ... read more
Finally being a tourist in my own country
Published: March 3rd 2011North America » United States » New York » New York
March 1st 2011
I've lived in the United States my whole life and have done almost no sightseeing within my own country, so here is a look at New York City, my first trip, through the eyes of an American. I've been so excited to see New York, because so many of my friends that I met in Europe had already been to NYC and I felt stupid having never seen it! I've grown up watching so many movies that have been filmed here and I know of so many places in NYC, just from hearing dialogues in different movies. I had to finally experience New York. Mia and I took an overnight bus to New York (about 9 1/2 hours, not too bad), which dropped us off in China Town. It felt like I walked right back into ... read more
One more day trip, back to Austria!
Published: January 30th 2011Europe » Austria » Salzburg » Salzburg
January 29th 2011
Mia and I are going back to the US for a while soon so we planned one more trip from Munich. We took a train to Salzburg and we were surprised to find one of the most beautiful (and maybe our favorite) towns we’ve seen in Europe. Salzburg is really a year-round “tourist” town, its beauty is evident even in the darkness of winter and tourists around the world seem to know it. We bought a Bayern ticket, which is an amazing deal. You can take any trains (excluding ICE’s) in Bavaria (Bayern in German) the whole day and it also includes Salzburg for one low price (I think 20 Euro for one person, 29 Euro for 2-5 people). Salzburg is in Austria, but it’s still included in the Bayern ticket, because Salzburg lies only a ... read more
January 25th 2011
I've gotten a few messages here on travel blog asking me or encouraging me about my language learning and passion for it. Special thanks to for suggesting to put it all into a blog. This has kind of been my mixed-up gap year, trying to figure out what I want to do, but also learning languages. I just got back from my first trip out of my home country in August and now I'm studying languages abroad for a while. Not any hardcore traveling from place to place hitting famous sites, but I can use the city I'm studying in as a base to explore a lot of the surrounding areas. The trip last summer was to China and right now I'm in Germany improving my German. It's also my first time in Europe so I've ... read more
January 22nd 2011
Day 2 in Berlin started with seeing another Bourne site! Alexanderplatz, where Bourne has Nicky meet him under the world clock in the Bourne Supremacy. The world clock is an interesting installment. It has the time zones (1-24) wrapped around a tall, cylinder shaped object off to the side of Alexanderplatz. Wrapped around under the zones is a map of the world with major cities under whichever time zone they belong to. Anyways, we saw a lot more today too. After breakfast at Alexanderplatz we walked over to the huge TV tower. I'm told most Berliners hate the tower, but I didn't mind it too much. It reminded me a little of the Oriental Pearl TV tower in Shanghai. Right next to the TV tower is the red Old City Hall and also a big fountain ... read more
January 21st 2011
I arrived in Berlin ready to explore the next capital! I’m considering a university in Berlin too so Mia and I planned a weekend trip to see the city and the university. I flew straight from Paris to Berlin and I picked up Mia at the bus station this morning. Then we went back to the hostel really quick to drop off the bags before we got started seeing the city. The hostel we’re staying at is awesome! Huge room, wifi, pool, sauna, private bathroom with huge shower, the works. It’s part hostel and part hotel. We’re staying in the hostel part and for only 16 Euro a night! It’s called Plus Berlin and they have “plus” branches in a few major European cities like Prague, Florence, and a couple more I can’t remember. Well, that ... read more
Johnny speaks
| Joined | July 22nd 2010 | Trips | 3 |
| Last Login | May 25th 2012 | Followers | 7 |
| Status | BLOGGER | Follows | 6 |
| Blogs | 64 | Guestbook | 104 |
| Photos | 1,322 | Forum Posts | 46 |
Options
Edit This Title
Map Legend: 3%, 9 of 263 Territories
home 
visited 
My Country
Map Legend: 27%, 14 of 51 States (Territories)
Where I'm from Visited 
Your Description
Trips
China! First Trip Ever
July 20th 2010 -» August 19th 2010
Living in Europe
September 15th 2010 -» February 2nd 2011
US Travels
March 1st 2011 -» ongoing
July 20th 2010 -» August 19th 2010
Living in Europe
September 15th 2010 -» February 2nd 2011
US Travels
March 1st 2011 -» ongoing
Blogged From
TravelBlog Awards
Top Photos
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 16; qc: 66; dbt: 0.0466s; 1; s:notus w:www (50.28.61.183); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.9mb
