A 29 Hour Adventure in the States

If I was told at the start of my study abroad experience that my farthest trip would be back to the US, I would not have believed you. However, this was the case for me earlier this month when I traveled back to New Jersey for a total of 29 hours. 

A week prior to my trip back, I was offered an internship with a company I interviewed with before leaving for the semester. When I accepted, they told me I would need a Transportation Worker Identification Credential card also known as a TWIC card. To apply for the card I would need to go in person and it requires 6-8 weeks to receive the card. Due to the processing time and the start date of my internship I would have to go through the application during my time abroad. With no option to do it in the US Embassy in Berlin I had to return back to the States for a weekend. Since there was no class on that Friday, I flew from Frankfurt to Newark, where I went straight to the appointment which was located near the airport. 

After narrowly making it to the appointment my parents and I started to make the trip back home. It was then I was able to make comparisons of what I saw around me compared to what I had gotten used to seeing in Germany. The immediate thing I noticed was the difference in transportation. To travel in the US, we rely heavily on cars where in Germany public transportation is very common. There are many different options for trains, trams, subways, and buses. The way you travel can be very different based on what is most convenient for where you are located.  About 67,000 people pass through Bonn Central Station every day just by train alone, whether it is through the 80 long haul trains or 165 regional trains that utilize the station.  

I typically take a 40 minute bus ride to reach the city center to get to class each day. Public transportation being more readily available is mainly due to Bonn’s goal to become climate-neutral by 2035 which involves reducing the amount of individual motorized traffic through cars. 

For this trip I took an ICE express train to reach Frankfurt Airport which greatly reduced the travel time to an hour compared to my 2 hour trip if I went by car. Back in the States taking a bus or train home would not even be an option for me as the nearest bus stop is at least a 30 minute walk from my house and there is no train that runs all the way from the airport to anywhere close to my town. While we were driving down the highway, I noticed the lack of buses on the streets and trains near the road. Despite only being here for a little over a month, I had grown used to seeing the sights of buses and trains traveling alongside the roads. 

It was nice getting to see my dogs and sleep in my own bed for the night! Since I wasn’t leaving from Newark for 12 hours, I decided to make a trip back to Lafayette College to visit my sister and friends on campus. I hadn’t told anyone aside from my sister about my brief return to campus so seeing their reactions was very entertaining. It was nice getting to see them again and tell them some of my experiences so far from being abroad as well as hear about their semester! As the time ticked down I made my way back to Newark and flew back to Frankfurt where I took a train back to Bonn. After a chaotic weekend filled with long flights and many different forms of transportation I got to rest for the rest of the day before getting back to my normal routine of classes in the center of Bonn.

-Samantha

Bonn Hbf . Trains To & From Bonn Hbf . Trainline. (2025). Thetrainline.com; Trainline. https://www.thetrainline.com/en/stations/bonn-hbf

By Bus, Tain, Cab or Ferry around the City. (2025). International.bonn.de; City of Bonn. https://international.bonn.de/services/mobility-and-traffic/by-bus-train-plane/by-bus-and-train.php