One of the biggest eye openers for me when traveling abroad was how easy it is to travel to new destinations. Being in London was great because it was a central hub that allowed me to travel to all sorts of different destinations during my stay. The trip I enjoyed most was a weekend trip down to Barcelona. Barcelona had a good mix of different cultures and was a very young town. Plane tickets were very affordable and allowed us to leave after class on Friday and make it back home Sunday night just in time for class Monday morning. The part that can be difficult about these weekend trips is trying to jam everything into the short amount of time there. Every destination has plenty of different tourist attractions, restaurants, etc. but when you only have a limited amount of time there, you really have to figure out what it is you want to do before hand. We spent our days there seeing sights like the Sagrada Familia, then during the nights we went out and enjoyed the night life and met tons of people our age from all over the world. Having some sort of set agenda before arriving is very helpful and makes the weekend trip a whole lot smoother.  I would definitely recommend going on a weekend or day trip if you are able to as it allows you to experience something that you may not desire to schedule an entire vacation around. Also, RyanAir is a life saver for flights.