Day FIVE: Travel Day (Chaperones Take Over the Blog!)

Hello everyone!  We decided because it was a (fairly) uneventful travel day for us, that we would hijack the blog for one night and give the kids the night off from writing.  They will be back tomorrow writing for sure!

We had a very early wake up call this morning with a 6:45am call time for breakfast.  Everyone had to be completely packed the night before so that we could get in our coach and be on the road by 7:30am.  The first couple of hours of the drive, most everyone promptly went back to sleep.





Due to safety rules for drivers, we had to stop every couple of hours, but that was a good thing because it allowed opportunities to get snacks and drinks for the ride.  

The lunch stop was also a bit of an adventure, because as we got into more and more rural parts of France, the number of people who spoke English diminished.  The kids did a good job of navigating as best they could to get the meals they wanted.  The lunch options at a rest stop area ranged from really good, high-quality hot meals served on china with silverware; to Burger King, which most everyone skipped because our Tour Director Gwen convinced them that there had been a recent e Coli outbreak in European Burger King in an effort to keep them away from American food.  It was not real, but it really worked :)


After lunch while on the road as a final good bye to Paris and France, we watched the movie Moulin Rouge.  Most kids watched while others were content to listen (or listen to whatever was on their headphones).  


The kids were also given a 60 question quiz from our Tour Director Gwen, who is continuously impressed with how much knowledge our kids possess about European History, current events, and general knowledge about England and France.  He has said that our students have been much more knowledgeable than most of the tours he has done.  As of press time we do not know which team won the contest, but I'm sure all the groups did great.  


We finally arrived at our hotel in Switzerland.  The area is gorgeous, trading flat French countryside covered in fields of yellow blooms of Colza, to mountainous terrain with lots of tunnels all over the country.  Our quaint hotel is nestled amongst farms (there are sheep nearby with a guard dog, and when we walked by that dog did not take his eyes off of us) and is in a very, very small quiet town.  Short, early dinner right here at the hotel, and the kids get some much deserved free time tonight. 










- Cory McGann, Jen Shiels, Sue Reap, MB Gallant, and Mary Nemeth


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day TWO: London

Image
Our day started with a continental breakfast with some traditional and non-traditional foods, including the staples and baked beans, porridge, and, of course, tea. We boarded the coach and took a ride through London to pick up our tour guide, Lottie. She gave us more background on the city of London and showed us some famous landmarks such as Parliament Square, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and lots of Harry Potter shooting locations.  Church bells rang all morning for Easter, and we spent some time hanging out around St. Paul’s cathedral. While we couldn’t go in, the exterior was beautiful and the surrounding area was great as well.  As we crossed the Thames, we could see ancient architecture on one side of the bridge and modern on the other. Super cool! We broke for lunch at a food market near a festival hall, and there were lots of delicious food options from many countries. Jess and Molly recommend the rice bowls. We then broke horror movie rule #1 and broke into two groups, one taki
Read more

Day ONE: London

Image
The time is 04:00 GMT, the airplane is filled with silence and peace. All of a sudden, my follow travelers and I were awakened by flashing orange-red lights. We look around in confusion and dismay as the flight attendants tell us to unfasten our seatbelts. What is going on? An emergency landing? An accident on the plane? It was worse… it was coffee time. To our horror, we realized that the flight attendants had woken us up with more than two hours left in our flight. Some of us only had an hour of sleep, some of us had none at all. It has been a long night… The time is 06:30 GMT, we have successfully landed, jet lagged and affected by the red-eye. There, we meet our savior: Gwen. Gwen is our designated tour guide for the next eight days, and to our delight, he is incredibly pleasant. Being fluent in over four languages, and being born in France, he makes an intriguing and very fun tour guide. His first demonstration of kindness is when he lets us go about the terminal, and find ourse
Read more

Day FOUR: Paris

Image
The second day in Paris was the most eventful day of the trip so far, from seeing local historical buildings to seeing how Parisians live their daily lives. First, we woke up and had an amazing breakfast, including croissants, baguettes and pan au chocolat at the hotel. Then, we went straight to pick up our tour guide Stephanie from the Arc de Triomphe, which is in a crazy intersection, and contains a memorial to forgotten soldiers, and has a flame that burns infinitely.  After picking Stephanie up we started on our bus tour, seeing the streets of Paris and hearing about all the old buildings, what they used to be, and what they are now. As we were going past one of the colleges (the Sorbonne), we witnessed a student protest about climate change first hand, which was ironic considering the fact that Stephanie wanted to say this is a very lively street where everything happens.  We stopped at the Luxembourg Garden where we were able to walk around or stop to get coffee. The garden was k
Read more