Bus Ride to Prague ❤️

Hello! I'm Ana and I'm supposed to blog about my experiences on this trip so far. ✈️ Well, currently we are on the bus to Prague and we just left Germany. 🚌 Yesterday, we took a trip to Dachau Concentration camp and THEN we received a wonderful and insightful tour of the city of Munich. We learned about everything from Beir Gartens to Glockenspiels.⛪️  Little did I know that this was a city of deceitful kings and crazy rulers. 🏰 I don't remember what the first duke of the Prague territory was named, but I do remember that he was great friends with the one and only Napolean.💂🏼 It was Napolean who put the Prague kingdom on the map and promoted its current duke to a king. 👑 The son of this king was eventually handed the throne. He unlike his father did not appreciate Napaolean's worldly powers, so instead of marrying into the French family, he married a German girl. 👫 This marriage lasted an ENTIRE WEEK! Yes, yes, Germans know how to party.😏👯 Shortly after this celebration, the king and the queen wished to celebrate for yet another week. This celebration today is known as October Fest 🎃 And is celebrated world-wide.🍻 Speaking of beer or bier, I learned some rules of the bier gartens in Germany. 🇩🇪 Rule #1: you must purchase an alcoholic beverage at the bier garten. That's not too hard for most people. 😉 And you are welcome to bring your own munchies and snacks.🍖🍇 Rule #2: There must be an abundance of Chesnut trees in the garden. 🌳🌰 As we continued on our tour, we traveled to the suburb of Nimfenburg where the Queen's summer home was built. The current duke of München currently resides there now. The palace is surrounded by beautiful canals 🏞 and swans.  Here are some pictures of the GORGEOUS city of Munich.   

     

    A local bier garten.🍻  

    The canals that surround the suburb of Nimfenburg.🏞  

      The Queen's Palace👑🏰  

  Adolf Hitler's office building in Munich.☠

  Some goslings and their mother 🐣  

  The symbol of Munich: a monk-child.🙇🏻  

  We only have a few more adventures before we fly back home. 🛫🏠 Thank you for letting me blog Mrs. Jones! 💻

Austrian Alps

Guten Tag everyone! Ashton Baker here taking over while we make our trip through the Austrian Alps. I've personally never been on a more beautiful bus ride than the one we had to Tyrol, Austria. Everything was so green, lush, and pristine. The air was fresh and crisp, resembling the Colorado mountain oxygen. Throughout this trip, everyone usually sleeps on the bus. However, driving through the Austrian Alps, it was impossible to sleep. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. God laid his hand to work there first.  Then we arrived to the sweetest little family owned traditional inn. It felt as though the location was taken right out of "The Sound Of Music". We were nestled near the top of the mountain and we were able to see the entire city from the back porch of our temporary home. It was a struggle to take your eyes off of the view. As soon as we got there, we knew we didn't want to leave. Dinner was served almost immediately after we arrived. The same woman who served us, was also the owner of the inn. This "bed and breakfast" had been passed down from generation to generation. It was quite impressive to see that it had been well maintained and was extremely clean. For dinner we had noodle soup, schnitzel, rice with vegetables, and homemade yogurt made with the cream obtained from one of the woman's 30 cows. I, along with my travel mates, were amazed that this little Austrian woman ran this business pretty much on her own. We spent time on the balcony after dinner, soaking up each other's company with laughs, tea, and inside jokes. It was so refreshing to be away from the city with no access to wifi and being secluded from the large populations of people we've been constantly surrounded by on this trip. My travel buddies and I appreciated the natural beauty of this amazing paradise of a place!!! Next we're off to Germany and I can't wait for more memories and laughs!  Thank You!

Ride to Verona

Wake up & smell the cappuccino, world-travelers! My name is Jayde Contreras, and I'm one of these said "world-travelers." This is my second international trip, and this one is just as life-changing as the first. I've decided that I'm going to move to Florence--maybe you gives that an idea of how precious this city is. This entire trip has been so incredibly surreal, and it's terribly saddening that it's already half way over. But we've so much more to see!      Today we left beautiful Florence behind us, and we got to embark on a new journey, this time to Verona, Italy for a short tour. Florence was full of strong coffee, loads of gelato, too many carbs, a few terrifying bus experiences (thanks, Luciano), bargain shopping, a hilarious lack of sleep, a number of gorgeous views, Courtney Leafgren's many pastry shop homes, and a whole lot of cigarette smoke. We had a long day of travel ahead of us, and the first chunk was a three hour ride to Verona. All of the travelers were open-mouthed and snoring (Liza Nelson) within the first couple hours, catching up on some sleep. Verona was gorgeous as ever and presented a few last-minute shopping opportunities for those of us that needed a few things extra from Italy. The trip was short lived but still full of adventure as always. Our tour guide, told us all that "touching Juliet's breast brings good luck," so most of us couldn't pass up an opportunity such as that. We walked the same streets that appear on "Letters to Juliet," and we got a little taste of expensive Verona. Then it was back to the bus for the ride to Austria. Ciao bella, Italy, and we'll see you again some day! ❤️

Florence free day

Hi! My name is Courtney and I am another one of the world travellers on this Europe adventure! Today I had the opportunity to venture about the beautiful city of Florence. We did A LOT of shopping, but it was neat to discover all the unique Italian shops. We bartered with street vendors and visited fancy leather stores. My mom even purchased wine from a cute little wine shop. We purchased gifts for allllll the relatives! My personal favorite things to find in Florence are pastries! 😍 We sure have done a lot of eating here, and today was no exception! I was on a mission to find a delicious crepe place and I did exactly that. How does a Nutella crepe with fresh fruit sound? That's right, delicious! 👌🏼 The second sweet of the day was some gelato, but I suppose that had been a daily occurrence here!! It was a wonderful day in Florence. How could it not be in such a magnificent place?! 🙈 I look forward to the days to come and hopefully many more visits to Italia in the future! Arrivederci! 🇮🇹

This is everybody who did NOT go to Pisa for the day. We are in the Piazza de Signori where there is a duplicate of The David where he used to stand. We are posing, it appears, beneath the statue of Triton, or Poseidon if you're Greek.

Horse manure, new castles, Bavarian history lesson, and München!

Chad Shaw, social studies teacher, added to the trip at the last minute who loves the dichotomy between America and Europe.   Oh my gosh. Where to begin. Today we laughed all the way to Neuschwanstein castle. From Nyc accents and hot chocolate. As a group we have been opportunistic in getting off the path both literally and metaphorically. We have seen member of the group in such a new and personal light that it makes trips like this so much fun. The spirit of "la adventura" is alive with these people. As we hiked the hill up to the castle constructed by Crazy Ludwig II, we witnessed beautiful horses leaving the fine scent of the farmland of Bavaria. This was a mere nuisance to the pure joy one witnesses when seeing the castle up close. The group toured through the castle constructed in the 1860-1880s, we gained an appreciation of the whimsical building and oddity that is the this castle. Meanwhile we experienced the welcoming German tour guide and found new heights of humor. Some serendipitously taken photos were presented to us within the castle. At lunch we got a taste of the gastronomical wonders of potato salad, that tasted just like my Swiss mother's, and braised chicken. The best part was we could immediately tell it was food produced within minutes of the restaurant. Eat local! Post meal, the herr produce historical relics of May pole celebrations. Interesting and quaint. From there we travel on to Munich. What a city. Clean. Orderly. German. City hall glockenspiel chimed at 5 as we walked through the Marienplatz. Travelled to the hotel and we settle in for a heavy but important lesson tomorrow. As we learn we find struggle and hard topics teach the best lesson. Guden nacht.

Pisa

Hi, my name is Delaney. I am one of the students that got to go on this trip. I am a junior in high school and I am so exited to be apart of this trip. We have been seeing many new and exciting places. 

Today we went to the leaning tower of Pisa and it was so much fun. We got to see that in person and I didn't realize that there was a church to go look at or shops around. I thought it was just the tower but it wasn't. I also found out that Michael Angelo didn't build the whole tower. Just the first three floors. 

We went to visit the church and this was the ceiling.


They repaired it after the original burnt down in a fire. It is also tilted. Not just the tower. All the buildings here are tilted which was interesting. I had fun throughout the day  

And We're Off! (Kind Of...)

Hello, my name is Liza and I am one of the lucky students to be going on this trip. Being the corageous out person I am I decided to sign up for blogging for the first day. I was suppose to hand over the designated blogging iPad after we reached Rome the next day but it seems as if things never go to plan.  Sunday June 5th: Everyone in the group arrives at 10 am ready for out flight at 12:45 pm that afternoon. This is where the adventure begins. As we wait at the gait our flight gets delayed again and again until we are able to leave at 4, meaning we will miss our connecting flight at JFK. 

 

The next few hours are a blur of flying scrambling off the plane and searching for any flight that will get us to Europe, be that flight landing in Rome or London. But time doesn't work in our favor. We have no other options other than take a flight at 8 pm the following day, leaving our group stranded in New York for an entire day. We end up spending the night on the floor of gate B25 while speakers blared about not smoking in the airport and arriving flyers loudly walked by.  

Monday June 6th: Despite the current situation of missing out on an entire day of our tour, we make the most of what we got. We visited the 9/11 Memorial, Grand Central Station, the Empire State Building, Times Square, walked down Broadway, experienced the New York subway, and even say a Gucci store. Each member of the group walked over 9 miles that day on an average of about 4 hours of sleep. 

 

 

Looking back on the last two days it seems as if nothing went according to plan. And really nothing did. All I can say looking back is that I'm glad everything happened and I wouldn't change it for the world. Ruined plans have a way of making a trip memorable,nd boy are we off to a good start. 

 

 

 

   

You can't always get what you want-Rolling Stones and travel style

Travel Style...help us Angelina, we pray!

  Today I'm flying all solo on the ol' iPad hoping this blogging experiment will work. So here's one more before we head off.  Travel style....discuss. Do you have any idea how many web pages and Pinterest boards spring open when you google search "travel style"? I lost count after seventeen- hundred, sixty-three. And of those, fifteen-hundred feature Angelina Jolie. I guess when you are flying around the world adopting children you need to have a savvy stylist to go along.  I know... This is supposed to be an educational tour but I'm getting life lessons pushed out here! (And don't think just because you are one of the only three males going that this stuff isn't critically important and, dare I say, life-changing. Just look at what good style did for Angelina, a girl who attended her first marriage Ina t-shirt with the grooms name written in blood to a woman who wows the red carpet.) I also have proof that this is a much-needed education in math for males, as witnessed by my brother's astutely inept calculations on the last blog entry that 3 skirts + 4 tops = 12 days. Even an astronaut knows that just equals...well...B-squared  (boring and B.O.) So here's a list of fashion must haves for touring Europe: 1. Large dark glasses (so either people don't recognize you as an American movie star or they THINK you are one--much more likely) 2. Floppy hat (see above.. It's part of the movie-star mystique) 3. Cross-body bag, preferably leather and clutch sized. (This is so thieves and pick-pockets and muggers have to actually hurl you physically across the piazza as they rip the bag from your body as opposed to simply slipping it off your shoulder and running like mad as you scream Aiuto! Which I think means "stop" in Italian.  4. Perfect lengthed shorts: which means neither "booty" or "Bermuda." Now this is a tricky one and may require hours of shopping NOT at American Eagle or Eddie Bauer. These must be constructed of this season's go-to fabric called...well shoot I packed them already so I can't tell you...but it's something similar to the curtain fabrics used by both Maria von Trapp and Scarlette O'hara to construct comely outfits for children and seductresses. 

Kute kids' Klothing

5. Something that shows the shoulder- but NOT the arm. Yes, this is the travel look of summer. Something either missing the shoulder seams or slipping somewhere short of the Famous Flashdance sweatshirt scene.. (Everybody say "if you close your eyes you can see the music") 6. Perfect pair of wedges (just to be clear for my brother... That's not the same thing as a wedgie...these are shoes) 7. A nude lipstick (really? What's the point? If God would have wanted our lips skin-colored....plus it's just embarrassing to say) 8. I will spare you the undergarments (but suffice to say that you don't want bra straps showing so just get ready for that skin blister you're going to have under your left arm pit after a 17 hour day in a strapless equipped with rubber stay-put band liners). NOW THAT, my friend, IS AN EDUCATIONAL TOUR!  But here's the thing...what you're supposed to look like, and what you feel like as you attempt to feel like what you're supposed to look like are two different animals. It's sort of like, "I've always wanted to be one of those women who wear floppy hats through Europe...but I always feel like a goofball wearing a truckers cap backwards every time I try to pull it off." Anybody smelling what I'm saying? I mean, we all look at Angelina and go, "ahhhh." But try to emulate and all you're going is,"I am a fraud!" And there you have it. Right back to boring and body odor. Europe here I come!

What you want

What you actually end up looking like

     

T minus 48

I realize that "T-minus" anything is a term probably lost on anyone who was born later than say....December 7, 1972 when NASA launched its last lunar mission with Apollo 17. In fact I have had to come to terms with the fact that several of the students going on this trip were not even born in the same century as the lunar launches. Yes, they are the true 2000-ers *gasp* millennials! But all that aside, one has to wonder if packing for the moon for 12 days was any more difficult than packing for Europe for the same amount of time...in a 20x17x9 carry-on and an airline-approved "personal item."

Eugene Ronald and Harrison all packed and ready to fly

I have this recurring nightmare where I wake up crying out, "Does everyone have their passport?!" And then the airline security people pull me out of line yelling, "You call yourself an English teacher? Everyone knows that everyone is a singular pronoun requiring a singular his or her to its antecedent...does everyone have his or her passport!!!! And then in a half-wake stupor I stutter, "But wouldn't a singular pronoun require a singular verb, has? Wouldn't it be everyone has? "Dummkopf!" they cry! (Dummkopf being a word I once heard on Hogan's Heros, another thing these kids are oblivious of...and why they should utter German pejoratives at DIA is beyond me). Would you say he does has!!??

At this point I give up and just tell them I'm a social studies teacher, which is a lie, but they buy it, smile, and send me packing. 

Speaking of packing, did I mention how hard it is to fit 11 days worth of fashion savvy outfits into a carry-on? 

 

 

 

Here we all are ready to fly...t-minus 48 and counting

READY TO FLY? #Travelingtimes16

On Sunday June 5, I and 15 other travelers--high school kids and their parents and one grandparent--are flying off to Rome. We are going to wipe the dust of lil' ol' Eaton off our irrigation boots and spend 11 days traveling north from Rome to Prague to see the world.

But before we go, I wanted to set up a really cool way for the kids to share their experiences.

WARNING: Whenever a teacher says she wants to do something "really cool" and "for the kids" one can bank on the fact that it will involve an entire morning, pajamas, several cups of tea or coffee and a strong look of consternation.

Check. Check. And Czek Republic (did I mention we are ending in Prague?).

So today is day NUMBER 1 of the travel bog. Yes, I just said BOG because I have, indeed, spent all morning in my PJ's trying to figure out how to add an Instagram widget to my blog page after creating an Instagram account Travelingtimes16 (check us out). Did I mention I went to the Verizon store and bought a new phone and a portable keyboard for the iPad so they could have the equipment they would need?

This is me trying to configure technology--and I am stymied stupid!

But I had this crazy idea that I would let the kids, yes, I just said kids, do the blogging on this trip...learn something, share something, give them a voice.

I'm fairly certain that there isn't a teacher alive who has NOT muttered these words, in her pajamas at 10 am: It's exhausting being a good teacher.

Because a mediocre teacher would simply take 15 people to Europe, right? But a GOOD teacher would let them blog. And a GREAT teacher would a way to post up the daily Instagram photo on that blog in a clever widget on the side bar.

Time for clothing and a shower and time to slide it back to GOOD. Great just isn't gonna happen today.

Can't even express how excited I am for this adventure! More to come!