On April 3, a group of 18 Grady students and 3 teachers boarded a plane and spent six hours soaring over the Atlantic Ocean, finally landing in Shannon, a river town in western Ireland. The group spent 11 days exploring Ireland, Wales, London, and Paris on a tour led by EF Tours, a company that has led APS students on spring break trips in Europe for the past several years.
As the trip was organized by the school, education was one of its main focuses.
“The tour guides that we had we would pass by a monument and they would give us the whole history of it,” junior Crystal Dorta, one of the students on the trip, said. “There was never a time where we were just not talking about history; each country we went to had a history of its own.”
AP U.S. History teacher Roderick Pope, who led the trip along with French teacher Theresa Monye and fashion teacher Valerie Williams, said that the trip was able to give students important educational opportunities that they otherwise may not have had.
“[Students] get to see what they’ve talked about in class and in history class,” Pope said. “Or they get to work on the language that they’ve used.”
Junior Kitty Wright, a French student, said that Paris was one of her favorite parts of the trip because she knew so much about French culture.
“I was the only kid on the trip that took French, along with Madame Monye, so being in what you’ve studied for the past years is pretty cool,” Wright said.
Students who were unfamiliar with specific countries, however, were also able to appreciate them.
“It was also really lucky with World War II that France was occupied so quickly, otherwise it would’ve been bombed like London was and a lot of the older architecture would have been destroyed,” junior Owen Cavanaugh said.
Though everyone on the trip was able to find something they enjoyed, many of the participants agreed that the itinerary was a little bit too ambitious.
“It felt rushed because we were really running around quickly and we were on a time scale,” Cavanaugh said. “Like we could only spend an hour at the Louvre and I would have preferred like three hours.”
The teachers who went on the trip agreed.
“There’s so much to see,” Pope said. “If you aren’t in one place long enough, then no one gets to see what they want, so we’re not gonna do as many cities in the future.”
Still, the group made good use of the time they did have overseas.
“There was never one time when we were really just relaxing,” Dorta said. “Sometimes we had our free days like the last day in Paris.”
The group traveled to typical “tourist traps” throughout the four countries they visited, but students were also able to explore on their own to learn more about the locals.
“We went to the city of Versailles and Paris; we also went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa,” Dorta said. “We went to the Blarney Stone in Ireland so we got to kiss the Blarney Stone.”
Cavanaugh found his interactions with the locals the most memorable part of the trip.
“My favorite meal of the whole trip was in Killarney,” Cavanaugh said. “[Some friends] and I went to a tiny little fish and chips place, and the woman there had a daughter about our age, and we talked with her about colleges.”
Cavanaugh spoke to the chef while she cooked their food, and enjoyed the restaurant’s casual vibes. He was surprised to learn that college is much less expensive in Ireland than in the United States.
“[Traveling] allows the kids to develop a global perspective and see that the world is more than just what we see it to be,” Pope said.
As much as the students on the trip learned,they also had many memorable adventures, whether that meant being approached by drunken Parisians on the metro or dining at shabby Indian restaurants in London.
“They’re good kids and it’s easy to travel with people that you like,” Pope said. “I think that the kids really get something out of it educationally and so I believe that it’s just sort of a continuation or an extension of school.”