Author | Lydia Rice |
From left to right: Owen Nelson, Samantha Cooper, McCartney Warr, Abigail Gross, and Kurt Whiteley (and their tour guide, Marc).
Stressed.
Exhausted.
Worth it.
Those are the three most common phrases I heard from the Scholars Guild students who went to Europe over Spring Break as they stumbled bleary-eyed and jet-lagged into classes.
For those of us who did not sign up, the Scholars Guild trip to Europe is probably a distant memory. To summarize, Scholars Guild hosted the opportunity to travel across Europe over Spring Break and the students that signed up were Owen Nelson, McCartney Warr, Abigail Gross, Kurt Whiteley, and Samantha Cooper. These globetrotting Guildians were chaperoned by Mrs. Gross, Mrs. and Dr. Cooper, and Mr. and Mrs. Nelson.
So, naturally, I did my best to hunt down these sleep-deprived students and ask them all about their trip.
Pictured above: McCartney Warr on the shores of the Irish Sea
McCartney Warr and Abigail Gross
Wanting to figure out the basics, I asked McCartney what the best place to visit in Europe was.
There was barely a second of hesitation, “Edinburgh, Scotland. I liked how they really got the inspiration for Harry Potter there - I loved that actually - and I also really liked the college there and I don’t know, it was like a little city but it wasn’t dirty. It was all clean and everything was in, like, castles. It was amazing. Also, look at this picture I drew of the Irish Sea!”
McCartney is a fabulous artist and the picture, along with her impressively detailed journal of the trip, was astonishing.
Naturally, when I asked what her favorite memory was she immediately had an answer.
“Going to the Irish Sea!”
But, now it was time to find some interesting anecdotes, as I asked, “So, what was the dumbest thing you did in Europe? Dumb being any jetlagged mistakes or crazy dares, stuff like that.”
McCartney immediately began laughing and pointed at Abigail, saying, “Abigail, the stars...”
Abigail knows what she’s talking about instantly and talks in a drowsy, loopy voice, “Is that a star? Are we here yet?”
I was confused, intrigued, and determined to figure out what happened. “Wait, okay what? Tell it, now you have to tell me!”
Abigail tries to explain through her laughter, but I ended up even more confuddled. “I just remember her [McCartney] saying, ‘Is the bird okay?’”
Taking pity on me, McCartney expands, “Umm, so we were - we had a red-eye flight so it was overnight. I was exhausted, we hit a bird 45 minutes out, had to turn around and come out -”
“You hit a bird?” I asked, thinking “how does this connect to a star?”
“Our plane hit a bird.” McCartney clarifies.
“A bird, like a bird that flies?” Yes, not my brightest moment, I know.
“No, our plane hit the flightless bird, Lydia.” Abigail chimed in, giggling.
I smiled and Belle Crawley piped up from the other side of the quiet room, “Yeah they hit an ostrich.”
Now everyone was laughing and McCartney had to get us back on track, “So, then we had to turn around and I was just so tired and I had taken sleeping medication and I was drowsy but I couldn’t sleep because there was a child that kept screaming...so I was looking out the window and at the end of the plane, there’s a little light and I was just like ‘Abigail, look at the star! It’s so pretty’ and she was like ‘Mccartney...that’s a plane wing.” and I was like “ooookay!” and I almost started crying cause I was like “oh okay…”
Ah, the things we think when we are loaded with medication and extremely tired...
I moved my attention to Abigail, wanting to know a bit more about the cuisine of Europe. What was her favorite meal?
“I liked the soup.”
“Where?” I wonder which place has the best soup. That seems like a need to know thing.
“I wrote down all of our meals!!!” McCartney starts pulling out her notebook just as Abigail expands.
“At the castle, we ate soup in a castle.” Abigail’s voice was so quietly enthused that I immediately reflected that it really must be cool to eat soup in a castle.
Finally, I asked them to sum up each place they visited in three words.
London: Busy, Clean, Cosmopolitan
Ireland: Green, Beautiful, Sheep
Scotland: Castles, Harry Potter, Inspiring
Pictured Above: The Scottish castle everyone loved!
Samantha Cooper
It was the end of the day when I cornered Samantha Cooper before our shared AP Literature class and I’m sorry to say, I caused her a lot of distress.
“Okay, so this is how it is going to be.” I approach smiling, recording app open, and questions in hand.
“Oh no, what do you want?” Sam is already lying on the floor and flails her arms in distress. Apparently, I’ve gained a reputation. Poor Samantha, as she explained, she just wants to nap.
“You mean, what can you do to get me go away? Well, I’m glad you asked, what’s the dumbest thing you did in Europe?”
“I feel like the dumbest thing we did was all the times we almost got hit by cars”
“Oh, that’s lovely…” I trail off, not totally knowing how to respond to that one.
“Yeah, I guess that would be the dumbest thing. We didn’t really do like dumb stuff like we didn’t forget our keys in our room or anything like that.”
Well, they’re definitely doing better than I would have done. I move on to the easier questions and ask her what her favorite place to visit was.
Like most people, her response was lightning fast, “The Castle in Scotland, I forgot its name, but it was a castle.”
“What about your most traumatic moment?”
“Traumatic???” Sam repeats.
“Or otherwise stressful”
She thinks and says, “Probably us having to wait like an hour and 45 minutes to check-in and then having 10 minutes to go through security.”
What about a favorite souvenir?
“I didn’t get it for myself, I got it for somebody else, but it is a little keychain of a kilt.”
Finally, I ask her my last question, “What are five words to describe the first day?”
She holds out her fist and says “It was exhausting but exciting.” releasing one finger per word.
She finishes and counts her fingers, “Was that 5? Yes, boom! I can take a nap now!”
Pictured above: The beautiful Irish fields and the plentiful sheep
Kurt Whiteley
Lastly, Kurt Whiteley loved the Europe trip as well. He said it was super stressful because everyone only had about one day to do their homework over the entire break, a commonly reported downside of the trip, but that he “got sweatshirts from all the countries…almost missed Wales but I made it!”
What was Kurt’s favorite place to visit?
“Scotland was the best, so I’m so glad it ended up in our trip, especially since it wasn’t originally.”
So, despite all the stress, hectic travel mishaps, and nearly get hit by cars, the Europe group seems to collectively agree it was a hundred percent worth it.
If you could go to Europe, would you?
(Photo credits to the fabulous McCartney Warr, who extensively documented their travels!)