Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Day 7 of 30 Day Challenge

Favorite Vacation


As I was pondering this topic, I was very indecisive. Should I pick one from childhood? Or perhaps one with just my husband and I? Or something more recent with the whole family?


Then I realized which was my favorite vacation, although I'm not sure it technically qualifies as a "vacation."


When I was 16, I had an opportunity to spend 2 weeks touring 6 countries in Europe with a group of high school musicians. I do not consider it a "vacation;" there was a lot of work involved, since we had a performance practically every other day while in Europe!


It started with spending a weekend on a college campus in Pennsylvania learning all of the music. I was with 3 other students from my high school as well as our choir director. I was first chair flute in the band and I had the piccolo solo in "The Stars and Stripes Forever." (If you are not a band geek, just let that sentence go right out the other side of your brain.) We lived in the dorms and worked out butts off to be ready to perform our music in Europe.


Then they put us on buses, drove us to LaGuardia, packed us on a plane, and we were off!! Approximately 100 high school students and 5 adults... no parents allowed!!! AWESOME!!! We toured around Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and France. We performed in small towns and larger cities. We enjoyed local culture, food, and drinks. We had a blast!!!


One of the best memories from that trip was being lost in Strasburg, France, with my friend Laurel. We wandered for around an hour, not really concerned that we had no clue where we were. The only real moment of desperation was when we needed a restroom and did not know how to ask in French! (I spoke Spanish and Laurel spoke German). A bit of gesturing in a nice cafe found us the appropriate "water closet." Eventually we found a multi-lingual man who pointed us in the right direction to get back to our hotel :)


I would love to share pictures with you, however this was pre-digital and all my photos are in a photo album with no time to scan them.


That trip was definitely a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience! I will always be thankful that my parents took out a loan from their business to provide this amazing opportunity for me!!



1 comment:

  1. sounds like the trip of a lifetime -- what an amazing way to see europe, and at such young age to boot!! how awesome it must have been :)

    ReplyDelete