For a group of 11 students from Clyde High School, this year’s spring break was one they won’t ever forget.
The students traveled to Europe to visit a number of major cities as part of a group with students from Fresno, Calif. and Colorado. The group was in Europe for nine days total, with three days in London, two days in Paris and three days in Madrid. They also spent about a day traveling from city to city.
While three days in a city may seem like quite a bit of time, the students admitted that, at times, they felt stressed out about trying to see all of the sights and sounds the cities had to offer.
“It was really busy, and a bit overwhelming at times,” they said. “It was overwhelming and stressful, but in a good way. At times, it felt like you couldn’t see everything you wanted to see.”
Nearly everyone has at least heard of and seen pictures of some of the bigger landmarks in Paris and London, so which one stood out the most to the students?
“The Eiffel Tower!” a number of them answered in unison. After that, they admitted they also enjoyed seeing landmarks like Big Ben, the Louvre and Versailles.”
Another major landmark in Paris is the Louvre — the art museum that houses such famous pieces as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo and the Code of Hammurabi. A group could spend a week in it trying to see everything, but the students from Clyde High School had far less time than that.
“We only had about an hour and a half to go through the Louvre,” they said. “We didn’t have much time there, so we ran. We go to see the important pieces, like the Mona Lisa.”
It wasn’t just the major sites that made an impact on the students, though. Little things, like the architecture made a profound impact.
“The architecture was amazing there,” one of the students said. “It didn’t matter where you were, because it was all over the place. It could be something as simple as a post office, but it was the most beautiful building that you’ve ever seen. Each city had something different.”
The students were also surprised by just how much they enjoyed their time in Madrid, Spain.
“Madrid really surprised me,” a student said. “I was expecting it to be the most boring city on the trip, but it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was full of a lot of cool stuff, and the whole culture was great.”
It wasn’t just the sights and architecture either that made a difference. Instead it was the people of the city themselves that the students noticed.
“The people in Madrid were really nice, and it was very calm, compared to the other cities,” some of the students said. “Coming from the hustle and bustle of Paris and London to the calm of Madrid. People seemed more laid back and they weren’t rushing around everywhere.”
On the morning of March 22, three coordinated terrorist attacks rocked the city of Brussels, Belgium. Reports of such attacks in far away places have become almost common lately. For the students on the trip, as well as their families back home in Clyde, those attacks were anything but common place.
That morning, the 11 students from Clyde were in a train station in London getting ready to board a train to Paris when they heard the news of the attacks.
“We were in the train station in London, about to travel to Paris, when we heard about the attacks in Belgium,” one student said. “Suddenly, the were canceling all the trains to Belgium. The people in front of us were actually traveling to Brussels. It was weird to be so close to what was happening.”
Those in charge of the group tried their best to keep the students and teachers in the group calm and keep them from panicking.
Terry Meyer, one of the teachers from Clyde High School that was on the trip, didn’t even realize exactly what was going on.
“When we got on the train to Paris, one of the people in our group went around and took pictures of everyone,” Meyer said. “I didn’t know why he was taking pictures, but later I found out he was taking them to send back to everyone’s parents to prove we were O.K.
“They were taking care of us in a way that wouldn’t make us panic.”
Back home, staff members from the school district were busy contacting the student’s parents at 4 a.m. local time to let them know their children were safe, until the students were able to make contact themselves through text messages and social media.
Those students now have a different outlook on life.
“There was a moment when we were in the train station in Paris and realized that just a few months ago, this was where the attacks took place,” one of the students said. “That kind of made it sink in. Suddenly, you couldn’t push it to the side and say it’s so far away. You were standing right where it happened.”
While the trip may have been stressful at times, the students admit that they came away with a different understanding of the world.
“There’s no question that after being there you have a much better idea of just how big the world is,” one student said. “It makes you feel pretty insignificant, but in a good way. There’s just so much out there in the world. Things that are bothering me today, really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”
