My teens were honored by being chosen by their respective band directors, to travel to Europe with other high school musicians. So begins my writings of the adventures in Europe, from my point of view that is! :) We added on the Greece extended tour, making our total travel time 20 wonderful days throughout Europe, with the young people playing and singing for the locals in 5 countries. Yes, THIS, the music, was the difference between Any of the other travel offers that the kids were invited on.
The travel group (Vouyagers International) was very organized, even if it didn't always feel that way. Their organization would be revealed daily, as we traveled by plane, bus, boat and taxi. We were the Brown bus. We nicknamed our bus the "Mocha Coach". There were a few students from the Front Range (Denver area), but the majority of kids were from the Western Slope (Grand Junction, Ridgway, Delta, Montrose).
**Travel Tips: You can never take too many pictures. Take pictures of the hotel rooms, the food, the hotel lobby, etc. Bring plenty of SD cards and photo storage capabilities. Charge your cameras every night. Take notes, right into your phone if you want to, but take notes nonetheless.
We had some "hurry up and wait" events. I guess when you have 350 people all going the same direction, yet staggered as we went, it's not surprising. And HEAVEN FORBID I would be the one to make the group wait, or miss something wonderful. So sometimes I would sit (for instance, on the Venice Plaza) and wait and watch, rather than get lost in the little alley ways!
But, actually, the phrase for the tour would more likely be, "Hit the ground running" !! And, the minute we got off the plane, waited a bit for our coach, and embarked, it wasn't long before we were touring Windsor!
The flag was up, which means the Queen was in residence! She was there for horse races. This place was royal, majestic, historical and seemed to be far back in time. I had a "pie", which is like a chicken pot pie folded over, like a calzone with American chicken pot pie inside. It was pretty good. Too bad no pix of it.
From there it was on to our hotel for roommate assignments (we did that en route to the destination), a quick shower, dinner and a nighttime walking tour of London! It was awesome! The info we learned on the trip was mind-boggling and brain overloading. Amazing!
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| The Greece Extended Group ~ We traveled by plane everywhere together |
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| The kids entertained themselves on our waits, by playing cards, drumming, singing and playing guitar. |
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| Silly kids on the trans-continental plane! |
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| At Windsor Castle |
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| Alex and Philip |
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| The Queen was in residence, Dah-ling! The flag is flying! |
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| The Mocha Coach! |
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| Shakespeare's Globe Theatre |
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| The "Wibbly Wobbly Bridge", the Millenium Bridge |
