Italy and Germany in 14 days
Jenny Escobar, a princess and Disney fan, had to have a picture with the Neuschwanstein Castle that inspired Walt Disney.
Taking a break from the Italian heat, which hit over a 100 degrees during our journey, several DeSales girls enjoy a traditional gondola ride around the city of Venice.
When I was growing up, one of my favorite movies was Mike Todd's "Around the World in 80 Days," about a man who was challenged to circumnavigate the world in exactly 80 days.
These days you can travel around the world in 24 hours or less but, in the time period in which the movie was set, travelers had to use boats, trains, and occasionally an air balloon.
Yet, this movie and others like it gave me a desire to travel and see parts of the world I had only read about in books.
Thanks to my parents, I was able to travel to more than 30 U.S. states as well as make short trips into Canada and Mexico. Yet, my dream of seeing other continents remained a dream.
Then my dream became a reality in 2009 when I was asked to chaperone a DeSales High School student trip to London, Paris and several cities in Italy. I work at DeSales and at Assumption Elementary in Walla Walla.
You can imagine how I felt about the Italian part of the trip. I am Catholic, and I so looked forward to seeing Pope Benedict.
That trip was everything I could hope for and more. But while I thought I was done with that dream, it seems it was not done with me. In March of this year I was approached by our sophomore history teacher to once again join the school trip.
While it was short notice and required me to jump through a few hoops to get my passport renewed, I didn't hesitate to say yes. Especially since the destinations were different than before and, instead of Paris and London, we would visit cities in Germany, plus Italy again.
The trip was scheduled for 14 days, with two of those days set aside for 10-hour flights from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany and back. That gave us 12 days to savor the sights, sounds, and cuisine of two very different countries.
In Germany we were going to see beautiful and historical sites such as the Neuschwanstein Castle that inspired Walt Disney's fairy tale castle at Disneyland and DisneyWorld. We would also see the oldest brew house in Munich.
This European holiday also included a day trip to the city of Dachau and the site of the first concentration camp for Jews during World War II. Nothing could have prepared me for all of the emotions I experienced, not only walking around the camp, but during the entire trip.
In Italy we traveled to Venice, Florence, Rome and Vatican City. Spending three days in each city allows you to see so many sites but, even then, it is not enough to take it all in.
From glass blowing demonstrations in Venice to standing under the amazing ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, the trip allowed me and my students a peek into history in a way we couldn't reading a book or watching a movie.
In upcoming columns I will share various stories and photos of my travels in hopes that I will entertain and inform. Perhaps someone reading these stories will become inspired as I was by Mike Todd's charming adventure movie so long ago.