Day 3 - Scoul Switzerland

Today began with white water rafting down the Inn River. I stayed at the hotel with a student who wasn't feeling well, so I can't say how it went. But the students were all very excited when we met back up after lunch. When I asked how it went, they became very animated and somewhere in the stories did mention how much fun it was. As if their stories weren't proof enough.

The students took a gondola ride up the mountain to get to the restaurant for lunch. As you can imagine, this took a backseat to the whole rafting activity, but it was fun just the same.

After lunch we drove back into "downtown" Scoul for an orienteering activity. Students were given a city map with questions regarding signs within the town. They were to use the map to find the signs and use the signs to answer the questions. Everyone had a good time. If it tells you anything about age, it was the leaders that were the last back to base. We got a tad lost. Kids, not a problem. Figures.....

After orienteering we hiked back to the hotel. We were quite pooped upon return, but our day had yet to end. We had dinner, chicken parm and then danced our feet off. That really didn't take as long as it sounds with the hike we had to get back to the hotel. We had local musicians from Scoul come play folk music and the kids danced. You'd never know how much walking we'd done over the past 2 days.

We are all in REALLY good spirits and excited to be doing these activities in Switzerland!! And we are ready for another hike tomorrow!

Tomorrow - a lesson in the language of Romansh and downhill hike to a neighboring village.

Footnote: the ill student was not one of mine, but I did volunteer to stay back.

Day 2 - Zurich/Scoul Switzerland

Since our flight was delayed, we didn't quite as long as planned to explore Zurich, but we gave it our best shot. Come to find out, most places in Switzerland do not take Euros, so those that needed cash went to the ATM or to the bank. Then we walked around some.

Next was lunch - meatloaf and pasta. We drove through the Alps and ate at a small resaurant called Parkhotel in Wangs, Switzerland. We were almost too tired to eat, but we told the students that they had to eat at least half of one slice of meatloaf and half their pasta.

We then drove to Klosters and boarded a motorail (train) to get through (literally) the Swiss Alps and head to Scoul. The train traveled for 11 miles through the heart of the mountain into the Engadin Valley.

We checked into our hotel and had about an hour until dinner. It almost took that long to for us to get up the elevator to oru rooms. I don't think more than 2 students could fit in the elevator (with their luggage) at a time.

Dinner was pizza, which was actually pretty good, salad and apple strudel with vannila sauce. Students ate MUCH better than at lunch.

After dinner we went on a walk-about (Sorry, my Australian is kicking in. We had a kiwi guide). Our New Zealand guide was explaining what we would be doing during our white water rafting adventures tomorrow. Afterwards, it was a little freetime in the very tiny village and off to bed. I think the students had a nice, relaxing evening and a good sleep. Breakfast isn't until 8:00.

Tomorrow - white water rafting!!

Day 1 - Plane flight

Everything went fine at the beginning. We left Dallas a little late, but the real fun began when we reached JFK. For those that don't know what's happening there, they have an entire runway that is shut down for repair. As you can imagine, this has caused some major disruptions to one of the nation's busiest aiports.

So, because of this airport couldn't find a landing pattern for us, we had to circle around for about 20 minutes. Then our flight's captain came over the PA system and announced that since we were running low on fuel, we were being diverted to La Guardia to refuel and then try for JFK again. Refueling took about 30 minutes. We tried to convince the students that we were going to miss our connection, so the people to people program office had arranged for us to spend the night in New York. We were going to tour the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, go to a Broadway production, etc. The kids were really getting excited. I think a couple were a tad upset that we were actually going to make our connection and head to Switzerland. Crazy kids!

We landed at JFK with no problem, then hurried to our gate for our next flight. Come to find out, they were holding the plane for us. We had 59 people on our DFW-JFK flight that were headed to Zurich.

We landed in Zurich about 2 hours late............

More to come

First mobile blog
Well, my adventure began today. I flew out of Tyler to DFW this afternoon and am staying at the Hyatt Regency DFW hotel for the evening. Totally nice hotel. I don't even mind walking barefoot in here.

I thought it would be a good idea to try texting in a blog before leaving for Europe tomorrow. You know, get any kinks worked out.

Nothing more than that for this post. I will try to add a picture via mms message as well. Maybe I can get a plane taking off.

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Generosity

The generosity of people never ceases to amaze me!

Two days ago I dropped my iPhone in water (actually the toilet). Just after having set up this blog. I immediately put it in a container with rice, which seemed to work for my laptop when I spilled tea on it (don't worry - it was unsweet tea) sometime this past school year. I didn't touch the computer for over 24 hours. When I plugged it in and turned it on, everything was right with the world. Not a thing lost or out of place. So why wouldn't the same process work for the iPhone, right? Wrong! I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with the fact that you can't open the iPhone, so it's more difficult to get it dry. So where does one go when things like this happen - the internet. The only thing I wasn't willing to try was putting it in the oven. Seriously? I think not.

So today I am on Craig's List off and on ALL day. It's absolutely insane how much people are wanting for USED iPhones. I'm sorry, but considering I'm due an upgrade July 7th, and could have gotten the iPhone 4 if I'd only pre-ordered it, I was not going to pay what people were asking. This is hard to deal with mentally since I leave for Europe in exactly 2 days and desperately need a phone with international calling capabilities! But, being as hardheaded as I am, I was going to deal with my VERY archaic Motorola V180 that doesn't do much beyond making phone calls and texting. No apps, no camera, no music, no movies, no Twilight games. It's almost bringing me to tears thinking about it.

Then this evening I get a phone call from Rose Chase, whose daughter is traveling with me. She has been graciously helping by asking around for anyone that might have upgraded to an iPhone 4 and is willing to sell their old phone, preferably at a decent price. What does the Chase family do instead? They upgrade Robert's phone to an iPhone 3Gs. And now they are letting me travel with their brand new phone. I can't thank the Chase family enough. I promise, it will come back to you when we land at the airport in pristine condition. You know, provided it doesn't fall in to a bidet or something. (That was Rose's joke).

6 days to go!

Okay, I'll be the first to say it. I'm terrible when it comes to keeping up with a blog. I created one last year before heading to Australia, and there it still sits....empty as can be. I'm going to do my best to keep up with the new one this year while in Europe. Postings may be few and far between, what with the lack of internet in most of the places that we'll be, but I vow to do my best.

I also have to admit to not being the best writer in the world. I blame it on my science brain. I never took any type of writing class in college (no Joni, no creative writing :). And we didn't have a writing TAKS when I was in school (at least I don't think we did). Wait....I know we didn't, because we didn't have TAKS. We took a test by some other acronym way back in those days.

Anyhow, check back if you want to be bored with the antics of junior high students traveling Europe for 20 days!

Oh, and if anyone know if you can text blogs, let me know how please!