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		Spain
		Madrid (Days 1-3)
		Toledo (Day 2)
		Sevilla (4-5)
		Barcelona (6-7)
		France
		Annecy (9-11)
		Paris (17-19)
		Switzerland
		Geneva (11)
		Germany
		Homestay (12-15)
		Freiburg (15-16)

©2000 Greg Engel

(For People 2 People visitors, the above navigation bar is for the other, non-P2P, parts of my site.)

My Little Trip to Europe

Recently this summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Spain, France, Switzerland, and Germany with the People 2 People Student Ambassador Program. The People 2 People Program, I discovered, was an organization originally set up by the government (now an independent organization) that takes regional groups of about 30 students at various grade levels on ambassadorial visits to countries and places around the world, including Austrailia, Central Europe, Hawaii, Great Britain and many others. Not having much else to do with my time, I decided to go.

For several months ahead of time, I met with periodically with other members of the group that was finally selected to go. We had monthly meetings, where we discussed such things as how to prepare for the trip, how to act "ambassadorially" on the trip, and the kinds of things that would be expected of us as student ambassadors. Also, we discussed the types of things we would be able to do only as student ambassadors - especially the homestay. The homestay, we found out, was the part of the trip where we got to actually live a few days with a real family from the country we visited. On our trip, we had our homestays in Germany, and later they turned out to be the most exciting part of the trip.

As the time of our departure approached, we prepared ourselves for the trip more and more. Some of us (like me) got letters from out homestay families ahead of time. Finally, the day arrived. On the evening July 9th, 2000, we departed from Maryland at BWI Airport. We arrived in Madrid, Spain late in the afternoon the next day.

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