Five countries. Ten days. Experiences that will last a lifetime.
The Eastern Europe trip made its debut with 32 sophomores, juniors and seniors taking off the Friday before April break and traveling to Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. The trip’s focus on history, exploration and community made it memorable as students experienced the places they learned about in the classroom.
Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator and lead chaperone Jen Martin began the preparation process for the trip in September. Through information sessions and an application process, teacher leaders selected students in late fall. According to Martin, the trip’s committee held meetings as a way to prepare students not only for the logistics of traveling abroad, but for the emotional impacts as well.
“Because a lot of the trip focused on World War II history, including the Holocaust, we also had a speaker come whose father and uncle survived the Holocaust,” Martin said. “And so he came to talk to us about that experience. Part of that was to prepare for the emotional toll of the history we were going to encounter.”
For the trip, the high school partnered with Education First (EF), a tour guide group that led students through excursions during the duration of their time abroad. According to sophomore Isabella Zhang, EF’s program allowed students to explore places they would not normally visit.
“We were able to meet a lot of wonderful tour guides that really showed us the city because through our program a lot of the tour guides that we met were locals, so they knew where to go for food and all these little spots that we wouldn’t have known about,” Zhang said.
According to Martin, the trip attracted a variety of students; some were drawn to seeing the places that they had loved studying about, and others had personal connections with the countries the group visited. Martin said that the students’ flexibility and openness did not go unnoticed.
“We brought the nicest group of kids. They were so kind to each other. We never had any drama. People were just so inviting and every night they’d be like ‘Let’s all meet up together and hang out’,” Martin said.
Once in Europe, the group traveled entirely by bus, going from Berlin to Prague to Krakow and then, finally, to Budapest. According to senior Kalina Ivanov, the impact of witnessing the places where so much history had taken place was a part of what made the Eastern Europe trip so important.
“This entire trip has a lot to do with World War II, the Cold War and the Holocaust,” Ivanov said. “It’s something that’s very pertinent to the discussions that we’ve been having in World History. It’s a really cool way to bring back the curriculum and the importance of these events and really allow students to see them firsthand rather than just through a textbook.”
The students saw many historical sites during the trip. According to Ivanov, one of the most impactful was Auschwitz.
“We went to Auschwitz which was a very tough emotional experience for everyone,” Ivanov said. “It was very difficult to reckon with exactly what had happened there but I think we all found it very powerful and very moving. You see numbers in textbooks all the time, but you can’t really begin to even fathom.”
Zhang said her arrival in Berlin stood out to her as a memorable moment because the trip’s community was able to come together to navigate a new city.
“We landed in Berlin [and] it was a taste of what we were going to be able to do. Being able to explore a city with [my] friends was very fun for me. It helped me witness firsthand what European life would be like,” Zhang said.
Ivanov said she strongly recommends the trip to other students as she said it was one of the best experiences of her life.
“It was very cool to connect again but also experience new cultures, see how they relate to my own and be able to take in everyone’s unique stories along the way,” Ivanov said. “Everywhere you go, there’s a little bit of history.”
