Piles of fresh snow and stillness grab my attention, briefly. The only elements that continually hold my attention were a rosy-cheeked girl making snow angels and her silly momma throwing horribly shaped snowballs in my direction.
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Travel provides life lessons and going overland to Bocas del Toro, the border crossing provided students a more immediate sense of the differences between two Spanish speaking neighboring countries.
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Panama City marked the end of another educational journey with students to either Latin America or Europe. The majority of students agreed that Panama City was more positive than Bocas del Toro with explorations of Old Panama, interactions with more Panamanians, and the impressive manmade structure of the Panama Canal.
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Our bus passed past lush green mountains along a gravel road across banana plantations towards Tortuguero National Park, reachable only by plane or boat.
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Our initial exposure to Costa Rica and the tree canopy was from a 1,000 foot view point precariously connected to a cable above the lush, green valley.
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Another French lesson was at the movie theater. The phone rings in the first scene, and the actress slowly picks up the phone and responds, “Allô!” Damn!!! It’s dubbed in French. Fight or flight immediately sets in as I quickly asked myself “stay? go? stay? go?” Due to the fact that it was nice and cool and could zone out a little, I stayed.
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The original road trip to Belgium and visit to The Abbey of Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren was cancelled due to the exorbiant price for train tickets, I chose the alternative, the clock and watch capital of Europe, Luxembourg.
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Fortunately I didn’t seek out the Tour de France, it came to me in Besançon. For those of y’all who don’t follow athletes in lycra, this is the July event where 160 or so cyclists jump on a bicycle and race around France trying to finish in the shortest time possible so they can wear a yellow jersey.