Every other year, the spanish program takes a group of willing spanish students to Spain for 10 days during Ann Arbor Public Schools mid-winter break. Laurel Landrum is the leader of the trip and has been for the last couple years. The trip leaves Wednesday Feb 13, 2013 and comes back on Sunday Feb 24, 2013. The kids will spend a certain amount of days with the whole group in Madrid, and the rest of the days staying with a family an hour and a half outside of Madrid.
The trip starts off with a flight to Atlanta, and then a six hour layover before the group actually departs to Spain. Also, due to the six hour time difference between Spain and Ann Arbor, the group will not actually arrive until Thursday morning.
The first day the group is going to the Museo Prado and the Palacio Royal. According to Landrum, “The Museo Prado is the most popular art history museum in Spain, and the Palacio Royal is a huge palace. It’s very interesting and has more history than the other museums we go to on the trip”.
The second day, the group travels to Segovia for a day trip. Segovia is a small town in spain that consists of Roman Aqueducts and Castles. “It’s a small place, so I think the students will have an opportunity to walk and around and have lunch and explore a little bit. They can be on their own” Landrum stated. The trip also includes visiting other big castles and palaces, lots of eating out late at night, and staying with spanish families.
The students will spend part of their time with a host family. The families stay about an hour to an hour-and-a-half outside of Madrid. Most of the students are staying with host students that go to the same school together, so they might see some of the other American kids at school. But, there are some that aren’t living in the same city. Some live in different towns and will be the only American living at their school. Sophomore Cassie Gayari stated that she is most excited about this part of the trip. “I feel like it’s a good thing, it gives me a one-on-one experience with a native speaker and their family. I’m excited to become more fluent in the native speaking and all of that stuff,” Gayari noted.
Community High Junior Sam Sorscher is also most excited about the house stay outside of Madrid. “I’m most excited to meet new people, especially the person in my host family, whom I have corresponded with over facebook and email, and I am very excited to talk to him and meet his family and experience his lifestyle and his culture.”
Gayari is nervous about her lack of spanish speaking ability. The sophomore is in Landrum’s spanish 3 class and is one of the younger people on the trip. The majority of the students are upperclassmen. Gayari said “[I’m] very nervous. I’m worried that I’m going to get there, especially to my host family, and not be able to speak at all.” Sorscher is more confident about his speaking abilities, being in Spanish 4. “Personally, I’m very confident with my spanish abilities. I was very fortunate to be able to practice my speaking last year. I did a spanish community service project in Costa Rica so I am confident and I’ve also traveled [because of that trip] so I’m not that nervous at all,” Sorscher stated.
According to Landrum, the speaking will be one of the biggest culture shock to the students that are going on the trip. “Obviously the language [will be the biggest culture shock]. Even though we’ve done it in class, we haven’t done nearly as much [speaking] in class. A lot of the stuff we learn in class is different. The kids don’t know how to say things like “toilet paper” and that kind of stuff. That will be the most shocking. Also, just really little culture-y things. Like, people really don’t eat vegetables and they honestly eat a heck of a lot of ham. They rarely have salad or anything. Everything is meat.”
Landrum only had a few words about the trip as a total. “I think we’re just going to go go go until we drop, and then get up and do it again, every single night”.
