Experience the World

As predicted, the unexpected occurred. We piled on the bus just after breakfast last Sunday morning to leave behind the quiet of Wales for the hustle of the big city.

It soon became evident that our driver lacked several basic skills in the operation of a tour bus. Not only was his GPS not working (a considerable problem since our castle really did seem to be situated at the end of the world), but our poor driver had turned the engine off in order to seek help with the GPS and then could not restart the bus.

While the students clambered off and amused themselves on the lawns, he wandered around trying to contact his dispatcher. Unfortunately he meandered in circles as he talked, which took him not only uphill (where he could maintain cell phone connection if he was lucky), but also downhill where he certainly could not.

We were hours away from the arrival of another bus and many more hours away from London. The situation was difficult: most of the staff had just gone off for a day at the beach; our belongings were packed; everyone was more than ready to leave pastoral bliss; the driver had no idea where we were or what to do.

Teachers to the rescue! As the driver dithered, one of our teachers climbed into his seat while the other opened the engine compartment at the back. While the Math 12 teacher pressed the restart button and the English 10 teacher turned the key in the ignition, voila!, the bus started. A few verbal directions and a little hand waving from the director of the college and we set out, hoping to find our way to the highway.

We made it to London five long hours later after a wrong turn toward Swansea and a pit stop with the bus running. London was a welcome sight and the students were elated to find out that after a weekend of open showers and rudimentary dorms, they each had their own room, their own private bathroom and shower, and their own access to the Internet.

Of course, the little surprises continued. After a few days of fiddling and consulting, the Internet was finally fixed in my room this very evening. Perhaps I should have abandoned protocol a few days earlier and simply called in those two teachers.

We arrived at Atlantic College (Coleg yr Iwerydd in Welsh) just after noon on Thursday. Passing over the Bristol Strait we followed signs in English and Welsh down ever more winding, narrow roads until we came to our destination: a 12th century castle situated on the sea to protect the ancient shipping channels that led to Cardiff on the Welsh side, Bristol on the English.

The castle has a colourful history. Long ago it would have welcomed crusaders back from their pursuits to tell their stories by roaring fires. At various points, poor wretches would have climbed the steep, twisting stairs to the gibbet tower to meet a sorry end. The lonely Lady Ann would have walked in her blue garden, along paths of lavender and wisteria, pining for her son who was kidnapped by pirates. Sadly, her pining got the better of her and she went mad and died before she could witness her son’s return and his captor’s hanging. In the early 1900s, the castle, now in disrepair, was purchased by Randolph Hearst. He renovated it with artifacts and building materials scavenged from churches, manors and estates that he purchased throughout England and Europe.

At this point, the castle and grounds provide a home to the College and numerous summer programmes for international students. Although our sleeping accommodations were humble (except for Chris who got to sleep IN the castle!), the view was spectacular and the castle itself grew more intriguing day by day.

Tomorrow we set out for London and the excitement of the big city. But for now, I’m glad that we’ve been snug in the quiet Vale of Glamorgan. It’s given us a chance to adjust to this time zone, get to know each other, settle into the pace of our classes and anticipate the rest of our journey.

Today we set out for our study-travel to the UK and Portugal. I’m so glad this day has arrived! The last days of packing and travelling to meet at the Vancouver airport are all about getting it right–making the right arrangements, not forgetting anything, thinking ahead and planning well. Once we gather and set out, the focus shifts to doing our very best with what we have. That’s where the real adventure begins! That’s where we start to “experience the world”!

This trip is well-organized: Georgia-Hardy is an excellent tour company, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Waterhouse are fabulous principals, we teachers are skilled at what we do (a modest blush for such bragging!), and the students are ready and eager to learn. It’s a great way to start because we will certainly encounter the unexpected. Some of our great plans will not work exactly as we hoped. Some of the things we packed will appear ludicrous when we open our suitcases. Sometimes we end up having classes in executive suites in a high rise hotel in Barcelona rather than meeting in classrooms on campus as planned. Imagine our group last year strolling in 40+ degree morning heat, arms and backpacks loaded with books, to the cool, darkened, black and shiny chrome air-conditioned comfort of a 7th floor boardroom table. We were grateful for the refrigerator full of cold water, we discussed our lessons executive-style around the table, I used the flipchart like a real pro, and the students retired to read and write while lounging in our private living room or on the balcony overlooking the city if they could take the heat. The place itself provided another whole subtext to the stories we were studying. It could have been a problem; instead, it was an adventure!

I look forward to the experiences this trip will bring. We will surely return home with stories of people and places we couldn’t have imagined as well a month of solid study completed in fine style, whatever the details of that style might turn out to be.