South Africa Travel Day...bug interrupted!

We left Atlanta armed with cookies, disposable cameras, South African Rand and dreams of being bumped up to first class.  The reality of coach did nothing to dampen our spirits as we all snuggled into our seats, excited to catch up on some movies and make new friends as Jared Allen seems to always do wherever he goes.

We landed safely in Johannesburg and headed straight to Subway after Delta’s international menu of box pizza, spicy chicken, and veggie surprise left us unsatisfied.  I was proud of myself for finally making use of all those Pace Academy lacrosse cookies I bought this year that proved to be a desired treat, especially with Alex, AnnieKate, and Ellie.

After a brief layover, we boarded our final flight of the day on our 18 -hour journey in the sky to South Africa.  We meet a group of 16 who were headed on a safari and hunting trip.  They managed to make the trip every year and were excited to “shoot some things.”

After failing to exchange money in Atlanta, the group huddled around the lone representative in Port Elizabeth who told them that they would not be allowed to exchange money without a copy of their passports.  Billy and Sam were the only two with copies and so thus began the stand off with the currency exchange agent.  I am not saying that it got ugly, but the students started calculating (math teacher would be proud) and concluded that the group had gotten a bad rate.  Later, Jack pointed out that the sign called for “original passports/no copies", and so I quickly had to escort the group out of the airport to spare the agent the wrath of  Pace Academy students wronged (even though they were right, it was our first night and when in another country, fairness often times sides with the natives).

We loaded onto our 17-seat passenger bus…

* Minor break in blogging to kill the bug that has decided to snuggle up next to me in bed.  Needless to say, I am shaken to the core, my senses have left me, and I will not be able to continue. 

Tomorrow we have a tour of the townships, with the history of apartheid in Port Elizabeth. We then begin our 4 day hike along the South African coast.  No internet for 4 days, but we will catch you up on the work of Ubuntu Education Fund, the history of Apartheid in Port Elizabeth, museums, lions, elephants, dinner over an open fire and more...bugs!

Global Ed heads to South Africa!

Global Education students from Pace Academy leave for South Africa on Saturday, May 28th. Follow their journey here!

Day 5

The Double Happiness Courtyard Hotel again provided us a delicious breakfast of Chinese and American food, with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables, along with soup, meats, and breads:  sweetened rice cakes, firm and moist slices of dragon fruit, piles of chocolate filled croissants, and steaming stalks of delicious pea-green bok choy, for example. This was not a breakfast but rather a feast.  

At 9:30 a.m., Mr. Sargent announced our departure, and we followed our tour guide, a young Chinese woman carrying a stick with an attached toy dog do so we could spot her in a crowd, through the narrow, dusty, small-business lined and now-familiar street of our Hutong.  Our 21st century two-toned beige Toyota van would again take us back in history, this time to the vast complex called The Temple of Heaven.

Day 4 - China 2011

   Day 4 started early as we gathered at 8 o’clock in the hotel lobby to meet our guide for the day, Iko. A short woman with a big personality, she immediately drew all of us into the experience. Once inside the puffer fish bus, as dubbed by Grant, Iko gave us a history of the modern Beijing transportation system. There are 6 main roads that circle the city as well as many buses and the growing subway system. We discussed jobs, salaries, and other social and economic factors of living within the city. We found out that she started her own travel company, which was very difficult, and that she has two cats that live with her parents. As we drove closer to the amazingly beautiful mountain range with jagged peaks of magnificent size, the energy level in the bus slowly started to rise. After the hundredth time of craning our necks, we were rewarded with the first sight of the Great Wall of China. Everyone was giddy and in awe of the wall, even Mr. Gannon.

Day 3

  On our third day, we all woke up and went to breakfast, which was the same multitude of plates and trays loaded with Chinese food and some more recognizable American ones. We left the hotel at 9:30 to go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world. On the way there we passed the giant silver egg-shaped dome of the National Performing Arts Center, a shiny new millennium building that contrasted sharply with the ancient imperial capital across the street. A police blockade prevented our crossing the street, which Ms. Smith was upset about so she decided to confront the police officer (actually, she just asked for directions). We ended up going underground to the other side of the road where we entered the large line to go in to the Forbidden City. Finally, when we emerged from the other side of a 12 lane road, we were awestruck at the size of the square, as well as the grandeur of the Great Hall of the People, where the National People's Congress is held every year and is now in session. We now had no problem seeing why the government was so worried about the 1989 protest movement and the sheer number of people it attracted.

Day 2 - China 2011

   We arrived at the Double Happiness Courtyard Hotel at 12:30 am Beijing time. Our journey into Beijing from the airport mixed jungle both of modern and ancient China. Even a tollbooth on a highway, for example, was set within a colorful temple. Neon lights and skyscrapers highlighted our ride in. We pulled off the main road and were dropped off at the entrance to an alley (which we later learned was called a Houtong). At first we all thought the driver was either confused as to what hotel we were staying at or we were about to be murdered in Beijing and never see the lights of the Castle again. Fortunately our hotel was located on the alley and it was a short 5-minute walk from the main road down the alley. The alleyway, which is about 8 feet wide, is lined with motorcycles, bikes, and small cars, leaving about 5 to 6 feet of room for pedestrians and all traffic to move through. Cars and bikes fly down the alleys seeming to glide inches away from pedestrians and oncoming traffic. Cars do not stop for pedestrians and it’s all up to chance that you make it across. Mrs. Sibley did have a near death experience on our way home from dinner. She had stopped to take a photo of the cardboard that people attach to the rims of their tires. People put this on so that the many dogs don’t pee on the rims. When Mrs. Sibley looked up, a motorcycle going at least 30 mph almost hit her but stopped within inches of her.

Day 1 - 2011 China

  Although missing Frances Fuqua, the Pace Academy Knights embarked on a journey across the world. 

   It’s been about seven hours and Pace Academy students- and faculty, including Mrs. Sibley’s sister - are still going strong. Eric, however has managed to trip one passenger, get reprimanded by a flight attendant because of limbs overflowing in the aisle while he was sleeping, and be kindly asked by the woman in front of him not to hit his screen to hard - it wakes her up. To add to Eric’s frazzling experiences with other flyers Mrs. Sibley had a terribly unfortunate accident of her own. First, however, I must give you background to her situation. You know those times when Ms. Smith tells you to read and take notes on articles she sends you, but really you skim the articles without taking a single note. Well, today I learned that Mrs. Sibley is NOT that kind of woman. In fact, she loves taking notes, and she loves her notes. And for those of you who are suspicious that Mrs. Sibley even took any notes at all, I can vouch that she did.  After taking part in what I thought were very interesting conversations with Mrs. Sibley, she left me bored and lonely only to bury herself in reading and note taking on ancient China, but come on, who wouldn’t want to take notes on ANCIENT CHINA?! 

Global Ed Leaves for China

Global Education students from Pace Academy leave for China on Wednesday, March 2. Follow their journey here.

Pictures!

Hello,
     Now that I am back home and have regular internet, I can post a few photos from the trip. We made it back safely without any problems, thank goodness!! I stole these photos off Facebook from Allison and Michelle who were taking photos non-stop. They get all the credit for all of the pictures. Enjoy!

Us at the airport in Atlanta before take-off

 View of the beach

 Nice Etoile-the mall Place Massena and the tram

 On the red carpet in Cannes

 Russian Orthodox Church

 Soap making at Fragonard  Boulangerie that we visited everyday

 Outside the Picasso Museum in Antibes

A Week in a Review

 Bonjour,

    Ok so I lied when I said that I would put a post up on Monday…sorry about that. Right now it is Friday evening so I am only four days late (haha)! Well, we have been pretty much on the go non-stop this week. I don’t know what happened this week but we are all excessively tired, hence my lack of posting. I have neither had the energy to go to McDonald's nor drag someone along to come with me. My lethargy combined with the amount of information that I need to write about has led me to create short little cameos of each day. Hope you enjoy!

Sunday

We went to Cannes by train, some people were fascinated by the double decker trains! Mr. Newman said he saw Emile Hircsh. Everyone frantically ran around the open air market trying to find him. Of course, he was nowhere to be found. Ate lunch at a very fancy restaurant that was right on the beach. It felt like we were in a movie! Headed towards a cheaper private beach to tan for a little bit. Hung out at the Palais and got our picture taken on the red carpet. Became exhausted from the heat and headed back to home to take a quick catnap. Feeling rejuvenated, went back to our favorite square in the old city and ate dinner and had ice cream at Finnochio’s.

  

Monday

 Back to school, quel dommage! Met some new people who came into our classes. Ate a very French lunch (baguettes and brie cheese) mostly because it was very cheap. In the afternoon, went to a new part of Nice called Cimiez. Visited the architecture museum. Saw some ancient Roman ruins, were amazed by the Roman’s knowledge of modern technology and pondered the fact that there are Roman ruins in Nice. Went to the Matisse museum, which was spectacular. Saw a lot of photographs, paintings, and drawings of Lydia D. Observed a church with beautiful renaissance era paintings. Enjoyed the beauty of the park of Cimiez, buzzing with people and lined with olive trees. Ate a tranquil dinner with host families.

Tuesday

            School in the morning. A little shopping in the afternoon. Snuck into our teacher’s hotel to go swimming in the rooftop pool which was very quaint and refreshing! Were treated to some ice cream by Mr. Matanes at his favorite ice cream place. Thanks Mr. Newman and Mr. Matanes! Dinner with host families then out for more ice cream at Finnochio’s (we’ve been eating insane amounts of ice cream on this trip but don’t worry, we are walking it all off).

Wednesday

            School in the morning. Left school a little early in order to eat lunch and catch a train to Antibes. Arrived in Antibes and were amazed at how beautiful, peaceful, and clean it was. Observed all of the yachts and imagined ourselves in the future when we are rich and own yachts of our own. Had our breath taken away by a view of the sea outside of the Picasso Museum. Entered the Picasso Museum and admired his work.

Thursday

            School in the morning. Ate a quick lunch and departed for Monaco around 2:00.

Arrived in Monaco. Were overwhelmed by the heat and insane amount of tourists. Marveled at the palace and visited a museum of oceanography. Sprinted to catch a train home and crowded into a train that had no air conditioning. Dinner with host families. Went out to have a good-bye gathering for Claire who is leaving tomorrow morning so that she can be home in time to lead a service project at home.

Friday

            Last day of school. Were sad to say goodbye to some new friends and our teachers. Ate a nice sit-down lunch on Rue Jean-Medcin. Went to the Museum of Modern art and absolutely loved it! Saw works by Andy Warhol and Cristo. Got some ice cream. Said goodbye to Hallie and Carolyn who both have different travel schedules then the rest of the group (Good luck getting home Hallie and have fun in Provence Carolyn) Last dinner with host families. Time to start packing!

            This is my last post and I don’t think I will be missing McDonals’s so much! Thanks to everyone who has been following the blog, I hope you will help support Pace’s Global Education Program as it has given us a wonderful opportunity. We are leaving tomorrow afternoon for a flight to Rome and then after a night in Rome we are headed back to Atlanta in the morning. Wish us luck! Let’s hope we don’t have the same experience as we did coming here.

I just want to say a huge thank you to Ms. Anderson, Mr. Newman, Mr. Matanes, Mr. Gannon and Mr. Assaf for making this trip possible. We have all had so much fun and have learned so much from this trip. I personally have learned that I want to keep studying French in college, and I know that we all had the time of our lives. This is a trip we will always remember.

Bon Voyage,

Jordan 

Finally, Some American Music!

Bonjour,

So after taking advice from my mom and brother I have decided to start writing posts on word documents at our apartment so I don’t have to spend so much time at McDonalds. Now all I have to do is copy, paste, post and then I am set!

            Picking up where we left off…bugs! Not only were we attacked by bugs at the restaurant but it seems like we are being attacked by bugs everywhere. All of us have been getting really strange looking bites. We came to a conclusion that the culprits were bed bugs but after our experience at Le Nautique, we have our doubts. Who knew Nice was infested with so many bugs!

            On Thursday afternoon after school, we traveled to a little town outside of Nice called Eze. It is absolutely beautiful! The first thing we did when we got there was go to Fragonard, a famous French perfume company and factory. We took a tour of the factory and got to see how all their perfumes, soaps and cosmetics were made. We were all pretty captivated by the process and of course the smells caught our attention too! After the tour, we got to visit the gift shop. Every single one of us bought at least one thing in that store! Next, we walked up to the historic Eze which is a medieval, fortified town that sits atop a big hill overlooking the ocean. Everything in the town was so tiny because it was built so long ago and people where so much smaller. After walking around there for about an hour or two, we headed back to Nice and ate dinner at a little café in a square near our houses.

             Yesterday (Friday), we visited a Russian Orthodox Church. This church is very unique because it is one of the only Russian churches outside of Russia. We had to walk a very long way to get there but when we arrived, it was stunning and it was so different from anything we have seen in Nice. After seeing how beautiful it was on the outside, we were a little under whelmed when we entered the church. Although it was beautifully painted and decorated, the interior is shockingly small. It was not like a normal church because in the Russian Orthodox tradition, the majority of the congregation stands so there was very little seating and the pulpit took up the majority of the interior. We were a little disappointed that we had to walk such a long way to spend so little time in the church but then again how many high school students can say that they got to visit the Eglise Russe in Nice, France. After visiting the church, we freshened up with some popsicles and headed of on another long walk to a restaurant that doubles as a bowling alley. We had a great pizza dinner even though we were served enough food to feed an army. Their individual pizzas were about the size of a medium pizza at Papa John’s or Dominoes! Bowling was SO much fun. Most of us hadn’t bowled in at least a year so we were pretty bad…except for Mr. Newman. Although he claimed not to have bowled for eight years, he blew us all out of the water. He probably won by more than fifty points. The best part of bowling was the music! There was an awesome digital jukebox that we pretty much took over! We all had an awesome time dancing to middle school era American pop music. I think we felt almost as if we were back home in that bowling alley!

    Today, we finally got to sleep in and spend some relaxing time at the beach. No school until Monday, yes! It’s funny that we all volunteered to go to school in the summer time but it has been worth it. I feel like I am able to recognize and speak French more than I ever have.

   Check back soon for a recount of our trip to Cannes. We are going tomorrow so I hope to have a post up on Monday.

Untill next time,

     Jordan

             

The Attack of the Killer Bugs

Salut,
   Still no internet at home so it looks like I will be getting to know this McDonalds pretty well! Lucky for me, it is by far the nicest McDonalds I have ever seen or been in. Looking back on these past two days, it seems as though a lot has happened but in reality we haven't been through nearly as much as we did when we were traveling to Nice.
    Yesterday was sort of an uneventful day. We went to class, ate lunch, and window shopped for about 5 hours. It was pretty exhausting because we did not go home before dinner but it was good because we got to explore even more! We all went to dinner together at a restaurant on the port called Le Nautique. Dinner was exquisite, everyone loved their food and Mr. Matanes even made friends with the people sitting next to us! We were waiting for our desert for what seemed like forever when we started noticing these little bugs flying everywhere around our table. It got to be a little ridiculous, and we began to freak out a little bit. We had to start killing the bugs and we counted about fifty of them on the table. It was so gross!!
Sorry guys, I had some technical difficulties and half of my post just got deleted!!! I am so frustrated, oh well. I have more to tell you about our trip to Eze and more about the killer bugs but I guess that will have to wait until next time since my computer is about to die! Stay tuned for news on Eze, and on our agenda is a journey to a Russian church and a trip to a French movie theater.
Au Revoir and until next time,
   Jordan

An Interesting Start

 Bonjour tout le monde (Hello Everyone),
       We are eight students who are rising seniors at Pace Academy and have traveled to Nice, France to further study French culture and language as part of the emerging Global Education program. We are staying with host families and attending classes at the Alliance Francais.
       Well, all I can say to start off is that we have had an adventure on this trip. The eight of us together have had quite the share of chaos, excitement, nerves, and pretty much every other emotion on earth. Right now Mackenzie and I  (Jordan) are sitting at a McDonalds in downtown Nice.  We don't have wifi at the house so this is the only way we can get on the internet. Sorry for the late posting, I will try to come here as much as possible to keep you filled in on our experiences!
          I feel like we have been away from home for about a month already, I don't even know where to begin! I guess I will start out by giving a short recount of our airport fiasco ( trust me, you don't want to hear all the details). Allison, Michelle, Morgan, Carolyn, Mackenzie and I all arrived at the airport on time(Claire was already in France and Hallie  flew separately), the only problem we had was figuring out wheather to check our baggage all the way to Nice or to check it to Rome where our connecting flight was, it turned out that half of us checked the bags to Rome and the other half to Nice, all we would have to do was go through baggage claim an extra time, not a big deal, right? Wrong! After a smooth and comfortable flight to Rome, we arrived at about 7:30 Rome time and missed our connecting flight to Nice. We were all a little upset but thought nothing much of it. Turns out that we could not get a flight until 5:30 so we would have to wait 10 hours and not all of us could fit on the same flight. We had to split up and three girls flew straight to Nice while the other three plus the teachers flew to Munich, Germany and then to Nice. The last batch of us finally arrived in Nice at around 11:15 pm and after almost two full days of traveling, were completely exhausted!
         The next morning (Sunday), we woke up and explored the city which is absolutely beautiful. Everyone is very pleasant, the weather is perfect, and there are lots of things to do! We discovered an ice cream place in what is called the "Old City" that we have visited every day since we have been here. We are all enjoying the laid back southern french persona by visiting the beaches and walking around the Old City. We even learned about the history of Nice as we went on a guided walking tour yesterday.
       School has been a learning experience so far, it is a complete immersion process, none of the teachers speak english! We are all in a class with at least one friend, we were lucky enough to be placed together after taking a placement test! We had our first full day of class today and have already met many people of different nationalities, in mine, Morgan's and Claire's class there are Austrians, Italians, Irish  and some other nationalities that I can't remember! That is really all the inside scoop so far but be sure to check back soon and stay posted! I tried uploading pictures but after sitting here waiting for about 10 minutes, decided to give up hopefully you will be able to see some soon!
   Until next time,
         Jordan