I asked Ms. O’Keeffe what her favorite spot was to travel to and she replied with, “My current favorite is Paris, because Paris is just magical. It’s such an old city, but so beautiful and rich in art and culture. It’s hard to beat a country with great museums, architecture, and food. I took students there this summer (along with Germany, Lichtenstein, Austria, and Switzerland) and it was fun”. Overall Paris was her favorite so far, she took students from Greenway with her this summer and they also traveled to Germany, Lichtenstein, Austria, and Switzerland.
Second I asked what place she didn’t like as much and she replied with, “I’m maybe the only person I knew who hated Barcelona. We just had a really negative experience there when I was in college, and a bunch of terrible interactions with people. I lived in Europe and have been to a ton of places for extended periods, and never had a problem anywhere but there. I loved the rest of Spain, but for whatever reason, Barcelona just wasn’t it for me”. She thinks she’s the only person who hated Barcelona because she didn’t have the best interactions with the people there.
Lastly I asked for a funny traveling moment and she replied with, “I was once on a back-road in Ireland, walking from my bed and breakfast into town when all of a sudden a farmer started down the same dirt lane with his entire herd of cows he was taking to the dairy for milking. I clearly looked panicked, so he yelled for me to just stand still, and sure enough the entire herd knew to just walk around me, and there I was surrounded by like a hundred cows. A fun game that Mr. Renard and I like to play when we take students on trips is that we have to pet a dog in every country, so we have to figure out how to politely ask strangers in different languages if it’s okay. I fear we’ve had some mis-translations because we’ve gotten some weird looks”.
Overall traveling comes with great and funny times, you create memories that you will remember forever and take pictures that you will have with you for the rest of your life. In general, so much comes with traveling, you can meet new people, learn about cultures, you can try speaking different languages.
