By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Bowling Green High School students who traveled to London last week experienced a foreign culture and a little bit of magic.
Drama teacher Jo Beth Gonzalez accompanied eight students on a tour of London. The tour organized by E.F Educational Tours also included 35 teachers, students and parents from London. The students and their families were responsible for raising all the money to pay for the trip. No district funds were used.
The trip left June 15 and the bleary-eyed travelers returned on June 21, having experienced five-and-half packed days in London and Stratford, England.
Gonzalez and four of the students gathered two days after their return to discuss the trip. These are early impressions. Gonzalez said. The full impact on the students probably won’t be felt for a year, as they absorb what they experienced.
Tressa Greiner, who will be a sophomore in August, said that she’d always loved the score from the musical “Wicked.” Getting to see it on the London stage was something else again. “It was really magical.”
While most of the students who went were involved in the school’s drama program, Greiner hasn’t been able to fit it into her scheduled.
Gonzalez said they all hope that will change next year.
Julia Maas, who will attend Bowling Green State University in fall to study physical education and health, was also impressed with the musical. She’d seen it before, but now she saw it in a new light. “The characters were so clear and bold.”
The characters were given a different interpretation and accent by the British cast, said Elaine Hudson, a senior planning to study theater in college. This was her third time seeing “Wicked.”
They also saw the show “The Comedy About a Bank Robbery.” Though less well known, it was a hit.
Hailey Johnson, who will be a sophomore in fall, said of the activities they participated in, that was the highlight. “It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The production Gonzalez said “was impeccable” from the acting, the sets, and aerial work.”
“Everything was so crisp,” Maas said, “you could tell they had been rehearsing for months.”
Still as fun as that was, what made the biggest impression on Johnson was the camaraderie the group developed during the trip. She didn’t know her fellow travelers that well before, but they bonded in London.
That extended to the group from Texas. Greiner said she’d just been in contact with a girl from Texas earlier in the day.
She said she was surprised how as one of the youngest in the group, she managed being away from her family. If she did feel a little homesick, “I felt the older ones were really there for me.”
Johnson agreed. “I learned not to be so clingy to my mom and dad, not to be so attached. It was cool to have a getaway alone.”
“It builds resilience,” Gonzalez said.
For Hudson, this helps bolster her confidence as she prepares to apply and audition for college theater programs.
Maas said she’s “ready for this transition” to college. In fact, she was ready to stay longer in London. She rendezvoused with her “exchange sister” who stayed with her family in Bowling Green, and she was able to arrange a seven-hour visit just with her while in London.
“I felt very comfortable there,” she said.
Not that there wasn’t some trepidation for the travelers before they left.
Bowling Green had a history of sending students abroad, especially the Madrigal Singers and later the band. But after the terror attacks in 2001, the school board stopped foreign trips.
The London trip and a trip by Spanish students to Cuba earlier this year marked a change in policy.
Then in the weeks before the theater group was to leave, London was rocked by both terrorist attacks and a major apartment fire.
Johnson wondered whether the trip would go off. “Some parents were iffy. I was shocked all this happening before the trip.”
But the students and parents were steadfast.
“We felt completely safe every minute,” Gonzalez said.
The group did visit the Borough Market, the scene of one of the attacks. They saw the makeshift memorial of notes in chalk and on Post-It notes. They left their own condolences.
The lasting impression though was of all the food stalls – chicken pot pies, cheese, pastries, goat cheese ice cream, herbal gray macaroons.
Hudson said the place had a bustling sense of joyous community including a street musician. “It was like a fantasy world.”
“To be immersed in the market,” Gonzalez said, “made us more aware of how horrific the attack was for Londoners.”
Every trip has risks, Maas said. “But the pros outweigh the cons. We’re all so young and to be able to do all this now was so cool.”
And being someone’s guest, Gonzalez said, “makes us more empathetic.”
“It made me realize that Bowling Green’s pretty sheltered,” Greiner said.
Gonzalez tallied 30 different activities.
Michael their tour guide, she said, was disappointed if they didn’t walk at least eight miles a day. “His goal was to wear us out.”
Though the tour had an itinerary, room was left to give the travelers some choices, Gonzalez said.
So they visited sites associated with the Harry Potter books, including the place on the Tube, London’s underground train system, near the magical stop that took Potter and his pals to Hogwarts.
They also traveled to Stratford, the birthplace of Shakespeare, a special treat for Shakespeare lover Gonzalez.
She was amazed to be able to tread upon stones once stepped upon by the Bard himself. They also visited the gardens of his wife, Anne Hathaway, and had a traditional British tea.
The students were impressed when a tray was delivered to their table to with an Elizabethan cake, and scones and other pastries. They assumed this was to share. And Greiner and her tablemates made short work of it. Then the waitress delivered another tray and another. Each visitor got her own.
Gonzalez carried off leftovers to sustain her for the rest of the day.
They had an unexpected thrill when they got to witness the annual Trooping the Colors where regiments parade before the queen, who passed by the students in her carriage.
All of them, students and teacher alike, are intent on further travels.
Gonzalez said she’d like to plan another trip, maybe for a couple years from now.
Johnson said she’s been on the E.F. Tours website checking out all the options for individuals as well as groups.
Maas said she hopes to include study abroad in her curriculum at BGSU. For her, the trip to London is a chapter on the story she may someday tell to grandchildren. “It’s the book of your life.”
