Senior Class "Rome Trip"

Rome Trip 2012

 

Sue and I had the privilege of helping out with the senior class trip again this year.  It is a very rewarding use of our 11 years of experience living in Italy.  Although it is called, "Rome Trip" we also visit the cities of Florence and Venice. 

 

The trip begins with an all night bus trip (in two buses) from Black Forest Academy to Florence, Italy.  We all try to get a good nights' sleep on the bus.  (That is not one of the highlights of the trip!)

 

Here are some of the other staff members who came along (looking great after the night on the bus!).

Dean of Faculty and Staff and his wife (an English teacher), art teacher, our HS nurse (and triathalon athelete), HS Chaplain, and our HS Spanish teacher:

 

Sue and our Italian friend Grazella.  Graziella was one of Sue's students when she taught an English conversation class during the years we served at Centro Maranatha (about 2 1/2 hours from Florence) .  Each year Graziella meets Sue in Florence on the day that we are there with the senior class!  They catch up on each others' lives over a good Italian capuccino.

 

 



Sue and I never tire of visiting Florence and it is particularly exciting to see the city through the eyes of our BFA students.

For the next five days we visit different sites in Rome.

 

 

Over the years I (Bob) have gotten to know two crippled Romanians who beg on the streets.  It is heart wrenching to see how they get around the city sitting on a skateboard.  Each year we come back I find them in the area of Piazza Narvona and the Trebbi Fountain and learn a little more about them.  This year I introduced Gabriella to Sue and some of our students.  After talking with her a bit and asking her some questions we gave her some money and prayed with her.  There is no work in Romania where this woman is from.  She and her husband come to Rome to beg and then send their money home to the grandparents who look after their two little girls.

The goal of Rome Trip is for our students to bond together as a class and to develop friendships that will result in encouraging one another throughout their last year of high school.

 

 

 

A couple of tourists !



 

 

Who can stuff the most Marshmallows in your mouth and say, "Chubby Bunny"? I (Bob) was not one of the runners-up!

 

 

Our Senior Class of 2013 - Dressed up to go out to a nice Italian Restaurant

 

 

Our trip is also educational.  It offers a great occasion for presenting a Christian worldview of history.

 



  Bob's Roman babe!

Each evening at the hotel there are always some crazy organized games.

 

Our last day we arise at 4:00am and head for Venice.
We take a boat to the island and turn the kids loose
to explore the sights on their own.

Sue always meets up with some of the students to help them bargain for souvenirs.  This year one of our students, who spent most of her life living in Bangladesh, got a better deal on umbrellas (on a rainy day) than Sue did!  The vendor, being Bengali, was so surprised to find this Caucasian girl in Italy speaking his language, that he sold her the umbrella for only 3 euros.  Sue got hers for 4!

 
Bob giving directions.  We turn the students loose to explore the city and find places to eat for the afternoon then meet up around 8:00pm for our last big event.

 

 

Our time in Venice ends
with a strings concert by
Interpreti Veneziani,
playing Vivaldi's "Four
Seasons" in a beautiful old church.

 

After the concert we take the boat back to the mainland and return to the buses for an all night drive back to Black Forest Academy.

T