Smoke gets in your eyes

I’m told that this is a rare occurrence. 
 

Sketchbook: Getting along

The conference addresses about being peacemakers and being kind were awesome reminders of how we should be. Sometimes the best place to start with that is our own front door. 
 

An eye-opening experience for the mouth

It’s always the food that surprises them. Crêpes are amazing in France (as are the French fries) and pasta and pizza are awesome in Italy. 

The language often surprises them, too. Especially when they realize the people in country are saying the exact thing they studied in class! It’s like they discover that they’re in on a secret code!

Enhanced flavors

Ice cream is great. Gelato can be amazing. 

What I find amazing is this isn't the first time we've had kids eat gelato after they dropped it on the ground. I'm not sure the five second rule applies to the streets of Paris when they're three weeks into a garbage strike!
 

Packed full of jam

Maybe it was timing — the week before Holy Week may not be the best time to visit the Vatican. But whatever the reason, it was crowded! And with one of the must-see sights being the Sistine Chapel, that's where everybody was! 

Because there were so many people — and I swear, it was a fire marshal's nightmare! — the docents were funneling people through there as fast as they could! We were shoulder to shoulder with a couple of thousand other people, shuffling like lemmings from the entrance to the exit. I was able to get a quick glimpse of the ceiling, but not nearly the feast on the masterpieces that I had hoped.

I'm sure it was amazing!
 

Flying the friendly skies

We just got back from taking a group of students to Europe for a spring break trip. It was mostly fun — except for the trip home. 

For some unexplained reason, the airlines couldn't access the tickets for half of our group. They were paid for, they were visible in the system. But none of the airlines could print boarding passes because someone else had them locked in the system. At one time we had six people from three different major airlines — Lufthansa, United and Air Canada — on a conference call trying get our boarding passes to print. And it was the same with each connection!

Each time they were able to print out boarding passes and we made it just in time to catch the flight, but then we had to do it all again at the next airport.

We all made it home, all on time, and all on the same flight. We even had all of our luggage! But what a crazy ride!

 

Sketchbook: Safety first

I don't remember — didn't they talk about this in an episode of The Safety Zone?