If you know me, you may be checking out this blog because you’re wondering how in the world I went from high school science teacher and aspiring counsellor, to professional travel advisor! If you don’t know me but have landed here anyway - I’d love to share this crazy ride with you, too!
First, let’s cover the basics. I grew up in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada. I met my soulmate, Scott, at 17 years of age, married him at the age of 21 and completed our family with both daughters, Emma and Kate, by the age of 24. Somewhere in there, I also managed to earn both a B.Sc and B.Ed so that I could start a high school teaching career once the babies were old enough.
In 2007, we packed up our little family and a few belongings and moved to Ontario where we both had wonderful teaching careers for 14 years.
Emma and Kate went to and from school with us every day and Scott and I had adjacent desks in the staffroom. I don’t think a family could be any closer!
While many people would laugh and say they would never be able to work so closely with their spouse or teach their own children, for some reason, it suited us just fine.
When I look back on how this all started, I have to smile. After just a year at the school, I remember pitching a seasoned colleague the idea of a school Europe trip.
She laughed and basically shot me down. “Nice idea, but it’s not gonna work!”
Hmmm…ok, maybe it won’t? The next year, I tried to entice the senior English teacher, “Imagine teaching your students about Shakespeare at the Globe theatre in London!”. “Nice idea!”, he said, but he didn’t really offer much in the way of encouragement. Well, at least he didn’t completely shoot me down!
The next couple of years brought some big changes at our school and it felt like it could be a good time to pitch the idea again. As you can tell, I’m not easily deterred! This time, it worked and the principal was on board! About a year later, in March 2011, my colleague and I took off from Pearson International with eight high school students on a WWII history tour to Berlin, Amsterdam, Normandy and Paris.
I can still remember sitting on the tour bus, soaking up every inch of the landscape from the Berlin airport to our hotel.
One of the most impactful experiences was visiting Vimy Ridge and Beaumont Hamel and learning about the vital role of Canadians but especially, Newfoundlanders in WWI.
It filled me with a lot of different emotions from sorrow for the young men who were lost, anger at some of decisions that led to that loss, but mostly intense pride that I come from such a courageous group of people! I was never more proud to be a Newfoundlander! And just like that, my passion for World War history was born!
In all, my career in education has given me the opportunity to travel on five different tours to Europe. These, as well as a personal trip to Italy, have allowed me to experience London, Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris, Bruges, Normandy, Vimy, Lucerne, Krawkow, Prague, Budapest, Madrid, Barcelona, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Venice and many places in between!
And, trust me, travelling with a group of teenagers (many of whom have never travelled without their parents), was an experience all on its own! Given the choice between get ting a bunch of 15 year-old boys to go in the same direction and herding cats, I'd choose the cats ;)
I don’t think the learning curve can be considered “steep”... more like a cliff!
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