[rant] an exceprt from the annual P2P letter: "Amy can experience 20 days of rewarding activities and meet people of England, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland...Your local delegation will represent the United States overseas, experience new cultues, and make lifelong freinds. Success and confidence await, as Amy will: -Develop the global mindset and critical thinking skills that will become invaluable in her college and future pursuits. -Make social studies personal by comparing cultures and traditions with a host family in Germany. -Go beyond the history textbook, visiting the beaches of Normandy and ducking into Anne Frank's seceret home. -Gain an apprecition of European politics and ask questions of a member of parliament in London." every f*cking year i get this letter, and i get this hope that maybe ill see outside of the country before i graduate college, that maybe ill get to see a continent that has fasinating history dating to before the 15th century, that maybe ill get to at least go to the meeting. but then i look at my mom, and i loose all hope. all she has to do is look at me with that "no way in hell youre going to europe" face, and a little bit of me dies. everyone says "its just a trip", or "youll go eventualy", but this is people to people! for 50 years they have been taking students like me to countries all over the world to expirience the cultures and politics of those countries. and this year it just have to be those 6. staying with a host family in germany for Gods sake! seeing normandy, the place where my step-grandfather faught and was shot in the head and awarded a purple heart for being shot in the head and a broze star for valor. seeing the secret annex, where the franks and van pels stayed while hiding from the nazis. meeting a member of parliament! stepping foot in france. God, it just had to be these places. i didnt even bother looking at my mother this time, i dont think shell let me go to the meeting in september. just like every single f*cking year. she wont here a word i say, just like when it was scotland, ireland and wales. she wont think about it at all, she never has. this is the one thing my father and i agree on, but she wont even listen to him. for six f*cking years, she has just said this stupid sh*t about not wanting me on an airplane. i know theres some other reason, ill figure it out. [end rant] thanks for reading my complaints. no one else will.
She doesn't want you on an airplane? No offense, but that's ridiculous... I mean, I could understand if someone in your family had been in a plane crash or something, but still. This is such a wonderful opportunity for you! Of course, it really depends on the trip. I went to England and France on the Tale of Two Cities trip when I was eleven and it was amazing! I loved every second and would go again in a heartbeat. But then I went on a Leadership Forum trip to Washington, D.C. and- I'm being completely honest here- it absolutely sucked. I mean, yeah, DC isn't as exciting as Europe for sure, but if the Europe trip had been anything like DC then I would have called my mom every night begging to come home. We would hit four, five, even six places in one day; the most we spent in any museum was forty-five minutes. That was the Holocaust Museum, where they made us do the children's exhibit, Daniel's Story or whatever. Because we weren't "emotionally mature" enough. I wanted to scream at her! "Woman, I've been to Normandy beach and inside the bunkers from D-Day. I've been to the American cemetery and seen thousands of crosses, row upon row of identical graves. I went to the Holocaust museum in Caen, France and spent half a day there, seeing articles and objects and pictures. An adult museum. And I'm not emotionally fucking mature enough to go to the adult exhibit in the Holocaust Museum?" On that same day, we went to the Plants and Botany museum or something. We're in the process of learning how to be potential American leaders and we spend time in the botany museum? When we could be spending that time learning about important things, such as our mistakes in the past, so we don't make them again? And the Children's Exhibit wasn't the only way we got treated like little kids. We were about to go into a film on Gettysburg, when our group leader told us to "Go diddle, so you won't have to leave during the movie!" And the sad thing is, I'm 100% completely fucking serious. I mean, yeah there were good parts. And I'm so sorry that this turned into a rant. I was trying to say that People to People is sometimes great and sometimes not so great, and then I started venting because I'm still kind of sore about them screwing up what could have been a great opportunity... Hey, I know it's cool to be invited to participate, and being an important organization, they might get to go places that ordinary tourists don't. But the thing is, you could either have an experience like my European trip, or like my DC trip. I know you probably want to go now, but wouldn't you rather go when you can control what you see and how long you spend there? It's tough- I was invited to Germany, Austria, and a bunch of other countries with them and I couldn't go. Just keep telling yourself how you would feel if you got to the Secret Annex, only to spend twenty minutes there, and then go spend what feels like forever in someplace boring? Or if you weren't allowed to see part of history because you weren't "emotionally mature enough," and were then told to "go diddle"? I know you really want to go- I wanted to go to Germany soooo badly. But keep reminding yourself all the things you'll see and do when you're in control of your own trip. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and if you only get to go once, you don't want to waste it! Hope this helped a little; sorry about the length! ~megan~
no problem. rants are good. i really dont think thats the only reason she doesnt want me going. we finally talked(she was working. again.), and she said that "we dont have the money", which i know is complete bull. i feel the phase of different, ridiculous excuses coming. as always. my friend got to go on the trip this year, and i know alot of people who have gone in the past, and they said that dc trips are usually like that, but the international ones are much better. im totally jealous that youve been on the tale of two cities tour. and 20 minutes in the secret annex would be terrible. 30 minutes at normandy would be me crying and not getting a picture. and 15 with a member of parliament might be good, as id google them, find out what theyve done, and ask what the hell he was on when he did something stupid if there was more time(its happened with mayors and state assembley people before). that sounds like a terrible trip to dc. my riend went when she won an essay contest and she was constantly doing stuff -- she saw hippies doing a peaceful peace protest in front of the white house and everything -- which works for her, but not me. but good news, she says shell pay for $5,000, which leaves me with 10 months to come up with 15,000. thats 10 hours of babysitting a day for 300 days. ha! i need an actual job... o, and ballet is the sh*t, btw.
Not to brag, but a couple of years ago I went on a People To People Trip. And I'm really glad I did. I went to the UK and Ireland for 3 weeks. It was intense....and the airplane ride was fine, both to and from the UK. For you to keep getting invited should tell your mom something. These invitations go out to people who they think are proper for it. I only keep getting the letters because I'm an alumnus of the People to People program. But for you to keep getting invited means that they really see something in you. Maybe write her a letter, explaining everything. You can't argue with words written on a piece of paper. The only problem I had with the trip I took, was the leaders. I think our group leaders needed their heads examined. One night, they all left the hostel we were staying at (in Wales, mind you) to go to a bar for two of the leaders (they were married and it was their anniversairy) to go drinking. Leaving 40odd kids alone in this building at night. Guess what happened? A girl dropped a glass, cut her finger wide open, and was bleeding like crazy. So, she's going around (with a few friends to make sure she doesn't bleed to death on the carpet) trying to get the leaders' help. They knock on my door, because I was right next to the one leader and ask me where he's staying...so we go to the room next to mine and we knock for like five minutes. No answer. Eventually, the girls went down to the security desk (I fell asleep at this point. I was dead tired) to get help. They fixed up her finger (I don't know if she needed any emergency medical attention) and she went back to bed. We get up in the morning with 5 very pissed off leaders. They start raving about how 'we're a disgrace to the trip and the company and America' and "how, we shouldn't have been running around after midnight" and even though the girl tried to explain that her finger was y'know, GUSHING BLOOD EVERYWHERE they wouldn't believe her. Even though that was the story that the security desk told them too. But, I think that was just the leaders on my trip....Sorry if that scared you, but...y'know I don't think you'll have the same leaders I did.
Is it one of the trips where you meet like once a month until you actually leave? Because some do, and some don't. I know for the Tale of Two Cities trip, we fundraised as a group and each family got a certain amount of the profits (Some woman cheated us out of part of ours because we couldn't go to the actual fundraiser, even though we helped double with the preparations, so watch out for that). So that could be one possibility. One way I fundraised was by just writing letters to a bunch of family and friends, telling them about the opportunity and asking for donations. Then, I sent them a postcard while I was overseas and told them about the trip. $15,000 is a LOT. My trip was only something like $5,000. Oh well, it must cost more to fly the planes now, and mine was only to two countries anyway. Btw, how long is your trip?
There are cheaper options than P2P and hey if you wait till your in college and have some cashed saved up there is always Spring Break and Study Abroad...I'm going to Europe for 4 months to study which is alot cheaper than the P2P for me believe it or not.
I've gotten two of those letters before. One to Germany and the other was either Ireland or Italy. I dont remember how much it was supposed to cost but it was less then 500 i think. Parents shot me down both times.
