We Made it to Krakow!

We are now in Poland in the city of Krakow. This is where we will be for the next 2 days. We had a 6 hour bus ride which took us through the beautiful country side of the Czech Republic. (I think that more people would have enjoyed it if they could have kep their eyes open!)
We arrived in Krakow Poland around 5pm where we had the opportunity to visit the Salt Mines, It was a very exciting experiance for the students to go 130 meters under ground an find the giant and beautifly decorated (Carved) rooms. A few people licked the walls because we where aloud..... but it just tasted like salt and realy dried out our mouth for the rest of the tour.
We are staying in the nicest hotel so far.... a nice change from the first few days.
I am sure that I will have much more to share after tomorrow, this is the day that we will be visiting Auschwitz and Krakows giant center square. It may also be the first day of rain for us, but keep your fingers crossed!
New up dates to come soon.

Ryan Hatch

Krakow Salt Mines

These are pictures of the group at the salt mines in Krakow Poland. It was an amazing experiance for all.

Our Time Prague (Praha)

Everyone enjoyed their time in the Czech Republic. We had the chance to do a walking tour of old Prague which still had a very medieval feal to it. The streets where tough to walk on but we all managed through it. The students where given a lot of time to walk around and shop at their hearts content. Not sure what they bought, but I am sure that they will all be excited to tell you about it. We also had the change to go to a disco which was a lot of fun, I think the smoke was starting to get to some people but we are in another persons country. We will be heading to Krakow in the Morning bright and early.
Hope to up date everything soon.

Hatch

Greetings Prague

This is a few pictures that where taken while we toured the city of Prague. It was very exciting and a good experiance for everyone. The 6 hours of walking tired everyone out by the end of the night.

Greetings from Prague

Well here we are, new countrz new adventures.
We had a great time yesterday traveling to Prague, with a stop over in Dresden. Dresden was a bieutiful city with an amazing history. We had the chance to walk around the cobble stone roads and see some structures that where beautifly reconstructed after being destroyed by war.
We made our way to Prague where we went out as a group to one of the local Disco"s. Everyone had fun dancing the night away.... a few tired souls this morning.
We went on a beautiful walking tour of Prague.... or Praha if you are from the area... where we saw old building and modern society together as one. The kids had a fun.... hot... day of walking around the streets of Prague looking in every little shop they had.
Tonight is going to be a quite night because our day starts early tomorrow.
I hope that I will be able to have a computer tomorrow where the kezboard is not in somes strange language and I am able to connect my camera to.
...I have a lot of pictures to share...
Have a great night and talk to you all tomorrow.

Ryan Hatch

Berlin Wall

Second Day of Our Tour

Well, we servived a second day here in Berlin. It was a little hotter than the first day but not a clowd in the sky. This made for some excelent photos. We started out our day with time to visit different venues around one of Berlin's many centers. We where able to visit the Reichstag, Brandenburger, Holocaust Memorial, Holocaust Museum and the Berlin Wall. We finished off our tour of the day at Checkpoint Charlie which was very sad but educational. What a great day but a day that wore everyone down.

We are off to Prague tomorrow morning which will be full of new adventures.

Can't wait!

Ryan and Laura

PS- we have been having some problems with understanding some of the information at the internet cafe so as soon as it gets figured out I will post the picture in a better manor. I hope that you do ejoy the picture I have been able to send.

HATCH

Part 2 Sight Seeing in Germany

The Traveling was Long... But ´We Made It!!!

Greetings from Germany!
We arived and landed on oür two feet in Germany at 1:00pm Sunday. We had some free time to walk around and visit some of the beautiful sites of East Berlin. Here are some pics of Day 1... it has been a long day and we are really tired, so we will update more tomorrow when we have our wits about us.

Tomorrow we are off the see the Berlin Wall and other exciting sights.

Chow!

Ryan & Laura

(I have had some problems uploading photo's onto the site but will get this fixed tomorrow.)

Almost Time to GO!

This is just a last minute post to let you all know how excite I am to spend Easter will all of you in Europe. I hope that the parents will be looking back on this website to see our journeys as they unravel.

They will show up on here as Picasa slide shows, which is the quickest and easiest way for me to share our experiences. If any of you do leave comments I will be sure to share them with the students while on our travels. 

See everyone tomorrow at 10:30 am!

Ryan Hatch

Our Tour Guide Christian Schynoll

This is just some information on our tour guide that will be leading us on our tours.

Christian Schynoll

Here is a little about him:

I (Christian) have been touring with EF throughout Europe for 16 years now and I'm still enjoying every tour. I do have a "Regular Job" wince 1997 I work in the health industry, specifically in the diagnostics area. I am also involved in content management systems and translation. Due to time constraints, I just do two tours per year.

I have a degree as a translator and interpreter fro French and English. I've always had a love for languages and travel. Before my studies at University, I travelled extensively in Africa, Latin America and North America (4-years). Since my wife and I have 2 children we live a more settled life, but we still try to travel.

Your tour is coming up soon and I am excited to share in this experience with you.

Christian

Our Flight Itinerary and Hotels

We have now received our flight itinerary for our flights to and from Germany.

Please pay attention to the times and dates of our departure and arrivals.

Our Official departure date will be Saturday April 11,2009 from the Calgary Airport. We will be returning to the Calgary Airport on Monday April 20, 2009.

*Each student will be responsible for getting themselves and their luggage to and from the Calgary airport.*

Departure:

Date /Time/ City (Airport)/ Flight/Transportation

4/11/2009 1:05 PM Calgary Lufthansa

4/12/2009 6:25 AM Frankfurt Flight#495

4/12/2009 11:45 AM Frankfurt Lufthansa

4/12/2009 12:50PM Berlin Flight#178

Return:

4/20/2009 6:55 AM Budapest Lufthansa

4/20/2009 8:35 AM Frankfurt Flight#3449

4/20/2009 9:45 AM Frankfurt Lufthansa

4/20/2009 11:25 AM Calgary Flight#494

We have also received our Hotel accommodations while we will be traveling throughout Europe. Some of the Hotels have given us website where we can visit their accommodations.

Hotels:

4/12/2009 - 4/14/2009 Hotel Abendstern Berlin http://www.hotelabendstern.de/

4/14/2009 - 4/16/2009 Merlin Hotel Prague http://hotelmerlin.euweb.cz/

4/16/2009 - 4/18/2009 Hotel Cracovia Krakow

4/18/2009 - 4/20/2009 Ibis Vaci Ut Budapest

40 Days Until Departure

There are only 40 days left until departure. We hope that many of you are as excited about the up coming trip that is quickly arriving. At the next meeting,(on March 4, 2009) we will be discussing a few of the important details about our trip.

(30 Days prior to departure)

• We must submit a telephone chain chart which will be sent to our tour consultant
• Review our flight itinerary and hotel itinerary

We are also going to review a few of the things which we talked about in our first meeting.

 If you have any questions please have them ready and ask them at the meeting on Wednesday.

Ryan Hatch