Novice Travelers Now Seasoned,
Yet Still Awed By Paris

Within 24 hours they would be in the world's most glamorous city, Paris. But for now there were more mundane matters to tend to, like laundry.

When you're an Honors-PLUS student from UC's business school on Day 26 of a 32-day trip away from home, the dirty clothes can pile up. And a rainy evening in Belgium gives you an excuse to do something about it, even if it is Labor Day back home.

For some of the students this trip has presented the first opportunity to do their own laundry.

More importantly, for others, it's the first time they've ever traveled overseas or outside North America. The Honors-PLUS juniors have been hopping from one European city to another -- Helsinki and Tampere, Finland, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Brussels and Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and then Paris, in that order.

Earlier in the day their official hosts in Belgium at the Catholique University de Louvaine (UCL) had welcomed them with wine and a toast to the third official stop on their four-country tour. Pierre Semal, head of the UCL school of management, offered the students refreshments, along with a brief history of Belgium. "We've invaded no one, but every one has invaded us," he said. The students spent the day studying and discussing the European style of management.

Later that evening, as several Honors-PLUS students waited for washing machines and dryers at a laundromat, a few of the scholars who had never traveled far from home before reflected on a trip that has brought them into contact with more than a dozen companies, world-famous cultural sights and different ways of life.

"I wouldn't say it's been easy, but it hasn't been difficult," said Raqule Whited, who has never ventured forth from the United States before now.

Whited grew up in Holland, Ohio, a town near Toledo. Traveling across Europe for the past month has taught her that family is so important to her, she doesn't think she would want to work overseas. "It's shown me how much I need my family around me," said Whited, an accounting major and graduate of Springfield High School. Right before Whited left for Europe, her mom was hospitalized. "I could not be there for something like that," she has realized.

While several speakers at the corporations the students have visited in Europe have stressed the advantages of taking assignments overseas, they have also emphasized the hardship it can place on family life.

Even with the prospect of Paris before her, Whited was looking forward to getting home in a week.

Another Honors-PLUS student who had only traveled to the Caribbean and Mexico has found that his venture outside North America has piqued an interest in working overseas. Jay Hummel, a graduate of LaSalle High School, says he thinks he would like to travel some more. "I wouldn't want to do it for as long as some of the people we have met on this trip have," he said, referring to several of the corporate speakers who have worked outside their homelands for periods of time ranging from two to 15 years.

"I could see taking an assignment of two to five years. That would be fine with me," said Hummel, also an accounting major.

The trip has been "easier than I thought it would be," Hummel said. "You worry about the language barrier, and that has been virtually non-existent." Hummel has taken side trips to Sweden, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, in addition to the Honors-PLUS program's official destinations of Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Hummel and Whited were both present at a restaurant in Belgium when one of the trip's most amusing linguistic misunderstandings occurred.

Everywhere the students have traveled, English skills have been remarkably fluent, even among waiters and waitresses. Yet when fellow Honors-PLUS Scholar Pam Leist told one waiter in Belgium that her group of diners wanted "billets" - the French word for ticket (pronounced bee-yay) - for each group of four students, the waiter soon returned with "bier" - beers - which he placed in front of each group of four.

The only other linguistic confusion Hummel encountered occurred when a Swedish couple in Stockholm thought Hummel worked for a department store and asked him a question about pants. Hummel tried to tell them "No," he didn't understand the question, but they thought he meant "no" there were no jeans in that size.

Before landing in Europe three-and-a-half weeks ago, Christine Williams had never traveled farther than Disneyworld. The Honors-PLUS Scholar from Columbus' Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School says this summer's experience studying abroad has "been really eye-opening" "Just looking at and being around surroundings so different from what I am used to... it's helped me to become more open-minded," she said. "It's been exhausting with all of the travel we've done, but at the same time very enjoyable and rewarding."

She, like Whited, says she doesn't think she would want to work overseas, but she would like to travel more. "I think I would miss home too much," she said. "At the moment I'm not interested in working abroad, but that might change."

Twenty-four hours later, all thoughts of home seemed to be forgotten. The Honors-PLUS students had entered the city the guidebooks describe as the "most seductive in the world" -- Paris. A high-speed train carried them from Brussels, Belgium.

Once the students got settled into their hotel rooms, they headed out at 7:45 in the evening to see the Arc de Triomphe.

On the way, the 26-member UC entourage, including six faculty and staff members, boarded the Paris metro. Inside, a young man sang and played his guitar as the subway sped along. Soon he switched to playing an accordion. As he began playing the strains of his new song, the Eiffel Tour zoomed into view, through the windows of the tram, as if cued by the accordion.

It was the group's first glimpse of the famous Paris landmark. Hummel summed up the smiles on everyone's faces. "This is amazing," he exclaimed.