Europe Trip Presentation

Presenting to our Guest

Tea and Scones

On Saturday, January 24th, we hosted our Europe Trip Presentation Event that allowed our family, friends, and sponsors to hear, straight from us, what it took for us to plan, fund, and execute our trip.  

Everyone enjoyed tea and scones while we spoke about our trip then smiled and laughed along with us as we watched our trip video. Follow this link  http://youtu.be/GImumMx4gFI to watch our trip video.

Our guests

Our souvenirs on display

The LONG Travel day home

Home again, Home again, dancing a Jig (well, more like sleeping…) by Ms. Donna

We were up and out the door to the airport by 8:15am.  It was a very short drive and we arrived in plenty of  time to get to our gate.  Time time passed quickly and we were soon on our way to JFK.  Sleep came easy on the plane  for must of us (as well as the train…and in the van…) and before we knew it, we were back on US soil.  Wow, what a change!  The temperature was a balmy 80+ degrees and quite a shock to our bodies that were used to much cooler weather.  We had lunch then settled in at the gate for our trip evaluation.  We were all moved by different things on this trip and acheived different things from the process but the one statement I heard loud and clear was that this had been our best adventure yet! 

Soon we were ready to board and off we flew to Atlanta.  When we arrived we collected our bags, met our ride (Thanks Scott!), and headed back to one of the girls homes where we met up with the parents, had a wonderful meal, and talked about the trip (a great big thanks to all of the parents for the great food and the thank you cards and gifts!!)  As I listened to the girls excitedly tell stories about the trip, it was clear to me that through friendship and laughter our bond to each other had grown to a much higher level.  I know that we will all remember the wonderful times we shared on this trip for the rest of our lives.  

The Final Day - Back in Iceland!

Extra day in Keflavik by Rosie

Well... things did not go as planned. Our flight that was originally on Wednesday was moved to Tuesday. We had to fly out of the Luton Airport to the Keflavik Airport on Tuesday. We got into Iceland in mid morning, and we went to the Alex guesthouse. After we got into the guesthouse, they happened to have the tv on to the Reykjavik National Holiday celebration, and we saw the ceremony that our Icelandic sister troop was in!!. We watched them for about half an hour, but then we realized we were starving. All of us got our raincoats on (cause it was really cold, windy and wet outside), then we walked into the closest town to find food. We ended up eating at a hot dog place. The hot dogs were amazing, and the ice cream for dessert was even better. Mom wanted to go to the Independence Day Festival after we ate, but all of us were too tired to do anything. She went to check it out, and the rest of us went to take a nap. We went to sleep at 4 PM, and we woke up at 8 PM. After all of us were up, we were hungry for dinner. Mom ordered pizza, and that was the end to a great day... <(*.*<)

England Day 4

Going Tubing by Emma

To get around, we took trains and the Tube system. The tube and rails are very intricate and for some of us, me included, had to rely on the others to tell us when to get off.  We made a few mistakes when it came to destination points and what station to go to. It was especially difficult when the lines would change or when one train wouldn’t stop at a station but a different one would. Despite the level of difficulty, by the end of the trip to London, most girls feel comfortable about being able to navigate themselves on the tubes. I, however am not one of those girls, I will follow their lead and hope they don’t lead me in the wrong direction. My experience on the tubes was ok, but I will be honest and say that I got irritated multiple occasions in which we would miss a stop or train and had to detour. Other than that, I think getting travel passes was a good use of our hard-earned money.

The Changing of the Guard by Brittany 

The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace was something that my grandma said was a must-see in London. And I’ve got to say that it was really cool to watch. The new guards marched into the circle with a band playing and riders on horseback as escorts. There was a huge crowd of people around the gate, so I had to stand on a railing to be able to get good video of the march. We weren’t right up by the gate, so we didn’t get to see much of the actual change within the gate, but it was really interesting to watch from afar and see the guard marching through the gates. And there actually was one point were we weaseled our way up to the front gate and got a lot of up-close video. It was awesome!

After everything was done at the palace, we headed back towards the tube station to find lunch. We ended up getting food from Simply Food again (a grocery store like place) that we’d fallen in love with. The food was great, and it was all within our budget! I was able to get a sandwich, tea, and sushi all for under 6 pounds!! Mrs. Susan also got a bunch of pastries and an English cake that we all shared. We got our food and headed across the street to a park where we settled down under a tree to eat and talk for an hour before splitting up for the afternoon.

Meeting Andrew Scott & riding The London Eye by Lizzy

Ok so our last day in London, we had to last minute plan and we ended up going to the London Eye in the mid afternoon AND ON THE WAY THERE, GUESS WHO WE MET. WELL I SPOTTED HIM. AND THEN I PULLED SELINA OVER AND WE RAN OVER BECAUSE WE MET ANDREW SCOTT. The actor who plays Moriarty in Sherlock on BBC AND WE GOT A PICTURE. SO I”M STILL ON A HIGH EVERY TIME I TALK ABOUT IT. Oh and then we went on the London Eye. It was really beautiful, a little bit freaky to some of the girls, but seeing London from so high was really exhilarating. All in all it was a pretty amazing time.

 The Science Museum by Katie

On our last day in London we had to split into two groups because we had changed our flight to Iceland to be a day earlier. The splitting up was to ensure everyone got to do what they wanted to do. The first group--Rosie, Emma, Coumbah, Lizzy, and Mrs. Susan-- was more focused on shopping, and headed over to Oxford street. My group-- me, Brittany, Selina, and Mrs. Donna-- wanted to visit a book store and the British Science Museum. After all nine of us went to the London eye, we split at the tube station and my group headed off to the Science Museum. We didn’t have time to see everything, but what we did see was pretty amazing! We visited exhibits on space travel, computing, energy, cars, and airplanes. The exhibits often focused on a history behind the advancements of these things, and we all got to see old supercomputers and even some of the first personal computers and laptops. Some items in the exhibits were pretty recent as well, like the first gameboy-- not something I expected would be in a museum already! 

Shopping by Coumbah

Shopping was awesome. It was Lizzy,Rosie,Emma, and I as the shopping group and we were so excited to be able to finally see the shops of London. You know the saying of “shop until we drop”? Well, that is exactly what we did. The two main shops for us where H&M and Primark. Primark is a british based store so for sure we had to go and it was crazy , the store took forever to find and it was so far away from the meeting spot that Mrs. Susan told us to meet up but once we got to the store we went crazy. It is truly the best store in the whole entire world. There is just so much and its all so cheap.  We were able to meet back up with Mrs. Susan in time by mostly running because the cashiers in these stores where the slowest ever and the lines where so long but everyone was able to get some great clothes and accessories. The shopping all in all was a major success.   

Changing of Flights by Mrs. Donna

It was our plan to fly back to Iceland on Wednesday morning, change planes and fly home, however, that’s not quite how it happened.  We ran into a problem when we flew to England in that we were only allowed one carry on so we each had to check a bag at the gate.  Knowing this would be the way it worked when we returned to Iceland, we looked into all kinds of options for getting our bags home and us on our connecting flight.  As it turned out, there was just no way to make it all happen on Wednesday morning so we had to change our flight back to Iceland to Tuesday so that we could make our Wednesday flight home.  The girls did a great job combining two days into one and I was very proud at the way they worked together to make it happen!  

Then we had the issue of our hotel reservations at Holiday Inn Express by the Luton Airport.  Our reservations were, of course, for Tuesday night so I called the hotel to change it to Monday night.  They had no rooms available for that night but did find us a hotel a few miles away and while I was providing the information needed to hold the rooms, my cell phone dropped the call.  What else could go wrong.  I tried to call them back several times but never reached an agent so we decided to roll the dice and just show up at the Holiday Inn Express and beg for their mercy.  As it turned out, they had a couple of cancelations and were able to accommodate us.  The two gentlemen working that night, Mark and Lee, were so gracious and funny that it really turned our frowns upside down.  Thanks guys, we really needed the laughs.  In the end, it worked out fine and we made our flight to Iceland without incident.

Reflection from our Leader by Mrs. Susan

One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was to give the girls some independence.  For example, in the evenings, they were allowed to take an hour or two and go out with our sister troop, walk by the sea, go to the local convenience store on their own.  The shopping trip was a perfect place for this kind of experience, because I’m not a shopper at all, so I gave the four girls a couple of hours to shop together on Oxford street WITHOUT me - I found a fabulous Italian restaurant with outdoor seating and bought a big pot of tea and people watched.  If you’ve never been to Oxford street, I’ll tell you it’s not for the faint of heart - it’s very, very crowded with people from all over the world - some very fashionable people! - and difficult walk through a crowd.  Our Girl Scout jackets caught a lot of attention on the whole trip - there are a LOT of Girl Scouts out there!  Pretty soon some English women were chatting with me about the trip and the girls.  When I changed venues to eat some Chinese food outside of a noodle shop, a Girl Scout leader from San Francisco with her 9th grade daughter spent half an hour talking with me about the process of the trip.  Ironically, her name was Susan and her daughter was Emma!

England Day 3

The day with the York Girls by Rosie

        After today, I feel really excited about the York girls’ visit in August. We woke up late, and we hurried out the door with our naan (bread from the Indian restaurant). When we got to Platform 9 3/4, we met our sister troop. We took some photos at the Harry Potter place, and we were off for a fun day.

We walked across Abbey Road and got close to the Webcam so we could say Happy Father’s Day to our Dads, visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the filming sight of Sherlock Holmes, and ate some great food.

By the end of the day, we had become close and comfortable around our York sister troop and we are really looking forward to their visit to the USA in August!!!

 
We also did a Father’s Day thing. At some of the significant places, we held up a sign that said “Happy Father’s Day!” on it. I hope they saw the pictures Mrs. Donna sent.

England Day 2 - Swanley

A day with the Swanley Troop by Coumbah

Today was the first official day in London. We met up with our British sister troop from Swanley that we had been in correspondence with throughout our journey to London.  It was a bit hectic to figure out the tube station because Brittany was hurt and crippling along, we tried to get her on as many lifts and escalators as we could so she wasn’t on her knee all day.

When we finally met the troop it was so cool to interact and talk to them and get to know the country side of London in the day that we had. We went to the Charles Darwin house and learned about the family man and scientist that first wrote about evolution.

At lunch we enjoyed classic British treats like meat pastries and fresh strawberries. We took a long walk to the Roman Villa it was fun to see all the British homes and gardens.  And with the sister troop, we enjoyed looking at the Roman ruins .

After that we had a ceremony for the sister troop where we gave them the gifts we made in Atlanta. The journey home was fun,we talked and laughed all the way.

England Day 1

Traveling to London by Lizzy

SO! We’re in London, at the hostel safe and sound. Barely. But don’t freak out! Nothing too horrible happened. It just took a lot of stress, sweat, and steps. So we woke up at about 5:30 (Knew I could do it - Mrs. Susan doubted me). Anyway, we did some last minute cleaning and packing after we woke up and got ready. Then it was time for us to go. I felt really sad leaving the scout house and Reykjavik in general. I really fell in love with the place, head first man. I plan on going back in the nearest future possible. I think a lot of us feel the same way.

Well, we left and headed to the airport with breakfast in the car and drove down to the Keflavik airport. Before that, we dropped our van off successfully at the parking lot. We went through customs, security, and exchanged our money before the plane ride. However, problem one started when we had to check all of our luggage because we were only allowed to take one item. In the US, our backpack + our luggage would count. But not on Easyjet. So we do that, then we get on the plane. I slept through most of it, but I did get to write in my journal for a time.

Once we landed though, problem 2 starts. Getting to the hostel was a predicament. Let me tell you, London traffic and transportation can get kinda difficult at first. I mean now, its a breeze and actually really fun for me to ride. BUT back then it was a bit overwhelming, especially considering we had just come from the less populated Reykjavik. Anyway we got on trains and buses and just about everything trying to get to the hostel. And we got lost on just about everything. All the while we lugged out luggage around (see what I did there?) an unusually warm London.

Well finally we get to the road, but of course we have to walk uphill. Once we get there, the hostel manager is no where to be found, and we are tired and very confused... Except we meet some really kind people at the door that help us and we find our key and go in and settle down. BUT THEN PROBLEM THREE.. The car rental place emailed us claiming we may have scratched/dented the car. We didn’t of course, and once we emailed them, they saw the mark on the paperwork and things were fixed. Everything that happened really stressed us out of course.

On the other hand, we have beds to sleep in, the sun was shining, and we had amazing Indian food for dinner that night. (Seriously, shout out to Fire n’ Spice for being the best Indian food I’ve ever had) It was a pretty amazing day actually. I’m really loving London, deeply missing Iceland, but excited to be here.

Dinner at Fire and Spice by Selina

So for our first day in London, a LOT of stuff happened and we were beat by the evening. Someone recommended this Indian restaurant called Fire and Spice that was nearby for dinner. So we went and it was absolutely DELICIOUS!!! There are a few Indian restaurants in GA too, but this was one of a kind! Everyone was so nice to us and there was so much GOOD food! After that dinner, we went back to the restaurant everyday to buy Naan for breakfast, and to talk to the staff! They were so nice to us, and even gave us tastes of extra food they had there.  Man! I wish they were in America too, I know I would go with my family next time! So I guess if you live in London and you’re craving Indian food, we highly recommend Fire and Spice.  5 stars all the way!