Madrid and Lisbon Trip

Recently, and happily, a few of my oldest friends passed through the state (more on that later), and as part of the getting caught up chatter we talked a lot about foreign travel and specifically about my trips overseas with students.  I never think of it in this way, but apparently many of my friends and colleagues view it as "my thing."  In the spring of 2015 my friend Cyndi Brandenburg and I took nine students to Jordan, and in the spring of 2016 my friend Steve Wehmeyer and I took nineteen students to Zanzibar.  Of course, if you follow this blog then you already know this - although you still need to explain why in the hell you follow this blog?  Have you no pride - or any social life? (But I digress)  What I haven't talked about so far are my future trips.  This coming fall my friends Kelly Thomas and Mike Kelly and I are taking twenty students to Spain and Portugal over Thanksgiving Break.  And then in the spring Cyndi Brandenburg (and maybe another faculty member) and I are taking a yet to be determined number of students (which impacts whether or not we decide to include another faculty member) to India and Sri Lanka.  So, I'm busily planning those trips, either putting the final touches on Spain/Portugal or bringing India/Sri Lanka into greater focus.  In addition I'm working up proposals for trips for the following year (we have crazy early deadline at Champlain).  Steve Wehmeyer and I (and maybe a third professor) are putting together a proposal for a pretty innovative trip that would link two classes together as part of a year-long interdisciplinary arc that would include a two week trip back to Zanzibar, with the travel in between the two courses over Christmas break.  And I've also begun discussions with Cyndi and our colleague Kristin Wolf for a spring 2018 trip to Namibia.  So, yeah, I guess this has become "my thing".  It's funny to think of it transpiring this way since I didn't even have a passport until I was forty-two.

I'm really excited about the upcoming trip to Madrid and Lisbon, and I'll have a lot more to say about them soon.  Now, I just need to find someplace to get a turkey dinner in Lisbon on Thanksgiving (I promised the students) . . .