Gravette student takes dream trip

Robby Teis, Gravette Middle School student, traveled as People to People student ambassador

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

— A Gravette middle school student went on a dream trip last summer, thanks to an unknown benefactor.

Robby Teis, a seventh grader, is the son of Rob and Amanda Teis. The adventure started for him when he received a letter in the summer of 2011 saying he’d been nominated to be a People to People Student Ambassador. He doesn’t know who nominated him - he suspects it was one of his teachers.

Robby accepted the nomination, but it came with no monetary backing. He was required to come up with the financing on his own. For almost a year he worked at various jobs, including holding a big garage sale and preparing and serving a catered meal, to raise money for the trip. When he was still short with the payment deadline approaching, his parents came up with the rest of the money. He says he is very grateful to them, to the person who nominated him and to all those who supported him in his fundraising efforts.

In late June of this year, Robby flew to Chicago with a group of 11 students from northwest Arkansas. There they joined another group of students from Little Rock, Georgia and Florida, forming a total of 32. From Chicago, they flew to London’s Heathrow Airport and then on to Edinburgh, Scotland.

In Edinburgh they visited Edinburgh Castle and they also went to a really nice private school in Scotland.There they were able to visit with contemporaries their own age and attend classes with them. Robby said some of the classes were quite different, including a tech class where they designed computer chips and a wood shop class, more like a technical school curriculum. They also played soccer (the Scots called it “football”) with the students.

The tour group visited Loch Ness, and Robby got to drive a boat on the lake. When asked if he saw the famous Loch Ness monster, he said he took a lot of pictures. He admitted there appeared to be a monster in some of the photos, “but I knew it was really just waves.”

The People to People Ambassadors were able to participate in a kid’s version of the Highland games while in Scotland. The Highland games include several different events. “They’re like the Olympics just for Scotland,” Robby explained. He competed by tossing a caber, a log weighing 10-20 pounds. The caber in the event for adults is much heavier.

From Scotland, the students flew to Dublin, Ireland, where they saw the millennium spike, a tall, narrow tower. They also visited the ruins of Bunratty Castle in Ireland and went to Blarney Castle where they kissed the famous blarney stone. Legend says that kissing this stone brings one good luck. Another highlight of the trip to Ireland was visiting Trinity College where they saw the “Book of Kells,” an illuminatedmanuscript of the Four Gospels from the Middle Ages.

The third country the student ambassadors visited was Wales, but they were only there one day so they didn’t get to see many of the sights.

Finally, the students flew back to Heathrow Airport where they disembarked to see the attractions in London. They saw Big Ben and the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and went to the Tower of London where they saw the crown jewels. They attended a performance of “The Wizard of Oz” at the Globe Theater which featured outstanding special effects.

The students saw the recently-completed shard and got to ride the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel that Robby said was “pretty cool.” He confessed it was pretty scary because the ride doesn’t stop so you have to get on while it’s moving. But the glass bottoms in the cars provide an outstanding view, and “from the top of the ride you can see the whole city.”

The People to People group also visited Warwick Castle and Oxford College, saw the largest trebuchet (catapult) in the country and went to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford on Avon. There they attended an acting class where eachstudent got to enact his own version of the “To be or not to be” scene from Hamlet.

The students had dinner most evenings at their hotels. Robby said they were served lots of French fries.

“I think I ate French fries almost every day,” he said. He also noted they had the habit of serving baguettes for breakfast. “I’m not complaining,” he said. “I liked them, but we don’t have those over here.”

During the day they were able to sample some of the local fare. Robby was hoping to try haggis on his trip, but it was never on the menu. (Haggis, a traditional Scottish dish, is a savory pudding containing sheep’s heart, liver andlungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock and traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach and simmered for about three hours).

He said there were very few Chinese restaurants and no Mexican restaurants, but he did see a KFC in London.

The entire People to People trip lasted 20 days in late June and early July. Chaperones were all classroom teachers, and Robby said the experience was both educational and entertaining. He said it definitely instilled in him a desire to travel some more, and he didn’t really care where. He’s ready to go “almost anywhere.”

News, Pages 3 on 11/28/2012