Trips are one of the things I like about the ISC. The organizing team enjoys them as much as the participants themselves do. Like the one time when me and my friend Olivia took a group of Erasmus students for a trip to the castle Lednice. When we woke up at 7 o clock that day, we had no idea what adventure is awaiting us.
When Erasmus students saw the castle for the first time through the bus’s windows, they got super excited. They couldn’t wait to see the castle from inside, but we had arrived quite soon, so we still had a lot of time before the tour would begin. after a visit of the greenhouse and a walk through the park, we were finally standing impatient in front of the entrance. But it was locked!
Calling the office, we learned the shocking true: they had been expecting us the day before! It took a couple minutes of tough negotiations, but they were willing to give us the tour after all – in Czech! For a group of 20 people from all over the world, an optimal solution!
The idea of me and Olivia translating the whole expert commentary by ourselves scared us to the death. Luckily, in the last moment, one of the young guides come to our rescue. He had not given a tour in English ever before, but he was willing to try for us. The guy was really good though and without knowing it, we wouldn’t tell lit was his first time.
I smiled with relieve, thinking how gracefully we managed to get through all of the difficulties. Silly me! After a couple of minutes I noticed that two girls were missing. They were nowhere to be found! When they finally appeared, the tour was over. So there was one more negotiation to be done. While the rest of the group was feasting on traditional Czech meals in a pub nearby, the two Italian girls were enjoying their special VIP tour. The hunger despite, they couldn‘t be happier.
There was still an hour to go before the bus arrives and therefore we decided to take another walk through that stunning park. The students were explicitly told a couple of time not to be late. Of course they did not! If there wasn’t for the very nice and obliging bus driver, who was willing to wait for the group, we would probably never get home.
I was glad that we do not have time to visit the castle in Valtice. The students could only admire it from the distance being safely seated in the bus, having no chance to run away or get lost.
To my surprise, we managed to transfer to the train back to Brno without any significant complications.
The students were so exhausted from their adventures, that they immediately fell asleep and me and Olivia were simply glad that we managed to survive and bring all of our students safe and sound back home.
Written by: Tereza Klapetková a Olívia Zelenáková
Translation: Adéla Klečková
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