Micki Morris traveled to Europe for the first time saying that it was a lot more stressful than she could have imagined, however, if she had to do it again she would encourage people to do it. 

“I would 100% recommend it and would do it again 100 times,” Morris said.  

Morris, a sophomore, was one of 19 travelers from Liberty, Francis Howell and Incarnate Word in late July to travel to England, France, and Italy on a 10-day trip.

The group toured sites at the major cities of London, Paris, Milan, Florence and Rome.

“My favorite places we saw were the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum,” Morris said. 

There were two groups that actually went on this trip together which was the Missouri group and the Texas group. Morris said she stayed with the Missouri group more and had a few people she hung around during the trip.

“I met a former Liberty journalist, Ally (Schniepp) and then a senior, Heaven (Reid). But they were the main people I hung out with.”

One of the hotels the group stayed in was still under repair, but most of them were pretty good. 

Morris also explains how the food they ate was pretty good as well.

“In Paris and Italy the food was pretty good. In London the first night was horrible. We had sausage and mash. The second night wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. But in Milan I ended up getting sick because I’m lactose intolerant and on our food walking tour we ate a lot of things with dairy. I tried to take my meds for it but it didn’t work and I got sick.”

Ella Pinz explains she likes London most because the weather was super nice.

“In most countries it was over 100 degrees so it was nice getting to walk around London where it was only in the mid 60s-70s,” Pinz said. 

Pinz says she traveled with a bunch of Texans who belonged to a charter school that she ended up becoming good friends with. 

“For me, eating was very difficult in Europe,” she said. “A lot of the food lacked flavor because salt and seasoning doesn’t really exist there. Breakfast was also interesting because their sausage was literally just straight up hot dogs. Even their pizza, which I was excited for, was very different from ours. The sauce was pretty sweet and made of sweet pepper along with tomato and their meat toppings were just slices of deli meat.” 

Pinz explains that she didn’t really care for the food in Europe, and she says that it was very different from our food here in the U.S. The jetlag wasn’t that bad coming back and going to Europe. The time difference is six and seven hours later in the places they visited compared to here. 

“The way back I fell asleep at 7:30 p.m., about three hours after we arrived home and I was pretty much set back on schedule.”

She recommends this trip. Pinz said she met a lot of people and made so many friends. “Our bus rides back to the hotel each night are definitely a core memory of mine now.”

Mr. Hall, the publications adviser hosted the trip saying it was a very memorable and exciting trip to Europe. Hall said it took almost two years to plan.

“The trip ended up being an amazing experience. Our Liberty group were such great travelers and we had a lot of adventures. Mr. Barker and I were very proud of them.” 

He also said that their tour guide was really great.

“We had an amazing tour guide, whose name was Carola,” Hall said. “She was from Rome and was with us the entire trip. Kids got pretty attached to her and she was so good and patient with them. Some of our kids even teared up when we said goodbye.”

Although this trip was a long 10 days away from home, it was a fun and experience trip.

“It was action packed, and we saw a lot and got a lot of free time to explore each city. I would highly recommend it that students take this opportunity to travel abroad, at least once in their school careers,” explains Hall.