Bus trip hardly qualifies as a break
But all the students agree that not everything about the trip is neat,
and topping everyone's list of "not neat" items is spending
a good portion of each day in a bus, rolling along endless interstates
and through nameless neighborhoods that most will never see again.
"This has been a remarkable trip," says Rowena Hutchinson,
an exchange student from New South Wales, Australia, who was seeing
America for the first time. "Unfortunately, I think we have been
missing out on some of the things we really want to see because we have
spent so much time on the bus. I think everybody gets a little sick
of constantly getting on and off the bus, but I've really enjoyed everything
I have seen."
But experience has taught Russell that even time on the bus is valuable,
because the students must learn to get along with each other.
"It's a little bit strange that you have to travel all the way
to New Orleans to get to know kids from Purdue, but I am a firm believer
in the value of travel as an educational tool," he says. "There
is so much to learn not only about different parts of the country, or
world, but also about your fellow students."
Some learn more about their fellow travelers than others do. Julia
Brown and Chris Wickard met on the spring trip in 1992, fell in love
and married. And that's a bonding experience that exceeds even Russell's
hopes.
For more photos from the trip go to: photo gallery
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