The Holiday season is a time full of thankfulness, cheer, and lots of vacations. Over Thanksgiving break Junior Alia Collins was given the opportunity to go overseas all over Europe with her family for 13 days in total. Some places she listed were, “London, Liverpool, Bath,” … “Disneyland Paris, Paris, Lucerne Switzerland, and Zurich Switzerland”. This time of year, is also centered around friends and family, and Alia experienced that by traveling with her mom, dad, sister, brother, grandparents, and uncle. This trip was an exhilarating time for her as she experienced a drastic difference in food, culture, and weather from her hometown of Odessa.
With so many unique places to visit it was difficult to choose a favorite spot. After some reflection Alia determined, “My favorite part was going to Bath and Disneyland Paris because Bath was a small city and it was beautiful and Disneyland Paris because we are a Disney family and it was so cool to experience a new Disney Park” Getting to spend time with the people and places you love is the perfect way to unlock the meaning of holidays such as Thanksgiving. While away from the US, the Collin’s Family still celebrated Thanksgiving in Disneyland, Paris, a place that every one of them is fond of. Instead of the traditional turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce they enjoyed unconventional Thanksgiving Day meals. Including, Mickey shaped Pizza for lunch and a tropical dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney.
There was such a variety of food from many countries, but one morning breakfast ruled over them all. She replied when asked what her favorite food was with, “My favorite thing I ate were chocolate croissants and crepes, I ate 2 chocolate croissants every morning.” Having such a delicious meal each morning started her exciting days off right.
As mentioned earlier her favorite place to visit was Bath, United Kingdom which is a smaller city in Southeast London. She said, “Bath is [my favorite] because it was so cool and there were so many little shops, and we heard a street performer playing Gratitude by Brandon Lake.” This was very special as Brandon Lake is one of Alia’s favorite singers and she got to hear people from across the world enjoy something she did too.
After such a distinctive Thanksgiving vacation she was very glad to have experienced it. Her few complaints were, “I like tropical vacations,” [and] it was too cold. I missed 4 days of school” … “and had so much work to make up.” Despite these things she still had so much fun with her family living out the true meaning of Thanksgiving.
