Following the Equator

So that's what Clint Eastwood sounds like

The first movie my wife ever saw in the original English version was The Bridges of Madison County. She was quite taken with the experience of hearing Clint Eastwood's real voice for the first time; until that point, she'd only heard Clint dubbed into Spanish, by a Spanish actor who probably also dubbed Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Hanks.  

More movies would bring her more revelations: Jack Nicholson's real voice, Robert De Niro's real voice, and the real voices of a host of other Americans, right on down to Steve Urkel (American TV shows were dubbed into Spanish, too). For her, there was no comparing the English voice to the Spanish dubbing: The real English was far superior and far more satisfying. 

Focus On: The European high school experience

When I was an EF Tour Director, with a captive audience of American high school students on my bus, I enjoyed the opportunity to highlight major and/or fun differences between the U.S. high school experience and the European one.

Below are some of these highlights, taken from interviews I held with some German, French and Italian friends. This is just an collection of unexpected and fascinating differences that came up over coffee with friends about their high school life. It's not scientific, exhaustive or comprehensive—but just too much fun to keep to myself!

Focus On: European license plates

If you find yourself in a tour bus on a highway somewhere in central Europe, looking out at the license plates of the cars passing by, you might think Europeans have devised a public way to grade drivers.  

There are cars whose license plates bear an "A"; presumably they are the best drivers. Then there are those license plates marked with a "B"; good drivers still, one supposes, but could be better with more road practice. Before you know it, license plates marked "D" and even "F" pass by—with drivers either oblivious to their poor grade or defiantly refusing to let it bother them. 

Suddenly, as you wonder why you haven't seen a "C" driver all morning, an "E" drives by. An extra rung on the ladder of shame before hitting "F," perhaps? Then a "P." A driver graded on a pass/fail basis, maybe? Then an "NL." Not Listed? No License? 

If the grading-system hypothesis is beginning to feel like a stretch, it's because it is. The letters represent the country the car (and driver) is from. "A" is Austria. "B" is Belgium. "D" is Germany (Deutschland). "E" is Spain (España). "F" is France. "P" is Portugal. And "NL" is the Netherlands.

Focus On: Latin Quarter in Paris

For visitors to Paris, the most notable attribute of the Latin Quarter is its labyrinth of frenetic, people-filled passageways lined with a smorgasbord of ethnic food, music and entertainment. If nearby Notre Dame is like a stodgy old schoolmaster that hushes voices and stifles expression, then its foil is the Latin Quarter. The Latin Quarter is like the rumba.

So students could be forgiven for thinking that the "Latin" in the name "Latin Quarter" might be there to evoke something that pulsates with an energetic joie de vivre spirit, like our word "Latino" can do.

At least I hope students can be forgiven, because before I bothered to see why the Latin Quarter was called the Latin Quarter, I too made this quiet and subconscious Latin/Latino conflation.

Photo of the Week: Mont Saint-Michel

Legend has it that the church atop Mont Saint-Michel was founded by Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, after repeated visions from the Archangel Michael 1,300 years ago.

"I thought this picture was pretty cool because of the seagulls in the front of it," nal1320 wrote in Flickr. "I liked this picture so much I blew it up and framed it in my room."

Want to be featured as Photo of the Week? Join the EF Tours group on Flickr, and add your travel photos. We pick a new one each Thursday.

Photo: nal1320 via Flickr (EF Tours pool)

Photo contest winner: Reflection

This extraordinary photo of the Eiffel Tower's reflection has long been a favorite. Now, it's official: It's the winner of EF's student photo contest.

Donnie Morrow, a high school junior from Sarasota, Florida, took this photo on his EF tour to Paris last spring. As one of two grand-prize winners, Donnie will receive an iPod Touch. Donnie won the destination photo competition; the friends photo contest winner will be featured here tomorrow.

Donnie, who is at the top of his junior class and planning on majoring in engineering and/or applied or pure mathematics, says photography is neither a hobby nor a passion. He said it's "just something that I tend to be effective at, and I like to catalog the places I go."

On his EF tour in 2008 to London, Dover and Paris, Donnie captured a uniquely wonderful image of the world's most photographed landmark.

Friday Fun Fact: Eiffel Tower's steps

How many steps are there to the top of the Eiffel Tower?

Some sources insist there are 1,792 steps, which conveniently coincides with the year of the French First Republic.

However, according to the official Eiffel Tower website, there are a total of 1,665 steps to the top. Some of them are even numbered (above).

Photo: midnightglory via Flickr (CC license)

15 photos of the Eiffel Tower

It's not the world's most photographed landmark for nothing.

The Eiffel Tower—which, not surprisingly, just earned that distinction in a recent Cornell University analysis of 35 million images on Flickr—rarely takes a bad picture.

The EF Tours group on Flickr certainly contributes to the iconic landmark's landmark designation. More than three dozen photos submitted to the EF Tours pool are of the Eiffel Tower, accounting for more than 6 percent of all photos in the group. And that doesn't include photos from the tower.

Focus On: Vimy Ridge

Two Aprils ago, thousands of high school students from Canada converged on a sloping field to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where a Canadian expeditionary force defeated a German defensive line in northeast France in World War I. It was an outstanding victory for allied forces fighting Germany and remains to this day a watershed event showcasing Canadian spirit and sacrifice.

I was an EF Tour Director for a group from Georgian Bay in Ontario going to Vimy. On April 9, we filed onto the battlefield and took our place in front of the Vimy Memorial, a stone structure that is at once hulking and soaring, with the best capturing of sadness that I've ever seen in a towering outdoor statue (it's Mother Canada, mourning her lost countrymen). 

Group Leader Spotlight: Linda Piccolo

From attending a Wiccan wedding at Stonehenge to bribing a housekeeper to let her see the suite where Agatha Christie wrote her novels, Linda Piccolo has had her fair share of adventures while traveling abroad with her students on EF tours.

The high school English and theater teacher from Montana has even been inspired by her travels to write a play, which was published and performed by one of her drama classes last year.

In this installment of the Group Leader Spotlight, Linda shares some of her experiences, describes how important travel is for students and hints at her next travel-inspired play.

Group Leader Spotlight: Chad Brannon

Traveling has always been an integral part of Chad Brannon's life. Now, as a middle-school science teacher in Alabama, Chad is making travel an important part of his students' lives, too.

And he has the stories to prove it.

Ask him about the effect that educational travel has on his students, and he'll tell you a story about the boy who once had no direction but now credits his tour for opening his eyes, or the boy who traveled to Costa Rica and now wants to major in Spanish education and help underprivileged kids speak English, or the girl who came out of her shell after braving the zip line through the Costa Rican rainforest.

Chad—pictured above on the right with his co-group leader, John DiPlacido—is preparing to lead his fourth tour with EF, taking his students back to Costa Rica in June. He took some time out of his busy spring break to share some of his favorite stories with us:

Photo of the Week: Notre Dame's rose window

The north rose window at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris dates back
to 1250 and remains one of the most famous stained-glass windows in the world.

This photo was taken by varajastoni, who submitted to the EF Tours group on Flickr.

If you have travel photos of your own, please submit them to the EF pool on Flickr. We choose a new Photo of the Week every Thursday.

Photo: varajastoni via Flickr