A group of 18 students and three teachers recently traveled to Costa Rica for the foreign language trip. A Majority of the students that went wanted to experience the life of a different country. Junior Zach Specht joined the journey to experience a different culture and because he loves to try new things.
“Canyoning and rafting were my favorite excursions because as I get older I have been crazy about adrenaline,” Specht said.
With the desire to try new things and hunt for adrenaline, Specht was set up for nothing but success.
“My style was to just get out there and live in the moment. Canyoning was absolutely crazy because I have never repelled in my life,” Specht said.
Junior Phoebe Dunbar’s favorite adventure was river rafting.
“River rafting was my favorite because I liked swimming in the river and I had a really cool guide. He told us all about the plants and animals in the surrounding area and just generally made the whole experience really fun,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar also feels she learned a lot, which allowed her to become more fluent in the language than she previously was.
“I learned several new tenses that enabled me to further my conversations, but at first I was a little nervous and after a couple of days I gained confidence and I started to get the flow of the language,”Dunbar said.
Some students who are in Spanish four already had background information and more knowledge than the Spanish three students. Senior Grayce Hueske said she felt prepared for the trip as far as her knowledge of Spanish was concerned.
“My experience was alright because I recently learned the material in my Spanish four class, so it was like a review for me,” Hueske said.
Adventures and new experiences create lifelong memories and new bonds between people that lead to newly found friendships.
Hueske has a memory that stands out to her while river rafting.
“When we went river rafting we stopped and rubbed mud on our faces and continued down the river making Indian calls,” Hueske said.
Junior Manuel Soto Samaniego’s favorite memory didn’t happen to him but someone he knows closely.
“The one thing I will never forget is when I was river rafting and my friend Aaron Heras fell out of the raft and after he fell our whole group broke into an hysterical laughter,” Samaniego said.
With all the new friendships, memories, experiences, and let’s not forget about knowledge, the students came back with more wisdom. Future juniors and seniors in any foreign
language that want to take the trip are advised to go. Jean Davis, one of the four Spanish teachers at HHS, highly recommends the trip.
“We have a unique opportunity to travel abroad in our foreign language classes and students should take the advantage now in high school or in college,” Davis said.
Students that are looking to travel the world, further their education in foreign language or simply to get out of Hastings, foreign trips are for you.
