After two years of waiting, AP European History teacher Jeff Cohen got the news that the annual Europe trip had been approved. Due to COVID-19, the yearly trip was canceled last year, but now he and his students can finally embark.

“The School Board just approved a trip that was initially supposed to happen in June of 2020, so I’ve been amassing students signing up, and then telling them the trip is postponed,” Cohen said. “The trip we’re hoping is going to happen in June 2022, is going to be Central European tour with a stayover visit to Florence, Italy at the end.”

For senior Lili Jampsa, the trip will be an enjoyable way to end her high school experience. 

“I’m really excited and almost surprised that we are able to go, since we we’re supposed to go two years ago. I was thinking that we weren’t going to go at all, so if we get to go this summer after senior year, I’ll be super happy,” Jampsa said.

Cohen said the trip will be 13 days long, but the exact dates have not been decided due to various factors.

“The trip will be 13 days, which includes two days of travel. It’s set for the weekend that school lets out in June — hopefully June 10 or 11. We don’t know until it gets closer because we travel with other schools, so they don’t set a final date until a couple months before we leave,” Cohen said. 

Senior Natashia Johannes said the trip will serve as a great way for students who have taken the AP European History course to implement information learned in the class.

“I personally have not been out of the country before, so it seemed like a good opportunity to travel and apply some of the knowledge we learned in AP European History,” Johannes said.

Cohen said COVID-19 restrictions for each country are changing constantly, making it hard to predict what they will need when going on the trip.

“There’s ongoing restrictions — if you look at countries you’ll see Germany has been more strict, Austria has imposed police checks for vaccines. It’s always changing and that is what makes it so tough,” Cohen said. “We just can’t predict what it’s going to look like in eight months.”      

Jampsa believes due to the large amount of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., many countries have been unwelcoming towards U.S. tourists. 

“It made me feel as if the other countries don’t want Americans to come since America has been really bad with COVID and they probably made the right choice to not let us take the trip when COVID sparked since it probably would have created a lot of problems,” Jampsa said.

According to Cohen, although students from all classes are welcome to come on the trip, this year’s trip will host various grades specifically due to the pandemic. The original trip, which was set for June 2020, has been rescheduled twice, causing the variation of students participating in the trip.

“The nucleus of the trip (participants) are the (students) I have in (AP) Euro. Every year I’ve had students that I’ve had in other classes. I’ve had (AP) World students, I’ve had students I’ve never met before,” Cohen said. “This year, the reason that there is such a disparity in the grades is that the trip has been postponed twice. I potentially have graduating seniors going on the trip.”

Johannes said in particular, she is excited to learn more about European culture and the intricacies surrounding European history.

“(I’m looking forward to) learning more about the cities we’re going to and the history with that,” Johannes said. “A lot of the time when you travel you don’t get to learn much about the history of it, it’s usually just for entertainment. I think going as a school will help it be more informational and fun.”