My Great Ideas Tour-Rachel (2016)
- January 15th, 2018
- in Uncategorized
05/05/2017- Rachel Ramey
I am excited to embark on my next adventure, a Great Ideas Tour through Europe. The Great Ideas Tour (GIT) is a part of the John Fraser Ramsey Premier Award at the University of Alabama. The award honors John Fraser Ramsey, a history professor at the University of Alabama who dedicated his life to the university and the students. When he retired, his former students and colleagues established the scholarship in his honor.
Several weeks ago I was welcomed into the Ramsey Family, joining the other 39 award recipients, board members, and friends of Dr. Ramsey. I am honored to be a part of this wonderful group of people who remember the amazing life of this amazing man and who strive to uphold his commitment to “academic excellence, humanitarian service, genuine friendship, and kind-hearted generosity.”
The Great Ideas Tour part of the award commemorates the two-semester senior interdisciplinary course Dr. Ramsey taught called Great Ideas of Western Civilization.
The GIT is “the opportunity to travel Europe and discover their own sense of possibility and responsibility within a global humanity. The Great Ideas Tour helps recipients craft and informed, intentional tour that provides authentic encounters and space for reflection while embracing Doc’s (Dr. Ramsey’s) joie de vivre.”
The tour is self-planned, allowing each student to craft her own unique itinerary to explore and understand the people, history, traditions, culture, and achievements of Europe. With the help of other members of the Ramsey Family, over the past few months I have researched and planned my tour. I will be traveling through:
Valencia, Spain
Reykjavik, Iceland
London, England
Athens and Santorini, Greece
Lisbon and Porto, Portugal
Lille, France
Brussels, Belgium
Split and Dubrovnik, Croatia
Budapest, Hungary
Vienna, Austria
(And maybe a few more places we find along the way)
I’ve booked all the hostels, most of the transportation, a few tours, and I have a list of places to try and visit in each city. I have kept my travel schedule fairly flexible to accept any new opportunity that comes my way.
If you have any recommendations for restaurants, museums, or sites in the places I’ll visit, please write them in the comments and I’ll try to make a stop.
I know that I will not experience even a fraction of what Europe has to offer on my tour this summer ( the more research I did, the more places I added to my list to visit someday when I return), but I hope to dive in, see as much as possible, meet as many people as I can, learn a part of each new language I encounter, and make the most of my trip.
