Every May, the team of Interkultur is pleased to organize the school trip to France for students from Atlanta!
The group of twenty students comes from two universities: Clayton State University (www.clayton.edu) and Michigan State University (www.msu.edu/) accompanied by two dynamic professors: Erica E. Dotson and Alyssa Hadley Dunn. In 2015, Gholdy E. Muhamad joined the team and came along the trip to France.
The main idea is to organize the logistics and cultural discovery of France through a week in Paris and five days in Montpellier.
At the group’s arrival at the airport from Atlanta, private vans have been arranged and are waiting to take the group to the hotel. For two years, by mutual agreement, a 3 star hotel near the Grands Boulevards in the 9th district is reserved for its flexibility, reception quality and cost in accordance with the universities requests.
Interkultur has partnered with a nearby bakery to allow free access to the group in a room every morning for breakfast in addition to a 10% discount on every order.
On top of educational specifically programmed activities by both American universities within the students stay in France, Interkultur is requested to ensure different cultural and educational visits: the immigration in France tour and the Black Paris tour.
[Furthermore, a half day is devoted to visit the Latin Quarter as well as a lecture at Sorbonne University, where after a brief tour of some of the must-sees on the campus, the French higher education system is provided to the students by Sorbonne staff. The meeting follows with a dialogue between the group and academics.
Another key element of the stay is the experience we arranged in a suburban high school (in the northern Paris Seine Saint Denis district) in order to meet a group of young French pupils of various ethnic and national origins. This meeting is the occasion to provide the group with valuable training in teaching and allows the French students to obtain highly personalized English lessons in preparation for their final examination.
Interkultur also takes care of booking a theatrical play to expand the cultural enrichment offered to the students. Two meals are also arranged by us to allow the group an experience in a truly typical French restaurant (menus are pre-booked with a minimum of two choices of dishes.) One of the restaurants, is chosen among the most prestigious in the city for the final meal on the last evening before departure. Students take the opportunity to expose all their emotions and feelings about the experience in Paris.
The second part of the trip, organized entirely by Interkultur, takes place in Montpellier for 5 days. After a TGV ride from Gare de Lyon train station, students are welcomed in a double or triple rooms apartment hotel close to the city centre. Two meals as well as the walking tour of the old town are also scheduled.
Our main task, in the middle of the stay, is to organize, with the help of a local guide, an outdoor excursion. A privatized bus takes the group to several symbolic places to chosen among the must-sees of the region such as: Aigues-Mortes, a beautiful medieval town surrounded by powerful ramparts, the Saintes Maries de la Mer, the holy city of the Gypsies with its famous fortified church and its colorful market, the Grau du Roi, a seaside town with its typical Languedoc beaches, the Camargue with its salt fields and its pink flamingos…
Additional time is also devoted to personal and free discovery of the city of Montpellier and the organization of daily English classes in an elementary school north of the city, appointed directly through the American staff.
At the end of the week, the group returns to Paris by train again. After twelve or thirteen days in France, the group is escortedk from their Paris hotel to the airport in private vans booked by Interkultur.
