The Return Cultural Trips of

By Richard Campanaro ’95, IB Global Politics Teacher, Theory of Knowledge Teacher & Department Head

How happy am I that cultural trips have returned? Very.

One of my strongest memories of being eighteen is a trip I took with Fred Sharp to Florence, the city of Michelangelo and Brunelleschi and the Medici bank. I remember standing in line outside the Uffizi Gallery and asking Mr. Sharp if he believed in déjà vu. His response: “How many times have you asked me that before?”

This year, a measly 30 years or so after my trip to Florence, I found myself waiting outside the Accademia Gallery in Venice. One of my long-suffering TOK students turned to me and asked, “How many times have you been here?” All I could think was, “I believe in déjà vu.”

I honestly don’t remember a lot of my junior year here at LAS. It was 29 years ago, after all. That said, I remember my trip to Prague with Jamie Skove and Kim Oppenheim in October 1993. I remember that Mr. Skove had to get off the train and go back to Zürich with a few students who didn’t have the right visas. I remember that Vincent Price died while we were there and that the Czechs know how to make delicious dumplings. I remember getting fined for not having a valid ticket for the Prague metro. In the maelstrom of events and decisions and people that defines high school, cultural trips stand out as discrete moments, giving shape to the years I’ve spent at LAS first as a student and now as a teacher.

When I learned that we were able to travel with students again after two years of COVID restrictions, I was thrilled. Finally, I could get back to my beloved Venice with my TOK class. Finally, I could share my love of the place with a new set of minds. Finally, the school year could return to its proper shape—a shape defined by that wonderful week of art and history and food and friends.

How happy am that cultural trips have returned? Very. Or have I said that before?

Cultural trips are as much a part of LAS as skiing and assemblies. They’re a chance for us to get off the mountain, to see the wider world around us, to eat and drink and see and smell new things. Sometimes we go back to the same place again and again, seeing it with new eyes as we get older (and wiser).