Let the Game Begin…
Each year we announce the next Minooka TAP trip in mid-late October, but we always like to give our friends a few clues to help them try and figure it out in advance. We call this the TAP Game. For the next several weeks, a series of clues will appear on our social media sites like Instagram and Facebook. Follow the clues and you may be able to figure out where we’re going in advance.
Keep in mind, this is for our 2016 trip, which will be our 10th anniversary adventure, so we’ve saved some pretty special and amazing places for this group. Keep following along, because as soon as the application process begins, we think this trip will fill up very quickly.
In the past we’ve traveled to Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Japan, England, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but this one will likely top all the other trips from the past. Our group is open to any students who are currently in 7th grade or older (so they will just have finished 8th grade when we travel in June 2016) that live in the Joliet-Channahon-Minooka-Plainfield area (you tell us if you’re close enough). As soon as the next trip is announced, students will be able to begin an application process to see if they are selected for the group.
Once in the group, we work for a year and a half to prepare our students financially, academically, socially, and logistically for travel to foreign countries. Along the way we meet about once a month (except summer time), write our own travel guide book, and read and research a ton about the places we’re going.
If you’d like more information about our group, feel free to explore this website, our Facebook page, our YouTube channel, or email us at minookatap2@gmail.com.
Seven Wonders of the World: Who’s Coming With Me?
Mr. Curtis at one of the Seven Wonders of the World – The Great Wall of China. Yes, he’s there. Look closely. You can click on the picture to embiggen it.
Some people make “bucket lists” that name all the things they want to accomplish before kicking the bucket. I try not to be quite so morbid, mostly because contemplating my own mortality isn’t actually on my bucket list – so what’s the point of doing it.
I do have some goals for myself, though. I always wanted to get a part in a movie, but I was able to cross that off about fifteen years ago.
I always wanted to return to England where I went to college for a while, and I did that this past summer.
Since I was little, I always wanted to write a book, and I got that one done, so I moved on to the next thing.
I wanted to see a baseball game in all 30 Major League stadiums, and I got up to 18, but they keep tearing them down and building new ones, so that’s still a work in progress.
I want to read and see all 38 plays that William Shakespeare wrote, and if movies count (which I say they do), I’m doing pretty good there.
After meeting a new friend with a similar goal, I also decided that I wanted to visit a total of 30 different countries before my passport expires. I’m doing alright there, too – I’m at 19 countries and I have until 2017 to get that goal accomplished, then it’ll be 30 more countries on the new passport, of course. (Adults’ passports are good for ten years).
One mission that I’m not sure I’ll ever accomplish is seeing the Seven Wonders of the World. It’s not that I’m not determined – I really am. The problem is that no one can seem to agree on which seven things make up the Seven Wonders. Read more…
Mrs. Harig’s Favorites
We’re going to go ahead and say that Mrs. Harig is a pretty darn good photographer. The Colosseum is a pretty good subject to photograph, though.
A few months ago Mr. Curtis asked all the TAP teachers to pick their favorite picture from their TAP trips. This is wasn’t an easy assignment for Mrs. Harig, because (after Mr. C.) she’s visited the second most countries of anyone involved in TAP. Mrs. Harig has traveled with us t0 Greece, Turkey, Italy, Vatican City, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Wales, and England. There were probably a ton of pictures for her to choose from.
Here’s what she had to say:
When I began looking through the nearly 5,000 pictures I’ve taken on my five TAP trips, I knew that it was going to be difficult to pick just one favorite.
That was an understatement. Each picture I’ve taken represents an amazing place that I never dreamed I would be and experiences I never knew I’d have. Read more…
The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Florence Edition
I didn’t take this picture, but I’d like to take this arista.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. Not because of family, and not because of football. It’s the food. I know Thanksgiving is really, deep down in it’s calendar soul, about giving thanks, but this is America, and we know what it’s really about – gorging yourself. The food is what makes Thanksgiving the thing that I’m most thankful for on the third Thursday of turkey month each fall.
My favorite channel on the TV is the Food Network. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives; Good Eats; and The Best Thing I Ever Ate are some of the greatest programs on television. Some of my favorite websites are Roadfood.com and EatYourWorld.com – both sites about food and traveling. You may not know this about me, but I have a secret list of “Best Sandwiches I Ever Ate” and another one of “Greatest Meals I’ve Had on the Road.”
Very simply, I love to eat.
My favorite part of planning a trip is finding out what to eat in each place we’re visiting. Here’s my mindset: when I have friends or family come visit the Chicago area from out of town, I make it a point to take them to get great Chicago food that they can’t get in Atlanta, Kansas City, or New York. I take them to Portillo’s for Italian Beef and Chicago style hot dogs. I take them to Gino’s East or Lou Malnatti’s for great deep dish pizza (you can keep the Pizzeria Uno and the Giordano’s – I can’t stand those two places). I’re taken friends to Harry Caray’s in Chicago for Chicken Vesuvio, to Paradise Pup in DesPlaines for the second best burger on the planet, and I’ll take them to Nick and Vito’s for the greatest thin crust pizza ever made. Those are Chicago. Food is as important to traveling and understanding places as seeing famous landmarks or meeting foreign people.
That’s why I was really excited to go to Florence, Italy. I didn’t go there to eat Olive Garden (that’s our creation), I didn’t go there to eat pizza (that’s Naples), and I didn’t go there to eat spaghetti or lasagna (that’s from southern Italy). I went there to eat Arista, a roasted pork dish that is very popular in Florence.
Miss Lara’s Favorites
A few months ago, we asked each of the TAP teachers to pick their favorite picture from a TAP trip. Now that’s not easy, because some of the teachers have been on five, six, or seven trips. Each of our adventures is around twelve days longs, so most of us take hundreds and hundreds of photographs each time we go someplace. Some of those pictures are cool moments with our students. Some of them are incredible scenery. Some of iconic landmarks. Some are artsy-fartsy shots that capture a moment on the trip.
Miss Lara took that assignment very seriously, but she couldn’t pick just one picture from the five trips she’s been on with TAP. Instead, she chose to share one pic from each trip. She did a pretty good job of representing cool moments with students, incredible scenery, iconic landmarks, and even a bit of artsy-fartsy.
Here’s what she had to say:
For the lucky ones who have been on these trips, you know exactly what I mean when I talk about that weird feeling you get when you actually walk, step, see, cross, or feel something on a trip and think to yourself – “Woah!” To me, that’s what these photos make me feel when I look at them. I couldn’t pick just one – how do you pick just one favorite picture when you experience so many amazing things? These experiences are unreal. You can look back and say to yourself, “I climbed a volcano, crossed a crazy bridge, wandered through castles, walked through ancient burial sites, attended America’s Pastime in another country, floated past Mozart’s balcony, walked through ancient Roman ruins, kissed the Blarney Stone, went on a camel ride (in Africa!!!), learned traditional Irish dances, ate cactus at a rest stop, ate dinner on the floor, ate fish on a stick, met international students eager to have a conversation with me, waved at the Queen (or who I thought might be the Queen), walked across Abbey Road, bathed in a natural spring, …” Read more…
Did I Ever Tell You About the Time We Accidentally Went to London???
What doesn’t show up in this picture is the fact that it was taken without the use of thumbs.
I accidentally stole some dog food once. It was one of those huge bags, and I’d put it on the bottom of the shopping cart. The line was long, I loaded up the conveyor belt with all my groceries, and didn’t realize I’d forgotten to pay for it until I was out at the car. Happens to everyone, right?
I also accidentally punched my college roommate in the nose. We were screwing around, throwing fake punches, copying some ninja movie we’d just watched on TV. Without trying to, I suddenly connected – hard – square in the nose. I was gushing apologies while he was gushing blood. Could have been anybody, right?
Believe it or not, I actually accidentally got a part in a movie one time. In college, I showed up at a casting call for a big budget film being shot in Chicago. I just wanted to hang out with some friends and get a peek at how movies are made. Instead, by inadvertently standing in a crowd of really short people, I made myself look like some sort of giant. The casting director pulled me aside since I appeared to be big and strong, and next thing you know it, I had a part in the film and was in full SWAT Team gear getting trained on how to hold my weapon and storm a hostage situation. Anyone of average height could have had it happen to them, right?
Those were all cool, but did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally went to London? I suppose this one could have happened to anyone, but it happened to me and the 30 students, parents, and teachers I was travelling with.
We were on our way from Chicago to Athens. There was supposed to be one of those insanely short layovers in London – you know the kind of layover – the ones where you wonder how they’re legally allowed to inflict that kind of stress on a human being – the kind where you have a map of the airport and plans to sprint wildly from the far end of one terminal to the deepest, darkest recesses of the other one to the other just to have a shot at making your connection. The kind where there’s always a massive group of jet-lagged zombies standing still on the moving sidewalk, a line of starved/bored people eager to fork over nine dollars for an absurdly dry sub sandwich is blocking the main walkway, and there’s been some sort of mishap with the airport golf carts – leading to a ten cart pileup that prevents traffic from getting through. Read more…
Ghost Town
Top: Zwinger Palace today.
Bottom: Zwinger Palace in the early 1900s.
Missing: Zwinger Palace in the spring of 1945, because it was gone.
Visiting Dresden is like walking around inside a ghost.
Seriously.
At the beginning of 1945, Dresden was a center of communications in Germany. It was a thriving manufacturing center, and a cultural Mecca for modern and classical art, music, culture, and even science.
On February 13, 1945, the city was destroyed almost entirely. Dresden had become home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and retreating German troops. British and American forces bombed the city in three waves. Explosives damaged the buildings in the town’s center, exposing the buildings’ wooden framework. That was followed by incendiaries to burn the buildings to the ground, giving the retreating German troops less places to hide.
Many feel that the bombing was ill planned and unnecessary, because the bombings missed strategic military and manufacturing targets – instead destroying 99% of the city’s center, killing mostly women and children.
The famous science fiction author, Kurt Vonnegut was there. He was a prisoner of war, having been captured by German soldiers earlier in the war, and his most famous novel, Slaughter House Five, centers around the bombing of Dresden. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, is also a POW, being held captive in a slaughterhouse in Dresden during the bombing. Read more…
Mr. C’s Moment in China
Tank Man in Tienanmen Square in Beijing, China – June 5th, 1989.
There’s a song from the early 1990s that plays in my head whenever I read about that time period. It was a pretty big hit about the time I was graduating from high school, so most of the kids I teach nowadays have probably heard it at one time or another, but I bet most of their parents could sing along with the chorus…
I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history
I saw the decade in, when it seemed
The world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
Then there’s your sign… of the times
Minooka TAP is going to South Africa in 2015!!!
No country has a more compelling combination of history, culture and wildlife than South Africa. In Johannesburg, the painful years
under apartheid are gone but never forgotten. Game drives take you within shouting distance of elephants, lions, rhinos and more.
And Cape Town is a favorite destination for many, thanks to its cosmopolitan atmosphere and stunning scenery.
Minooka TAP is very excited to be venturing into the Southern Hemisphere for the first time ever and to the African continent for our second visit. We’ll start our adventure in the historic city of Johannesburg, visit a small African village, take the time to tour a South African school, and spend a few days on game drives in Kruger National Park where we’ll visit an elephant sanctuary and a baby lion rescue center.
The second half of the adventure will take us south to Cape Town where we’ll visit Robben Island prison – once the home to Nelson Mandella, take a cruise out to a penguin colony in the Indian Ocean, and get to know modern African life in the city.
Please be sure to visit the other sections of this website – TAP teachers, About Us, and FAQ – to answer any questions you may have about Minooka TAP. Students wishing to apply to be included on our 2015 adventure to South Africa should carefully read the directions on our TAPplication page and fill out the online application by November 29th, 2013.
The trip will be thirteen days in June of 2015, just a few weeks after 8th grade graduation.
Mr. Curtis’ Polish Easter
I don’t know about your house, but Easter at the Curtis place when I was younger – heck, even now that I’m older, has pretty much the same thing every year. We have our family traditions, and there’s nothing in the world that will change the way we do Easter. It’s the one holiday that our family the “Polish” way.
Christmas was a blend of my dad’s family traditions and what my mom’s family did when she was a kid.
Thanksgiving was the same, only on Turkey Day aunts and uncles got involved making it more of a mish-mosh of traditions.
Fourth of July is all-American.
Halloween was done just like everyone else.
Easter, though, Easter was different. Easter was done the way my Nana – my mom’s mom – wanted it done. The way she did it when my mom was little, the way her mom did it, the way her grandma did it. I always thought we did Easter the Polish way.
You see, my grandma was born in Warsaw in 1914, just as WWI was really getting going. Her parents were my great-grandma (we called her Busia – which my grandma swore is just Polish for “old lady”) and great-grandpa (he was called Dziadzia, I had to look up that spelling, because I never saw his name written down and it always sounded to me like my mom and Nana were saying Jah-jee).
In 1913, Busia and Jah-jee wanted out of Poland. I never found out exactly why they were leaving, but a quick look at the history book tells us that bad stuff was brewing in Central Europe 100 years ago. They got as far as London, booking passage on an ocean liner (probably like a smaller version of the Titanic, which sailed towards America a year later), but when the officials found out that Busia was pregnant (with my grandma) they sent her back. She went all the way back to Warsaw, but her husband didn’t go with her. He continued on to America – where he found a job and started his life in the South-Side of Chicago. Why Chicago? Well, did you know Chicago has more Polish speaking people than any city in the world except Warsaw? He had relatives here to help him get started in his new life while his wife and soon-to-be-born daughter were on the other side of the world. Read more…
Minooka TAP 