BMCC 2008 Switzerland Blog

Monday, June 02, 2008

(Day 4: Tour Guide – Sasha Muñoz)

Chur, Switzerland : Itinerary

7:00-7:20am Breakfast

8:00am Meet Sophie in the Lobby

8:30am Trip to Chur by bus (Post Auto Bus)

9:00am Sightseeing in Churn with Audioguide

12:15pm Lunch (Paulaner)

1:45pm – Lecture about Swiss Tourism with Sophie

3:00 pm in Room 104

3:30pm Discussion with Professors Garely and Blake-Neis

6:00pm Dinner (Paulaner)

Today was the official first day that TTA 100 students would be responsible for creating a tour management itinerary and managing the tour as the Tour Guide of the day. Welcome aboard Sasha !!

A view of Chur, Switzerland

Getting Ready for Chur….

Written by: Katherine Muñoz

No Sasha, not now, go away! I want to keep sleeping. It was 6:20 am when Sasha woke me up. She wasn’t going to leave my door until I stood up and opened the door so she would be sure that I was awake. She said that breakfast was at 7:30 am and that we should all wear black and comfortable shoes becuase we were going to walk around Chur. Right away I thought my Gore-Tex. We are going to walk a lot this was the perfect time to test drive my new shoes.

At breakfast (around 7:30am) we were told that we needed our i-pods or mp3 players in order to upload the audio guide. We were going to walk around Chur while listening to the history and information of the main touristic points developed the Swiss School students and the Tourism office. Unfortunately some of our i-pods and mp3 players could not hold all the information and others weren’t uploading at all, resulting in a delay of the days itinerary. Although we missed the 8:30 am bus, we finally sorted out the technology and caught the bus an hour later. (read more @ kmunoz.edublogs.org)

The Audio Tour Begins

Written by: Shevarma Pemberton

Before leaving the school, those of us who could, downloaded an audio tour guide onto their respective media players. Having completed this phae of the day’s events we headed down to Chur in the SSTH school bus driven by Marianne.

Once on our own, the media players were turned on and the audio-guided tour began. I did not think that I was going to at first, but as the tour progressed I was enjoying it more and more. There were some excellent map readers among us who sped the process along nicely and made up for some much needed time. In visiting the various landmarks and monuments however, we were once again faced with the issue of German only writings. That was one downsize to the day. Additionally, the sun was really blazing, so that fact that we were all dressed entirely in black did not help the situation.

While on the tour, we came across a catherdale, Katherdrale St. Maria Himmelfahrt. We realized that this was in fact the site of the service we were supposed to have attened the day before. The knowledge of this as well as the information that we received about the Kirche St. Martin from the audio guie and elsewhere, definitely answered some questions that were raised in my mind the day before and stireed a little uneasiness within me at the same time. From what I gathered, let’s just say that the Kirche St. Martin was the opposite of what we were seeking in the actual cathedral. Miscommuication can really throw curve balls at you.

Being on a time schedule, the tour was unfortunately cut short. We did however, manage to cover the majority of the thirty-two stop points of the tour. Despite the unaccomplished few, we were nonetheless delighted considering the time frame with which we had to work. (read more @ spemberton.edublogs.org)