EScape from Alicante!

By Maggie Lancaster

One of my favorite experiences in Alicante was the escape room that we did on our last day there. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a fan of the other things. I loved all the day trips we did, and I definitely got some amazing food. We saw an amazing castle, as well (which had a gift shop where I found one of my favorite and most souvenir-like souvenirs), and visited the MARQ  (Museo Arqueológico) where there were many wonderful exhibits. The escape room was just so totally different that it couldn’t be compared to anything else. 

From the start, this hasn’t felt like any global ed trip I have been on before. That is probably because it isn’t like any of them. Unlike Guatemala, this trip had a class leading up to it. Honestly, this trip still is a class. We are still learning and planning our projects throughout the experience. Doctor still stops us wherever he sees fit, even if it is right outside of a cafe in Barcelona, to give us a history lesson. However, much of this trip has felt wild and unpredictable like a puzzle, which is another thing that sets it apart from other global ed trips in my opinion. Sure, there is always a general plan and things we need to do, but at times it feels like we are just drifting along or trying to put pieces of a puzzle together.

That is why I feel like the “escape room” in Alicante is the perfect metaphor for this trip as a whole. Honestly, it was less of an escape room and more of us wandering around town with a guide trying to solve puzzles so we could open boxes and figure out where to go next. I am very proud to say that we did ultimately beat the escape room. That is one thing I am very glad about, as I would have hated to lose the first escape room I ever did. In order to beat this escape room, though, we had to solve a variety of different types of puzzles. One had us match a cannonball to a drawing in order to discover the secret code, another forced us to wrap colored rope around something in order to determine numbers, and one of the hardest ones made us translate a code seven different times so we could finally open a directional lock which ended up not even working properly. 

If I had to sum up the escape room in one word it would be crazy. I was about to pick challenges, but that wasn’t quite right. Both the escape room and this trip have just been crazy. Normally I would hate the unpredictability, especially in a foreign country, but here I am just rolling with things. I am very proud of myself for that. Both the escape room and this trip have started to teach me the same thing; sometimes, it is just time to slow down, think, and let things happen.