Europe Horsemanship Camps: Germany, England, France, Netherlands
My senior year of college all I was worried about was finding a full-time position. When an opportunity arose to apply to teach horsemanship clinics in Europe for three weeks, all I could think about is how it might impact my job prospects. Fortunately for me, a much wiser mentor of mine who was the entire reason this trip was possible strongly encouraged me to apply. He thought the type of person I should work for would be supportive of this once in a lifetime opportunity. The opportunity was possible through American Quarter Horse Association. They had a grant that Art O'Brien applied for and The University of Findlay received.
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We traveled in July 2008 for three weeks and taught camps in Germany, England, and the Netherlands with travel days in between. The trip was my first red eye flight and I hated it. I cannot sleep on planes and was very uncomfortable. We arrived in Dusseldorf and drove to Bad Sassendorf using the Autobahn. Did I mention I also get motion sick? We stayed in dormitories at a college that is strictly for agriculture.
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The riders at the Germany camp were talented with a variety of experienced levels. The younger participants all spoke English but we did have a translator and used body language with some of the others.
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Overall I thought we saw a lot of improvement in the participants. It is difficult because you have to overload them with information in a short amount of time and there is just so much to cover.
The last night we went to something like "Shutzenfest." It is a tradition for the villages to hold these festivals and they dress-up, sing and dance. We had a really good time socializing and the host of our camps introduced us to some of the people that were involved and we took a lot of pictures. They have a wooden bird that they take turns shooting at the end of the festival and whoever shoots the bird off the post is the King for that year. We eat so much pork- I miss chicken!
Participants at the German Horsemanship Camp
German Warmblood Farm
Schutzenfest
Our next destination was England. We traveled to an area close to Stratford-upon-Avon, and spent time in the town as well. Stratford-upon-Avon is the birthplace of Shakespeare. We also traveled to a castle. The barn where we were teaching was quite large and this clinic had a wide range of ages for the participants. There were many older adults and in England, there are many regulations with animals. We definitely needed to be aware of how many breaks we were taking and it was neat learning about how the laws vary than in the United States.
It was cold for July--I often thought that I would have worn a winter coat if I had brought one
Inside Warwick Castle in England
Arena in the Netherlands. They had fabric intermixed with the arena footing.
Netherlands
The Netherlands camp had a wonderful arena, plenty of space. It was challenging in that there was a wide range of riders' ages and experience. Also, clinics typically build on what you learn each day but for this clinic, participants would come and go so some people were with us the entire time and others only for the beginning or end. There were some nice horses and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the participants. We slept in an open room on the floor with blow up pool rafts.
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We also explored Amsterdam. WOW - I loved this city. I wish I had more days to explore because there is a lot to see/do! We went to the Van Gogh museum: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en and the Anne Frank House: https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/. I would recommend both to anyone visiting the city. I also loved all of the bicycles. We walked to our destinations but it would be great to visit again and rent bikes.
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After exploring Amsterdam, we stopped in Brussels for a night. We ate at local outdoor restaurants and walked past markets. Then, we made our way to Paris. I really enjoyed Paris and also would visit again to have more time to explore the city. We visited the Arc de Triumph and the Eiffel Tower.
Paris, France
