Last summer, Olivia Brzyski, sophomore, went to California for two months to play water polo.

“There are more resources out in California, and I want to better myself as a player,” Brzyski said. “I take advantage of the opportunities I’ve been given.”

Brzyski played for a junior Olympics team and placed 7th in the gold division, which is one of the three divisions: bronze, gold and platinum. 

While some people like Olivia Brzyski leave Missouri to play sports or attend summer camps, many people also travel to visit their families.

Felicia Durst, physical education teacher, goes to Canada every summer for two or three weeks to visit her family, and she travels to Italy for a month every other year to spend time with her boyfriend and his family.

“We go and visit his cousins and his granddaughter, who came to Marquette for the first five weeks of the semester,” Durst said.

Durst stays in Pineto, a town in Italy, and enjoys taking bike rides and spending time on the beach.

“There’s an ocean, and on the ocean you can see the mountains, so having both is really cool,” Durst said. “There’s also zero American tourists around there.”

Since the age of 7, Omar Elbeshbeshy, sophomore, has gone to Egypt with his immediate family for two months every summer.

“It’s not much different than here. I’ll go out, as I would on a Saturday night, but the big thing is being with my family and being able to do things with them,” Elbeshbeshy said.

Elbeshbeshy said he enjoys being in Egypt for extended periods of time as he gets to learn more about his culture and spend time where his parents grew up.

“It’s a really cool experience overall because I’m spending the entire summer in a completely different country, and I get to see a culture that’s very different than here,” Elbeshbeshy said.