Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year

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Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year
Emily, Airlie Beach, Whitehaven Eco-Cruise (Australia)
“I am all about education and spreading awareness to everyone on
board my boat.
This one little kid stood out to me one morning. He was travelling
with his mum and dad and turns out they were road tripping around
Australia in a van at his very young age of 10. When we got on the
beach I mentioned I was doing a beach clean up, I’ve never seen
a more excited kid. We hung out on Whitehaven beach for 1.5
hours walking up and down cleaning up microplastics.
We talked the whole time and I taught him many amazing things
this day. We sat together on the way home, we even let him drive
the boat and get a photo in front of the boat at the end of the trip!
Afterwards I followed the family on Instagram and they posted
multiple videos, photos and posts about how awesome their day
was and that he has not stopped talking about it and now wants to
be a marine biologist too and clean up our beaches. This made me
super proud and I can’t wait to educate many more people about
your beautiful Great Barrier Reef and the plastic pollution as well.”

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Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year
Anthony, Eiffel Tower Guided Tour (France)
“I am Anthony Malandin, I am giving the
GetYourGuide Eiffel Tower Originals tour each week. I
actually lived one of the greatest moment of my
career a few weeks ago.
One of the clients came to me while we were waiting
for the clients and told me he wanted to propose to
his girlfriend on the top of the Eiffel Tower. So I had to
improvise the surprise! We went up, did the tour as
usual, then I left the group and stayed a while with
the couple.
We went upstairs to take photos of them, but then
the man asked me to make a video without her
noticing. Then he started to kneel in front of her and
made his proposal, while I was filming. That was quite
the moment! She was in shock and said yes, thank
god. Both were so happy.”

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Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year
Youssef, Ouzoud Waterfalls Hike and Boat Trip (Morocco)
“I always like sharing my Berbere culture and
background with my clients, so I usually find the
time to include a brief language session where I
tell them about my mother tongues and
transcribe their names in Arabic and Tamazight.
One night, a friend texted me a couple of
pictures he had found on a Facebook page
about Morocco. They were pics of me teaching
Arabic to my group of tourists from that day, with
captions saying: "My name in Arabic" and
"Berber language explanation by our guide". A
girl from the group had enjoyed the experience
and shared her memories on Facebook. It made
me really proud of my job.”

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Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year
Mike, Berlin Third Reich and Cold War Walking Tour (Germany)
“I was on a private tour with a family - 2 adults and 3 kids aged
between 16-23 and they wanted a Third Reich Cold War experience
that was off the beaten track, something special, something they would
remember.
So I decided to take the family to the Tempelhof airport. The airport has
some pretty amazing history: The site of the airport was originally Knights
Templar land in medieval Berlin. Orville Wright demonstrated flying there
in 1909. Hitler decided to expand the airport in the 1930's, which was
massive and the airport was even described by British architect Sir
Norman Foster as "the mother of all airports' '. It was used by the western
allies during the Soviets Berlin Blockade in 1948/49, where the allies flew
supplies in to the West Berliners during the early Cold War. Closed as an
airport in 2008 and in May 2010 opened as a huge city park.
So we are talking about some interesting history, but how do you make
it really special? I decided to bring a couple of my kites with me. Myself
and my kids fly kites whenever we can because it is soo much fun!
Armed with kites we discussed aviation history whilst flying kites on the
runway of an old Nazi airport, where the Berlin Airlift took place, which is
now a public park in Berlin! The customers loved it! I can recommend
doing this activity when you come to Berlin, you will not be
disappointed!”

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Originals Guide Challenge: Sharing your favourite stories of the year
Marcel, Eiffel Tower Guided Tour (France)
“I’m working for GetYourGuide France, giving tours on the
Eiffel Tower.
On November 16th, on my 2 pm tour, I had a group of very
nice people from Italy. All were nicely dressed. Once we
were at the top and I had finished my tour, I offered to
take pictures for my clients, I felt something was going on,
they were behaving strangely. They did not reply to my
offer, so I asked again and one of the girls just said pshhht.
At this moment, one of the men knelt down and proposed
to his girlfriend. It was such a moving moment, all were so
happy. I took some pictures of the fiances and then we all
took a group picture to which they invited me. I did ask for
this picture but it was a very nice feeling to have been
part of that very special moment of these young people’
life. This really made my day.”

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A sincere thank you and congratulations to the
participants and winners of the December guide
challenge! It was moving to see the beautiful
special moments of the year.
We will be sending you a small present very soon as
a token of appreciation.
See you in the next challenge!