As The World Turns with Peter Jones – Episode 1: ACIS Tour Manager Lucy Ryan [VIDEO]

In November of 2016, ACIS Tour Manager Lucy Ryan, stopped by the ACIS office in Boston while she was passing through town.

Since Lucy speaks four languages, lives in Barcelona, and travels all over the world each year, we felt we had to have her sit down with our president, Peter Jones, for a chat about travel, working as a Tour Manager, speaking world languages, and her favorite places in the world. Lucy has such a wealth of experience having been a Tour Manager for so long, we gleaned all kinds of fantastic insight.

We had such a great experience with Lucy, that we recorded a whole series of interviews with other ACIS Tour Managers, Group Leaders and employees throughout the company. This is the first episode in our new series, As The World Turns with Peter Jones.

Transcript of the interview is available below.

Peter: So Lucy, welcome to Boston. Thanks a lot for popping by.

Lucy: Thank you. It’s very nice to be here.

Peter: Yeah, it’s brilliant. So I should ask you, even though it’s going to be obvious to everybody, but where are you from?

Lucy: I’m English.

Peter: Aw.

Lucy: –as you can tell by the accent.

Peter: Yes. Well, I mean, I think English, yes. Whereabouts in England, though?

Lucy: I don’t actually have a home town because where I was born, I never lived. And I we grow up all over.

Peter: Sort of the south, though, would it be?

Lucy: Yeah, I was born near Brighton.

Peter: There you go. So where do you live now?

Lucy: Barcelona.

Peter: Barcelona?

Lucy: A fabulous city. We have the sun. It is like Brighton, on the sea actually. I think it’s Brighton with actually the sun, which was definitely one of the reasons for living there.

Peter: So how long have you been in Barcelona?

Lucy: On and off since 2013, so going there, going back, going back to Stamford, which is a beautiful town in England as well. If you haven’t been,
go to Stamford.

Peter: Stamford?

Lucy: Yes.

Peter: Don’t know it. I only know Stamford, Connecticut. I don’t know Stamford.

Lucy: Stamford is a– it’s a Georgian town. They filmed things like Pride and Prejudice there. They film all the series because it looks like Bath, but it wasn’t bombed, so it’s more intact. So that’s why they film a lot of things there.

Peter: So what’s your favorite city? And you can’t say Barcelona. What do you think, yeah?

Lucy: I think that’s really hard because there’s lots of cities I like.

Peter: Yes, but you’ve got to choose.

Lucy: –or because I’ve got friends. OK. Maybe Siena.

Peter: Siena?

Lucy: Mm-hm.

Peter: Uh-huh, so we’ve gone to Italy now.

Lucy: Of course.

Peter: So, OK, so then Italy, Catalan, Spain, right? But how many languages do you speak?

Lucy: I speak Spanish, French, and Italian.

Peter: Ah, Spanish, French, and Italian, the Latin languages.

Lucy: Yes, well, once you know one, the other two come very easily. People always say to me, what’s the hardest language to learn?

Lucy: And I always say the first one.

Peter: OK, so then what’s your favorite language to speak out of those three?

Lucy: To speak?

Peter: Yes.

Lucy: Italian.

Peter: Italiano.

Lucy: Certo.

Peter: Certo.

Lucy: Yeah, Italian, and but I love the sound of French. I think French is the most beautiful language to listen to. Whereas I love speaking
Italian because Italians and the Spanish, I just find so much fun, and I have more fun with the language. But French I find more beautiful of the languages. It’s more romantic.

Peter: [SPEAKING FRENCH] It’s all the mouth change, isn’t it?

Lucy: It is. There’s something about– I don’t know. I’ve always thought that. But even the French when they’re speaking English, (FRENCH ACCENT)
when zey speak like zees, it is very nice to listen to.

Peter: I mean, I tell you, I’m fluent in that. Yeah, it’s better. I wish zey had taught us zat at school. It’s better to speak zis way, you know?

Lucy: It’s true, because you find that when you’re speaking to people, when you’re speaking English, it’s like when I hear people who don’t speak the local language, they go into the way that the other person, the foreign speaker, is speaking.

Peter: Honestly, yeah, I’m embarrassed to say. So Siena, your favorite city outside of Barcelona?

Lucy: Yes.

Peter: Italian your favorite language.

Lucy: Mm-hm.

Peter: What’s your favorite country?

Lucy: I love–

Peter: Because you’ve got the whole lot now. You got to kind of do a whole lot, yeah.

Lucy: I can’t say that because I have so many favorites. Actually, I love America. I’ve just been traveling around America, my second trip all over.

Peter: Oh, wow. So you’ve been all over the States?

Lucy: Yep, I’ve been to–I’ve done 14 states. And I’m going to come back next year and do Colorado. I want to get back and do Yosemite Park, which was beautiful.

Peter: So this taps into something that I know about you a little bit because of Facebook. You’re a sporty type, aren’t you?

Lucy: Well, I wouldn’t say sporty. I would say I love hiking. I like being outside. So I like doing anything in the open air. I like to basically– like, I don’t like going to a gym because I don’t like the treadmill idea. But I love it that when you go and hike somewhere, you get the real
sense of achievement when you get to the top. There’s a buzz that you can’t get from, I don’t know, doing half an hour on a treadmill.