After studying Ernest Hemingway and his major literary works, Knox College students literally followed in the renowned writer's footsteps when they recently traveled to Cuba.

A group of nine students, one Knox alumnus, and three faculty members made the trip to the island country during the College's December break. The students had just completed a Fall Term course about Hemingway taught by Professor Robin Metz, director of the Program in Creative Writing at Knox.

"From being in that class, we already had a good grasp of Hemingway as a person and as a writer," said Camille Brown, a senior from Gig Harbor, Washington, who is majoring in English literature.

The trip "enhanced what we already had gotten to know so well," she added. "It was a unique and timely opportunity to see Cuba -- pretty much unchanged from when Hemingway was there."

Sam Watkins, a senior from Des Moines, Iowa, who is majoring in creative writing, said traveling to Cuba enabled her to learn more about Hemingway as a person.

"Reading (in class) that Hemingway would walk from his hotel, the Ambos Mundos, to the bar down the street, La Floridita, and drink multiple daiquiris before going for a walk is one thing," Watkins said. "But being able to physically make the walk and view the same buildings he had and sit at the same bar he did is something you cannot read or discuss in the classroom."

Members of the Knox group stayed in Havana at the Ambos Mundos hotel, where Hemingway resided for several years. They visited numerous other sites related to Hemingway, including his home at Finca Vigia and the fishing village of Cojimar, which was the setting for Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Old Man and the Sea.

They also experienced Cuban culture through activities such as visiting a ballet school, touring a national art museum, and meeting with Cuban playwright Laura Liz Gil Echenique. As a result of the Knox trip, her new play, The Walruses, will be produced as a staged reading at Chicago's Vitalist Theatre, in cooperation with the International Voices Project of Chicago. Vitalist Theatre was co-founded by Knox faculty members Robin Metz and Elizabeth Carlin Metz.

The trip to Cuba was one of several December break trips that provided Knox students with experiential learning opportunities designed to complement classroom studies. Other students traveled to Belize, Japan, and Spain.

Metz said his students gained a deeper understanding of the impact that Hemingway had on Cuban culture, which still reveres him, and the influence that Cuba had on his work.

"They really learned more about Hemingway by being in the place he loved and worked," Metz said.

Students also witnessed the interdisciplinary nature of the arts as a part of daily life in Cuba, and they became more knowledgeable about the long-standing political tensions between the United States and Cuba, he said.

The trip turned out to be well-timed. Within days of the Knox group's return to the United States, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. government would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.