What is summer all about? It's about the sun touching your cheeks like a long lost friend; it's about taking trips to places you've only dreamed of; it's about the smell of sunscreen lingering on your skin for weeks on end. I'm sure everyone takes trips for the summer and has a great story to tell. But my trip was special because it was my first trip to Europe ever. And not only that I had spent virtually all year preparing for the trip.
"Preparing?" you might ask. Well, I started preparing at the beginning of August when I received a wondrous pamphlet in the mail. It gave me the chance to explore Europe the coming summer. At first my mother denounced the idea all together, stating, "It will cost too much." I didn't have my hopes up in the first place, because in all the years I've been alive I have received many pamphlets like that.
A couple weeks later my mother told me that the next day we were going to a meeting. I had no idea what she was talking about so I asked her. "Well, that meeting about Europe, of course!" she exclaimed. (As you can see, my mother is very indecisive.) So off to the meeting we went. At the meeting I learned that the program was run by an organization called "People to People" and that it was to promote peace throughout the world. I also learned that if I chose to do this program that it would cost close to $7,000.
Now I don't know if you as a reader has that kind of money, but I don't. At that point I was sure that my mother would veto the idea and everything would go back to normal. When we got in the car my mother looked at me and said, "Do you really want to do this?". Me, dumbfounded, replied "It's Europe! Yes, of course!"
That was the beginning of my journey, but there was many more steps until the actual trip began. I started raising money and I had to go to an interview to be chosen out of eighty kids. There was also four meetings on Sundays. The meetings were three hours long and it took me an hour and half just to reach the meeting point. There goes my Sunday, but I was up to the challenge.
When that glorious day finally reached my doorstep, I was ready. I had raised all of the money and even a little extra for spending money. We made our way to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, stopping at Chili's for a little Tex-Mex on the way. (Oh, dearest Tex-Mex I will miss you!) We reached the airport, me with a humongous smile on my face, ready to face my first challenge. The plane ride; you see I had never rode a plane, let alone had a eleven hour flight AND an hour layover. But I was ready.
On the plane ride I sat next to all guys and they played cards the ENTIRE time. I tried to get as much sleep as I could but that was virtually impossible next to them. When we got to Germany for our layover I was working on 3 hours of sleep at the most. We were ALL working on 3 hours of sleep. Forty teenagers with sleep deprivation and an airport is not a good combo. I remember Tracie and I laughed at the most ridiculous things. We laughed at a man that was holding a passport; the passport was 3-D but the man wasn't. It was epic. Oh, and we also laughed at these men on bikes. I swear we saw at least 20 men on bikes riding through the airport and Tracie and me would scream, "MAN ON A BIKE!" Good times, good times.
After we had our layover, we reached Rome. I remember standing in the airport, looking around thinking "I'm really here." After everyone had his or her luggage we made our way to the exit. Just crossing the street there was an adventure. Do they care if they run over civilians? No! We crossed the street to the bus and put our luggage inside. After everyone boarded, we traveled to our hotel.
By the time we unloaded, had our rooms assigned (I was rooming with Tracie, Marina, and Jennifer.), and got dressed it was dinnertime. Oh and we ready! After bad plane food that looks vaguely like vomit, everyone was ready for some real food. At the restaurant, our table was the loudest. All the people I sat with that night became some of my closest friends near the end of the trip. For future reference, they were Tracie, Tori, Amanda, and Katie. Also, poor Marina who had to sit with the guys that night. When we got back to the hotel, Tracie and me decided that we would go on the roof and play Catch Phrase a.k.a the most kick butt game ever created. That night consisted of Catch Phrase, pizza, and the guys being jerks (what's new).
The next day in Rome we visited the Vatican, rode in a subway, visited the Roman Coliseum and the Roman Forum. In the Vatican Tracie, Marina, and I stalked Italian Stallions! Doing all that stalking we got hungry and ordered gelato, which is Italian ice cream. That day we shared stories of our airport experience. In Germany Tori got asked "What kind of people?" (Our shirts had emblems that say "People to People". And Tori replied, "Uhm . . . Regular people?" and the man said, "Oh I get it. People to People." During the duration of the trip we always shouted, "WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE?! PEOPLE TO PEOPLE." That night after we ate we decided to go back on the roof and play cards, we being Amanda, Katie, Tracie, Tori, Marina, and I. After playing cards we stared getting curious about the supermarket that our delegation manager told us about and it was right down the street. Tori danced down the street and we were all dying of laughter when we reached the corner. There were guys across the street were staring so we decided to hurry on our way to the market.
Our third day in Rome was a blast. We had a scavenger hunt to find all of the historical buildings and landmarks in Rome. I was in a group with Christian, Tori, Amanda, Katie, and Tracie. The first thing that we had to find was the Pantheon. We got lost and went 5 blocks in the wrong direction. But then we went back and ended up finding it. We got to the Trevi fountain, and the tower with Saint Paul without any slip-ups. But we didn't make it to the Spanish Steps. After that we had a really long bus ride to a monastery. The monastery was at the bottom of the steepest hill I have ever seen in my entire life. We talked to a friar and toured the church. Walking up the hill was really hard and I sounded like an 80-year-old lady who has smoked all her life. Not only did I have to deal with a steep hill it started raining. We hadn't seen all of the rain either, oh no. After dinner, it started pouring and we had to walk to our bus.
Our 4th day in Rome was Full On. Full On is team-building activities. We were there with another P2P group and I saw a girl with a septum, so we instantly started talking. Her name was Alice. I repelled down a castle wall that day and had a nice talk with the camera lady because she had the camera that I'm buying.
The next day we saw Pisa and shopped there for 2 hours. There were so many scalpers and they always said, "Bling, bling." Hahaha, what's up with that? After we saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa we went to a restaurant to make pizza. It was the best pizza I have ever had in my life, and what with my good cooking skills there was a huge indent in the side. But STILL very good. Not even I can mess it up. The next day we went to where David, the statue, is placed. It's so crazy to look at in real life. Pictures can't even show you how amazing it is. We went to a leather shop next and they showed us how to tell if a jacket is leather or not and then Marina and I went into a shop and tried it. And we got yelled at by the store owner and kicked out of his shop. We had 3 hours to shop there and there really wasn't anywhere good to shop there. So, Marina and I sat in a gelateria (ice cream shop).
Then the next day we rode a boat to the wall of love. I wrote my best friend Hannah's name on the wall. (I love you Hannah dearest.) We walked up so many steps and hills that day that I could feel my legs turning into muscle.
The next day, we left Rome and ventured into Monaco, a really small country near France. Basically all we did that day was tour Monaco and then go bowling. At first I was dominating, but then Tracie and Alexa took over with the grandma bowl and ended up beating Christina and I.
The next couple of days all we did was tour Nice, a city in France. We helped out a charity in France after that. It was really humbling experience. We split up into two groups and started putting clothes in boxes. My group was in a tiny room and the other group was in a warehouse. Twenty kids in a small room can get things done fast. And there was a stuffed ferret! Hah. That night after dinner we talked about our home stays and what we expected.
We rode the bus (again!) and went to a man cave. Honestly this was the lamest thing that we did. It was like a prehistoric cave. Sounds cool, right? Wrong, it was really pointless. We climbed up a huge mountain and I mean climbed. There weren't steps so we were stepping on rocks and using our hands to get up. When we finally got up thee a person talked to us about the cave and we left. Seriously? We had to climb up a huge rock, just to hear you speak. After that we got back on the bus and traveled to Barcelona.
We were officially in Spain, the Spain that we had all been waiting for and also our last country. We shopped in Barcelona and then headed to our hotel. At the hotel I called my parents for the first time to tell them that I had lost my glasses five hotels back and that they would arrive at my house at the end of July, surprise! If you can't tell by now, I'm very independent. We were the only people on the 5th floor of our hotel so we all had our doors open with game blaring on our television. What game you ask? The semi-finals for soccer. Spain won and it was like a huge party had exploded outside our window. There was people dancing in the fountain in front of our hotel and out of no where a band showed up and started playing.
The next day a lot of people bought a jersey, which I thought was really fake because they were only buying them because they won. We went on a tour of Gaudi's art, which is breath taking and just plain amazing. His church that has taken over 200 years to build and its STILL being built is just amazing. One side is modern art done by a local artist and the other is Gaudi's work. When the whole thing is completed it will hold ten thousand people. After that we went to a restaurant with Flamenco dancers. That was the best night of the whole trip. The dancers did three dances and after that they started pulling people up on stage. And guess what? I got pulled up on stage. Oh yes, me out of forty people was chosen. I am a dancer but not a Flamenco dancer. After they pulled about ten people on stage they turned on "The Mocerena". Afterwards they turned on some Spanish music that I've never heard before and the guys started moshing to it. Honestly, I don't know how anyone could have moshed to it, but oh they did.
The next day we met our home stay family. I hated the entire home stay because we didn't do anything and the lady's son was twenty-seven and really creepy. We ended up going to the mall the whole day the last day we were there. They didn't have air conditioning and their bathrooms had windows. Other people's home stay families actually interacted with them and talked to us, but not them.
After 3 days at the home stay families house we said goodbye and went to a soccer field with the entire P2P group. The soccer field was abnormally small and Tracie tried playing soccer. All she ended up doing was just standing there. At the restaurant afterwards they handed out shirts to the best players and the guy who ran the game, Alex, gave the shirt to Tracie and said, "Think of me when you wear it." And then Tracie gave the shirt to Morgan and said, "Think of Alex when you wear it!"
This was our last day in Europe actually visiting it. The next day at two in the morning we would leave our hotel to board a plane. We went to a sword shop in Toledo, Spain. It was really fun messing around with the swords and having fake battles. We toured Toledo and then headed back to Madrid. For our last night in Spain we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. At the hotel we blasted music and a huge dance party in my room. No one slept . . . Well, except for me but it was more like coming off a sugar high and landing on the bed. I didn't even wake up on the right time. I had ten minutes to get dressed the next morning, but I made it. And then was our flight to Frankfurt and then another layover, and off to good old DFW airport. On the plane ride when we were about to land in Dallas, I sighed and thought, "Wow, flat land. No hills to climb, no steps to walk."
As soon as we got off the plane we were on a mission to get through customs in record time. I think we did. But the officer there asked me if I lived in Weatherford, Texas on purpose. Why yes, yes I do. After customs we got our bags and headed towards the door. But there was one more obstacle. Our customs papers had been written on and we had to go in the line accordingly. The man who took our papers either sent us through the exit, line one, or line two. My paper said one so off we went. When the people who had ones got to the front of the line the man asked us, "Here for buying food?" "Uhm . . N .o. We visited a farm, actually more like sitting on hay bails and riding through a farm." And he sent us straight through the exit door. There was really no point in the whole "stand in line one". We were waiting right in front of the exit doors for all our people to get through. We could see our family and friends waiting. But we had to wait on everyone. When we finally walked through those doors, I saw my family with a colorful sign that said "Welcome Home".
As soon as we got in the car we headed to Taco Bell for some Tex-Mex and Dr. Pepper. Oh yes, I was definitely back in Texas. I was supposed to be changed after this trip but really I was just enhanced.
Listening to Rock, Shock, & Load by Thee Armada, "This is a story about some boys from Texas that know how to get down . . ."
Kindell.
