Short Story

Once in a life experience

Dear reader, I’m going to tell you about my experience that I did have a couple years ago. We’re going to start with a normal day 3 years ago.

* * *

Today, I woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning, just like every day. I was getting ready for school: I took a bath, got dressed, fixed my hair and, of course, ate my breakfast. I got my things and ran to catch the school bus (all this before 6:40 am).

For the rest of the day I went to normal classes like every teenager does in their senior year. Some examples of classes are: math, philosophy, literature, French, physics, history, etc… In each period, we worked a lot. Still, in every class I talked and played with my friends. For example, in lab class we had to combust a red gummy bear, and of course, we started to eat all the gummies left because Charlie and Jenny were very hungry and began to make jokes to distract the class just to eat a gummy. It was very funny.

By then the bell rang and we went to the cafeteria to take a break and eat a small sandwich. I thought that we were too tired because we were being very silly, talking about movies and acting out all kinds of scenes from a Mr. Bean movie and a goal from a soccer match of the Mexican national team made by some guy named Little Pea. In the end, I realized that that’s just the way my friends are when they are enjoying the moment.

After two more periods, school was over. I walked to my house taking every street with precaution. Today was a sunny day. “I’m in a good mood” I said to myself; just until I arrived to my house. While I was stepping through the door I heard my mother cooking in the kitchen.

I said, “Hi mom!”, to let her know I was home.

She answered, “Hello sweetie how was school?”

“Ok, I guess…”

“Oh well, I’m glad you had a nice day” she did this in an ironic way and continued “go and leave your stuff quickly, because lunch is ready”.

I didn’t answer, but did what she asked.

My family and I had just finished dinner and I was so tired of hearing all the family talk about their lives and argue with each other about everything that the perfect solution for me was to think about some way to relax. I was going to take a nice bubble bath when the phone rang.

I answered” hello, who is this?”

Some girl said “hi, it’s me your best friend!”

“Oh hey! I didn’t recognize you, I’m fine, but how about you?...”

We talked for over two hours. We were still talking when my mom burst into my room to tell me to hang up and go to sleep. When I hung up I was thinking “Thank God she called me, it has been almost three months that we haven’t talked to each other-because she lives in Australia. Even though we chatted about all the normal every day things I also spent an hour talking to her about all the problems I have in my house; with my parents, my brothers and sisters, and all the things that I am unhappy about in my family life. After we talked, I was expecting to feel a lot better and have solved things, but on the contrary, I was feeling the urge to escape to another world and wishing I could see results like magic.”

* * *

Ok, here’s the deal, I’m going to tell you all the things that bother me in my house; my mother is grumpy all day long, my brothers fight all the time and they aren’t around very much, my little sister cries every day and also takes all my stuff without any permission, and my dad… well, he’s almost okay because he’s very patient, but he also loses it when he returns from work and when I don’t do whatever he wants.

* * *

The following Monday, I was arriving to school and found out that a new girl had been admitted to our grade- she seemed nice- I thought about introducing myself later on.

In recess, my friends and I invited her to sit with us. Everybody introduced himself.

I said ”Hi I’m Joanne, welcome to the school.”

(Dear reader, I’m very sorry that I didn’t introduce myself earlier. I was nineteen years old at the time all of this happened; right now, I am twenty two. I’m a shy person, with a good heart and through this story you will start to know me a little bit better.)

The new girl said “I’m Lilly, I come from Croatia but I have lived here since I was little”

After that day, Lilly became part of our group. Every day we did different things, just to hang out.

* * *

Since it was our senior year, my school grade was very excited planning all types of trips for the end of the year, including us.

After school, our group was discussing this matter and suddenly someone said, “why not travel to different parts of Europe backpacking? It’s fun, for boys and girls, you get to know the culture a lot better, and it’s kind of cheap.”

Someone didn’t agree and said it out loud, and after a few minutes everybody voted in favor. The decision was made.

The bad news came a few days later. None of the boys, for some reason or other, could go on the trip with us. In the end, the only ones left were Jenny, Lilly, and me.

Right after the closing ceremony of my high school, we were hitting the road going to the airport. We divided the roles; I checked the plan tickets; Jenny the passports; and Lilly all the practical stuff.

I’m telling you, it was so funny. We were in a hurry and very nervous about the trip so, suddenly, we were all yelling with excitement!

The itinerary of flights for the beginning of our trip was: Texas to New York and New York to Lisbon, Portugal.

The only thing that went wrong was with the connecting flight. Our first plane was delayed because of bad weather so when we arrived to New York City, the time overlapped with the immigration line, and the result was that we missed the next plane.

We arranger a new flight – thank God- and we rested for another three hours to wait for the next flight. Also, in the mean time, we solved the baggage problem with the baggage claim supervisor. Finally, we boarded the plane and spent 13 hours trying not to kill ourselves because of the long time we had to sit still.

* * *

Arriving to Europe was amazing, because it really was a totally different world from what we were used to.

The people were very civilized, everything was in order, and every one spoke a new language- that I didn’t understand at all. There was a different style in the clothes people wore and the buildings, too. It was wonderful!

* * *

Portugal is a nice country, it has; sunny days, a lot of bright colors, very interesting traditional culinary dishes, nice

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