By now, you know I’ve been to Italy, France and the United Kingdom and you also know that I’ve treasured each of those experiences and they each transformed me into a better person. But I want to go a little deeper and share some specific memories from each of these trips. I love to reminisce about the simpler times in life and to this day, I cannot believe I am coming up on six years since my class trip to Italy, I really can’t. So I’ll start with my Italy trip.
Story #1- This is one of my favorite stories to share. When we were in Venice, we visited a glass factory, not far from the main city area. After we paid our visit, we were all waiting outside for the boats to pick us up. As we waited, a couple of the guys in our dared another guy to jump into the waters of Venice for a substantial amount of euros. The guy did not hesitate and proceeded to jump in the filthy Venice water, which was cold, as it was mid-April.
As he tried to climb back on the pier with a ladder, he was pushed off by another student and ended up scraping his leg. So here he was, soaking wet, with no towel, and bleeding from his leg. Watching him on the boat ride back was honestly one of the funniest sights I had seen. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He was freezing his butt off. The whole thing was so funny and everyone got a kick out of it. He’s also lucky he didn’t get caught because you get a hefty fine for swimming in the waters of Venice.
Story #2- Florence was so amazing, but what was equally as amazing, if not more amazing, was my best friend’s reaction to our hotel room. Not really but nonetheless, boy oh boy let me tell you, was it priceless. If I could go back in time and get a reaction shot, this would be the crown jewel of all reactions. I roomed with two of my best friends throughout most of the trip. When we got to our Florence hotel room, it was about the size of closet, and all three of our beds were stacked together, one beside the other. On top of that, our view of the city was a generator.
My friend’s reaction was something out of a horror film. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened at his initial moment of realization that this was the situation. He immediately took action, saying that it was impossible to stay in this room and called his mother back in the states. His mother literally spoke with the manager of the hotel room to get his room changed and the manager obliged. There was only one room left in Florence and it was for two people. So my friends got that one while I stayed in the biggest room in the hotel with four other guys, which I didn’t mind cause it gave me a break from the two knuckleheads.
Story #3- My final Italy story also takes place in Florence. I’ll cut right to the chase. I got lost in Florence with a freshman. And at the time I was a junior. Basically, my group of friends flat out ditched me and got me stuck with this freshman mostly because they wanted to get away from him because he annoyed them. So I got to enjoy him for two hours. We walked around aimlessly trying to find our location but kept coming up empty. However, the more we walked around the city, the more I kept saying to myself, “he look at me, I’m lost in Florence, Italy.” That was actually pretty cool. I was my own man at 17 in another part of the world.
Eventually we found our route and after stopping for a quick bite and a visit to a store, we found ourselves back in the hustle and bustle of the city. Later on in the day however, it turned out we wouldn’t be the only lost boys. A group of my friends got lost later on in the night and I received a call from one of them asking for help. I recommended they get a cab but apparently one of the guys panicked and took off running down the street like a madman, much to the joy and amusement of locals.
The World is Yours 