One dream, two months, thousand friends

"I was born in a little village in northern Italy and until that day I had never left it. Never seen anything else, never known anybody else. Fortunately at the age of 18 my parents gave me a present: the possibility to explore a new place. Yes, I received a flight ticket for an unknown destination. I would only know where once I got there.



I started counting the days from the date of my birthday (7th of December) until the date of my departure (13th of July). And when finally that day arrived, I had been so excited for months that I wasn’t really able to realize that I was finally going to leave. Yes. To leave my home, my parents, to go out from that village. I was ready to discover the world. Anyway, you know, I had never gone out from my village, so I had never taken a plane or seen one before. When I first saw it, I started wondering how can it fly. I mean…it’s so big! Well, I’m not here to describe how a plane can fly or stuff like that. So, let’s keep going on.



After something like 13 hours of flight, the plane finally landed. I opened my eyes and… “Welcome to Los Angeles”. That was the first thing that I saw. Los Angeles. That’s the place where I will have spent my summer. The place of my dreams. Oh, you don’t know it but my biggest dream is becoming a singer and an actress so Los Angeles is like my own world. Well, I remember that after the plane landed, I was so happy and lost looking around that I tripped on a step and fell on the floor. When I opened my eyes, I saw a hand in front of me. A guy was helping me to stand up. It was in that moment that I met Bers (now he is my best friend). I thanked him and then I just went away looking for my transfer. The driver picked me up to the place where I was going to stay: Days Inn. A little motel situated in the north of Los Angeles in a neighborhood called Torrance. My room was 134. I opened the door and nobody was there so I just went to bed. I remember that I didn’t sleep so much that night. I was too excited to start a new day that I probably slept for an hour..or maybe two. The day after I finally met my roommates. They weren’t so friendly. One of them didn’t even greet me (I’m still asking why), so at first I was just a bit sad.



Fortunately the day after I met so many awesome people (never seen so many before). I was so worried about not being liked by them, but they fast became like brothers for me. We had so much fun all together. And.. surprise.. One of them was Bers. I’d never thought that I was going to run into him again after that day at the airport. Well, as I’ve just said, I met so many people there from every country. Some from Poland (that’s why now I can also say some words and sentences in Polish), others from Germany etc. But then something happened with one of them. I was having breakfast when I first saw him.



He was at the reception, asking for an apple (that’s weird, I know). I had never felt something like that before but something starting moving in my stomach. Well, I had heard about something called “Love” but didn’t even know what it was. I just know that in that moment everything stops. It was like if there was just me and him in that room (I feel so stupid now if I think about it). I started looking at him like a dog looking at his bone.. and.. S**t! He noticed me. I wanted to hide my face but he just smiled and went out from the room. The next day we started to get to know each other better. I felt in paradise. But you know, after the paradise there’s always the hell. In fact, after 2 weeks he started going out with another girl, more beautiful than me and I think he just forgot me. I felt like if the whole world was falling on me. But, “Come on! That’s Los Angeles”.. that’s what I thought so, with the help of the my new friends, I cheered up and together, we started travelling around California.



I can’t say what’s really happened in those two months because I promised “What happens at Days Inn, stays at Days Inn”, but I can assure you that it was the best summer ever. I was so lonely before going to Los Angeles. I didn’t even know that outside my village there was a world which was waiting for me to be discovered. And now I know that wherever I go, I will always have someone who is waiting for my visit. From this experience I learnt that the most important thing of a trip is not the destination but the people with whom you will spend it. So, I give you an advice: if you really want to live your life, TRAVEL!"