It was my first year back in my old high school after a three year absence. I transferred high schools at the beginning of grade eight, and finally got to be back with my childhood friends in grade eleven. It was a bizarre feeling, and I felt like the new kid all over again, all awkward and being gawked at.
That fall the school decided that they would plan a school trip for anyone who wanted to go, and we got to decide the destination. I didn’t think anything of it at first; I wasn’t particularly interested in exotic travel and experiencing different cultures. My friends had other plans, and soon we were planning our Euro Trip.
Fundraiser after fundraiser ensued to help us with the traveling fees. Bake sales, auctions, baskets, and donations all helped towards helping us have the best time possible. We started in the fall and were relentless until the spring, when March break was upon us, and it was time to depart.
Eleven days, three countries, eleven girls, two chaperones, and an experience on a lifetime, Euro Trip 2007 will forever be a part of our high school memories. First stop: Italy. Being only sixteen at the time, we were psyched that the drinking age was fourteen. We asked our guide, Glauco, where we could go clubbing.
Excitedly running around and getting ready to go out in the hotel, we were berated several times by the neighboring guest at the hotel. No matter how many times she pounded on our door, and reminded us, “I have to be up at 7am!” We didn’t care. We didn’t settle down. We couldn’t settle down even if we wanted to. We were going to the Space Electronic Discotheque on a Tuesday, and she couldn’t damper our fun.
Running from room to room borrowing headbands, necklaces, bags, shoes, dresses, anything we coveted from our friends and wanted to borrow for just a few hours.
Finally, we were ready. Dressed to impress, and getting some final words from Mr. M, our super cool junior high vice principle who sadly couldn’t go because one of the girls wanted to stay behind. Why she wanted to stay behind will remain a mystery and high school legend.
When all the girls got their final words of, “Don’t wander off with strangers,” they filed out of his hotel room to await the fleet of cabs that would take us to the Discotheque.
“One moment Joelle,” said Mr. M when everyone had left. For a slight second I thought I was in trouble, that I couldn’t go, and my night was ruined.
“Sure Mr. M,” I squeaked in a small nervous voice. Oh man, this is it, I thought. It’s all over, I’ve messed up somehow and I can’t go out with the girls.
“I’ve noticed that you’re the most responsible one of the group, would you mind keeping an eye on everyone for me?”
My heart soared, my spirits lifted, and to this day I’ve never felt more proud to be me in my entire life. There were three other girls on the trip who were older than me; he could have asked any one of them to help keep the other girls safe. Instead,he chose me.
“Oh, and don’t let Kristina drink too much,” Mr. M chuckled with dark humour. He probably remembered that on our very first night in Italy we got a hold of a bottle of wine and some boys from Texas and drank on the roof of our hotel.
The night was an amazing success. I kept everyone’s wallets and money in my oversized, white, fake Prada bag, no one got lost, and we only suffered minor heart attacks from the Italian cabbies driving skills. I still remember him trying to relate to us by talking in minimal English about the Californian forest fire when he heard we were Canadian.
From that night on I was Mama Hen, and I’ve kept a flock of ‘Chickies’ around me that I’ve always felt responsible for, and protective of.
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