Sierra and I sat in the front of the big audience, knowing that this would be the last day we step foot in this building. With a big smile on her face, Sierra walked up onto the stage and with shaky hands accepted her diploma. I clapped vigorously as I watched her walk back down to her seat. At the moment I heard my name called, I hopped up out of my seat and dashed up to the stage still surprised that I wouldn’t be coming back. I looked down at the audience, Sierra and my parents, reacting with a standing ovation, and I watched my peers and teachers clap too. I walked back down to my seat, and grabbed ahold of Sierra’s arm and shook it with excitement. The reason we were probably the most enthused out of the crowd was because we were finally going to live our dream in less than 24 hours.
Sierra and I got this crazy idea 5 years ago,we were about thirteen; we made a vow to move to the UK when we turned eighteen, so we could kind of do whatever we wanted at 18 plus. We had always talked about going to our friends and our family because we have always been fascinated by that place, and have wanted to go there ever since. We weren’t kidding when we said we were going to go. Ever since then we’d have had so many jobs to save up money, like jobs at grocery stores, gas stations, animal shelters, you name it and we’ve probably worked there. No matter how tempting it was we had never spent one penny of it. We had even had a bunch of garage sales and we’ve sold quite a few things. With some help from the rest of our family, they gave us some money throughout the years, we never gave up, and now here we are, anxiously waiting to get out of this place! As we watched people we have known at least since middle school sit here with us, it was kind of sad knowing that we might never see our closest friends again. After the speeches and celebrating was done, Sierra and I walked outside into the hot weather.
“Nikki!” I heard a voice scream. It was my old friend Crystal. She had moved away when I was 13. I had visited her from time to time, but I haven’t seen her in years. She was a year older than Sierra and I were, but were all pretty close. She hadn’t gotten much taller since then, plus she still had the same dirty blond hair, grey-blue eyes, and big smile. She had her hair curled and she was wearing white skinny jeans and bright green short sleeve lace shirt with a black tank top. With arms wide open we ran over to each other and started crying.
“Oh my gosh I missed you so much!” I yelled.
“I missed you too! I couldn’t miss your graduation!”
“I’m glad you didn’t! How’ve you been?”
“Great! I’m starting college soon, it’s in New York though...”
“No! I mean I’m excited for you, but don’t leave me! Even though me and Sierra are kind of leaving, really soon too...”
“What do you mean?” she said with a concerned face.
“We are going to the UK tomorrow. We have the plane tickets and everything.”
“Oh my gosh! I remember how we used to talk about that all the time! I’m glad you’re going.” she said with a smile.
“How long are you staying here in Chicago?”
“I have to leave soon, I’m supposed to go and start packing up the house.”
We all started to tear up again. I didn’t want her to leave. She had just got here. Next thing I know, is my mom is coming up to us and walking over to Crystal first. She was like a second daughter to her. They chatted for a few seconds and Sierra and I went over to Crystal and gave our goodbye hugs. It hurt seeing her leave again. Who knows when we’d get to see her again? Who knows when we’ll see anyone after this. My mom and dad came up to me and Sierra. They looked glad but disappointed at the same time.
“I’m proud of you girls,” said my dad with a faint smile.
“I can’t believe you grew up so fast! I’m proud but words can’t describe how much I’m going to miss you...just don’t go!” yelled my mom.
“Mom, you know how much this means to us. We’ve been waiting to get out of here for a long time now and now we finally can,” I said.
“We can always write and call,” offered Sierra.
“I know, what time are you leaving tomorrow,” asked mom.
“Around 9:00 a.m.”
“You got everything packed?” asked dad.
“Yea, basically, just a few more things to bring.”
“Okay, love you girls.”
“Love you too,” we said at the same time.
We stayed the school for awhile longer, saying goodbye to the people we’ve known since at least middle school. We left for a dinner party at my grandparents house. They were so excited for me and Sierra. They made supper for us, although it seemed like a buffet. They made chicken, corn, green bean casserole, stuffing, garlic bread, lasagna, peas, and mashed potatoes.
We had an amazing dinner as we all sat at the big mahogany colored table. My grandpa kept reminding me off all the fun times we’d had when I was a little girl. As he was talking I was thinking to myself how much I am going to miss everyone. I had made up my mind though, and I really do want to go. My parents finished eating and decided that it was time for them to leave. We gave them goodbye hugs and farewells.
With that, my parents left. We were kind of let down but we had to let it go. We talked for awhile longer with my grandparents. They wished us good luck on our trip and told us to write to them. I promised that I would.. About 30 minutes later, we decided to leave. We go into Sierra’s car and left. We stopped at Sierra’s house first. We pulled into her gravel driveway. The white house looked pitch black inside. Sierra got her keys out and opened the door.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” I said.
“They’re never here...” Sierra said with sorrow.
She’s had a very hard childhood. Her parents were never at the house, and her brother and sister never visited. They were 23 and 25, so they had basically started their lives already. They never wanted to come back either. I remember on her fifteenth birthday, she ran over to my house in the middle of the night crying because her parents never showed up, and nobody called. Since then my mother has always treated her like her own daughter. We walked into Sierra’s room, she had everything she needed. She grabbed a couple of her suitcases, while I grabbed the rest. She walked out of the house, locking the door behind her, without saying another word. We headed over to my house where we had everything else we needed. In my almost empty room, We put the suitcases down, and talked about what we needed to do when we got there.
“You have the plane tickets?” Sierra asked.
“Yea, in the duffle bag over there.”
“Okay good. We need to figure out where we are staying once we leave the hotel, or I don’t know where we’ll end up,” she said,laughing.
“Haha, don’t worry I think we will figure something out...we could rent a small apartment or something.”
“Yea that sounds easiest.”
“We’ve been waiting for this for I don’t know how long and I still don’t exactly know what I want to do.”
“Well...we could go sightseeing, ya know? We could just get to know the place first.”
“After that?”
“Anything we want I guess.” I laughed.
“Sounds good to me!.”
“Good, it better,” I joked.
After we stopped chatting we just got into our pajamas and sat around and watched TV for the rest of the night. I was a bit nervous for the plane ride tomorrow...I hate planes.
We woke up at 5am I had to force Sierra’s butt out of bed by throwing a pillow at her weakly, since I was so tired myself.
“COME ON GET UP,” I yelled.
“NO, LEAVE ME ALONE,” she screamed back.
“THAT’S IT...”
I grabbed her by the foot and yanked her off of the bed. I heard a loud “thud” on the hardwood floor. I fell to the ground laughing. She just layed there for a few more minutes laughing too.
“OUCH. You could've at least put a pillow under me?” She joked.
“That wouldn’t have been funny though,” I laughed, “Alright c’mon lets go get ready.”
Sierra got up off the floor and grabbed some yoga pants, a white tank top, and blue sweatshirt out of her suitcase. I grabbed some black leggings, a blue t-shirt and black sweatshirt out of my bag. We wanted to be comfy during the plane ride. Especially since I planned to sleep the whole time. Sierra put her mid length dirty blonde hair up in a bun, while I left my hair down. Sierra and I basically had the same color hair except mine was a little bit longer. I walked to the kitchen and made a bowl of cereal, while Sierra ate some waffles. After we got done eating we walked to the bathroom to brush our teeth real quick. It was almost 7am.
“Should we put our suitcases downstairs?” asked Sierra.
“Yea, we should.”
We walked down the stairs carefully with the suitcases in hand and dropped them by the door.
“Did you call a cab yet?” I asked.
“Yep, they’ll be here at about 8.”
“Okay good. Oh my gosh I’m so excited!”
“I know! I can’t wait! I can’t believe we are actually going!”
There was a knock at the door. Who would be here this early? I walked to the door first with Sierra following not far behind. We both had a confused look on our faces. I opened the door quickly and my eyes went wide. It was Sierra’s dad. Sierra was about to walk away but her dad called out her name, and she stopped and turned back to face him.
“What are you doing here?” asked Sierra harshly.
“What do you mean ‘what am I doing here’? You are leaving and I came to say goodbye.”
“Since when have you cared?”
“Believe it or not Sierra, I am still your father, and you can’t talk to me like that-”
Sierra cut him off. “You have never been a father to me! You have never been there when I needed you most. You were never home, you never talked to me, you never took the effort to even get to know your own daughter. Not even my own brother and sister will talk to me anymore because of you! They think that I turned out just like you.” Sierra yelled.
Her dad looked at her in astonishment.
“Well if you wouldn’t of been so difficult to take care of I wouldn’t have left all the time! So, go ahead leave, you obviously don’t care about what anybody else thinks anyways.”
After that Sierra slammed the door. Her dad left in his car without hesitation, and without another word. I walked over to Sierra. She stood in the corner crying. It reminded me of how she used to cry whenever she was in this situation. I know this time was harder on her though since she’s actually leaving now, and those were her last words to her father. I hugged her tightly, I hated seeing her like this.
“Sierra, I’m sorry. You were never a bad child or anything. You were just trying to talk to him all those years but he wouldn’t listen. I know you care about your family so don’t listen to him when he says you don’t care. Your brother and sister love you and they always will.”
“I can’t believe I put up with him for all these years though...”
“You were young, there weren’t really a lot of other options, but you stayed strong.”
“Yea, thanks for always being here for me Nikki,” she smiled slightly.
“I’ll always be there for you sis! Now we gotta leave soon so lets get the rest up the bags!” I skipped up the stairs trying to lighten the mood a little bit. She laughed and followed me up the stairs.
At eight, the cab was here like it said it would be. My heart was racing I was so excited. The cab driver came up to us, and helped us put our bags in the trunk of the car. It didn’t all fit so we stuffed some bags into the backseat with us. I made sure I had the duffle bag in hand. The airport was about 30 minutes away. I was so tired but couldn’t fall asleep in the car. I hope I’m able to fall asleep in the plane! We arrived at the busy airport at about 8:42, we quickly got our bags and hurried in. I got the plane tickets out of the bag, gave them to the flight attendant, and we walked onto the plane. I got the window seat and Sierra got a seat by the aisle. All I could think was that I hate planes. I was going to drive myself crazy. Sierra started laughing at me when she saw my worried face. I ignored her though. I saw it coming.
The plane was ready for lift off. The whole time it went up I closed my eyes and clenched the seat tightly. Once we got in the air I calmed down a bit, and immediately decided to go to sleep. That’s not too hard for me though since I fall asleep super easily. It’s about a eight and a half hour flight though, so I won’t be surprised if I wake up.
I woke up after about six and a half hours. Sierra was sleeping. I spotted her ipod in her hand and carefully pulled it out of her grasp. I pulled the headphones out of my pocket, connected them to the phone and put them in my ears. I just relaxed and listened to some One Direction music. I stared out the window and all I saw were some clouds. I closed my eyes once again and went to sleep.
I woke up this time when we arrived. Sierra tapped me on the shoulders with an excited but tired look on her face. She got off the plane slowly, and retrieved our bags. You can already see the beautiful scenery from the airport windows. We had rented a car for us, and it was waiting outside in the huge parking lot. We got to it as fast as we could and threw our bags in the trunk and backseat. Sierra drove as I was in the passenger seat. I gave her the address to the hotel and we were on our way.
When we arrived it wasn’t very busy or crowded. It seemed like a nice little place. It had about three floors. We parked our car and went inside. We walked up to the person at the front desk.
“Hi how may I help you today?” said the girl. She had her dark black hair pulled back in a ponytail, she had big blue eyes and pale skin tone. She wore a red t-shirt and black pants.
“Hi, well we would like to stay here for awhile what rooms do you have?” I asked.
“Well we have a room that would seem to fit for you both, it has two beds, one bathroom, two tv’s and a small living room.”
“That’s sounds good what do you think?” asked Sierra.
“Sure, how much?” I asked.
“50 euros a night,” she said.
“Um, okay I will pay for 5 nights right now,” I offered.
She took the money with a smile on her face, and gave us the card to get into our room. She walked over to the other side of the desk and gave us a cart to put our bags in. I said thank you as I walked back outside rolling the cart towards the car. Sierra ran over and opened the trunk. We lifted the bags into the cart and rolled it back into the hotel. We took the elevator up to the third floor and found our room number. We walked in and a cold breeze came at us. It was quite cold in there. I should turn down the AC later, I thought. We toured the room and there was a tiny refrigerator next to the TV in the bedroom, the walls were painted a light orange, and there was a small couch in the other side of the room. That night after we got done unpacking, we finally got to relax and fell asleep at about 10pm.
When I woke up Sierra was still fast asleep. I threw a pillow at her and she quickly woke up.
“I should’ve seen that coming.” she laughed.
I laughed and then slowly got up to get dressed. I left some clothes in my suitcase that I wanted to wear but I couldn’t find it. I decided to check under the bed and I saw a huge rolled up poster.
Sierra walked over and asked, “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. I unrolled the poster and written in bright green pen across the top was “Our Bucket List :),” Under it was 100 goals that the people who wrote this wanted to achieve.
“That’s really cool!”said Sierra.
“I know, maybe we should do something like this,” I laughed.
“You know what, we should...what’s the first one on there?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yea! What’s the first one?”
I studied the poster and replied, “Dip-Dye my hair, well, that’s not too hard.”
“Okay, well...let’s do it!”
“But-”
“No buts! C’mon!” She laughed.
I got dressed, and put my white converse on and headed out the door with Sierra.
“How do you expect to find a hair salon? We just got here.” I laughed.
Sierra whipped out her phone and replied, “I don’t know, GPS?”
“Okay.”
We got into the car and turned the AC on. Sierra searched for the nearest hair salon. She seemed very determined to do this so I guess I was too! We arrived at the hair salon which wasn’t too busy. We payed about $15 for both of us to get our hair done. I chose a hot pink color and Sierra chose a deep blue color. It took about a half an hour to do both of our hair. We walked out of the salon feeling confident and excited that we got one done.
“I like it!” Sierra laughed,
“This is actually kind of fun,” I said
“What was the next one? I hope we have enough money to last us for a bit.”
“The poster’s in the car. I think it will last.”
We walked to the car, and opened up the poster. I scanned the poster again and checked number two it was to go to America. Well we already are from America, so I guess that was pretty easy. I looked at number 3 and it was skydiving.
“No! No, no, no! I am not doing that! You know I’m afraid of heights!” screamed Sierra.
“Isn’t that the whole point of having a bucket list though? To face your fears? Oh look, that one is on here too, ‘face my fears.’”
“Well we don’t have to do that one...where would we find a skydiving place anyway?”
“There are always places somewhere to do that.”
“If I die, it’s your fault,” she laughed.
“I wouldn’t let you die.”
“Alright then, I’m trusting you, let’s go.”
We got into the car and searched for the nearest place. It was about a half an hour to forty-five minutes away. Sierra drove and I could tell how nervous she was. I was nervous too, I had to admit. It was her idea though, and now I’m sticking with it.
We arrived there and we saw a plane take off. My stomach turned. I was debating if I should turn back or not but I just kept walking. I had to pull Sierra forward. We asked to go skydiving today. They asked if we had any experience, we said no, so they took us into a room to give us some tips and guidelines of what to do. I wanted to leave so bad, but I couldn’t. They took us into a room and strapped us up in all of our gear. Sierra’s face was so pale. I could tell she was scared. They brought us outside put us on the plane with the few other people who taught us the guidelines. I tightly held onto my seat as we lifted off into the air. After about 10-12 minutes of flying we started to stand up.
“Now remember, don’t pull the string until you see me pull mine, okay?” yelled the other skydiver.
“Okay!” I yelled
The skydiver then hopped off the plane and fell quickly. I took a step back, and said I didn’t want to go. Sierra yelled, “It’s now or never!”
She closed her eyes tightly and jumped off the plane. I was so shocked. I finally just went for it. The wind was hitting hard, and it was freezing cold. It was actually really fun just flying through the air. I saw the skydiver pull for his parachute. I did the same, and I was pulled back up for a moment, and then got control of the parachute and landed safely on the ground, onto my knees.
“Thank god! The ground, I can’t believe I just did that!” screamed Sierra.
“Sierra! Oh my gosh that was so cool!”
“In your opinion!” she laughed, while out of breath.
We walked into the building where we took the gear off and they gave us a ride back, It was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We thought that maybe we should head back but we decided to finish one more easy task.
“Here’s an easy one, let’s tie a message to a balloon and then let it go.”
“Okay sounds good,” laughed Sierra
We found a dollar store on the way back towards the hotel and then bought a packet of balloons. We drove back to the hotel and went up to our room. I opened the packet and we each blew up a balloon, and tied a string to the end of it. We took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it. I wrote a small quote on it. We opened up the window, and we let go of the string and the breeze lifted the balloon away. We went to bed exhausted, and thrilled by what we have done.
I awoke the next morning and I heard Sierra mumbling to herself.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“We should try and finish 10 tasks today.”
“Ten?”
“Yea, why not?”
“Alrighty.”
I got up slowly but surely and saw that Sierra had circled the ones she wanted to do. They were: Own something from Juicy Couture, sleep under the stars, learn to play guitar, go cliff diving, go ziplining, make a dreamcatcher, own tye-dye shorts, ride in a hot air balloon, walk in a water walker, and get tan. Well this was going to be a long day. We went outside, and decided to take the bus around everywhere. We walked down to the road, and we waited until the bus got here and then we hopped on. On Sierra’s phone we searched for a mall, and a small street of stores came up. The bus dropped us off about a block away from the stores. Once we got to the stores, we walked into a department store, but it was a bit smaller than the ones in America. We searched around for something that said Juicy Couture. Next thing you know, we spotted some perfume. I checked the price tag and it was 50 euros. That was pretty expensive perfume, but we got it anyway. Next, we searched the clothes aisle for some tye-dye shorts. It wasn’t very easy finding them, but eventually we found some white tye-dyed shorts. We also looked for some things to make a dreamcatcher. We bought some twine, string, beads, and feathers. When we got out of the store it was about 11:30 am. As we waited for a bus to arrive we started twirling the twine together to make the outside of the dream catcher. We took the string and weaved it around and through the twine in different directions and patterns. Once we were done with that we took the rest of the string, and tied it around the twine. We attached some beads and a couple feathers in it. When we finished them it looked pretty neat.



We waited for the next bus, and then as we got on we searched ‘hot air balloon riding’ and sure enough there was a place to go. It was an hour drive away from where we were so we’d have to get in two buses.
After we got off the second bus we had to walk about two more blocks to arrive at the field. You could see the balloons high up in the sky behind the clouds. We looked at a sign that said how much everything cost. Adults (ages 13-adult) were 30 euros. Kids were 15 euros. We paid for one ride and waited for another 20 minutes for someone to get back with a balloon. The person who was steering the balloon led us onto it. It was very shaky once we got on but as we got higher it got steadier. We leaned slightly over the edge to see the view. It was beautiful. To the right you could see small towns and fields filled with bright green grass. To the left you could see the busy towns, and tiny people walking around. When we got back down to the ground it was amazing to look up and see how high we were. We started to walk back when I considered going to the beach. Sierra agreed, and we hopped back onto the bus. The bus stops right in front of the beach, so it wouldn’t take much walking to get there. The beach looked very rocky, and surprisingly was very crowded. We had put our bathing suits on under our clothes so we were set. We saw many people cliff jumping actually, which made it easier to figure out where we should do it without getting hurt. We walked up the big hill leaving our bags leaning against a picnic table nearby, and watched at a distance as we saw people jumping. It was a long way down if you looked at it from up close. We stood in the back of the crowd waiting for the people in front of us to go. They all screamed and cheered whenever someone jumped. I hope I don’t chicken out. Once it came to my turn I just copied exactly what the others were doing. I took a few steps back, and then ran as fast as I could and jumped over the edge. I closed my eyes on the way down, and felt myself hit the water and heard the cheering from all of the people.
“C’mon Sierra you can do it!” I yelled up to her.
She took a giant leap forward and screamed as she fell. She, as well as the other people, were also cheering as she rose to the surface. We got out of the water and wrapped ourselves in a towel immediately because we were so cold. We asked around to see if we can get a water walker anywhere, but no one knew where to get one. We were a little let down, but we were also okay with it since we got to do much cooler things today. It was five,, and the sun was still shining. We decided on making an effort to lie down in the sun and tan. I don’t exactly tan easily so there wasn’t really a point in trying for me, but it was always worth a shot. We tanned for almost a half an hour and then just hung around at the beach for another couple hours. The sun was starting to set so we decided to head on home. Luckily, there was a bus that led all the way back to the bus stop by our hotel. We almost fell asleep on the way back but we forced ourselves to stay awake. We lazily walked back into the hotel and got ready for bed. We wanted to achieve sleeping under the stars tonight so we set up a bed on the two lounging chairs on the balcony of the hotel.
After about a week of completing our bucket list Sierra got a call from her mom and dad.
“Hello is this Sierra?” said her mom.
“Yes, why?”
“This is your mother.”
She froze for a moment and then spoke again. “Why are you calling?”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Your father told me about the fight you two got in before you left. I know I've been a bad parent, I’m sorry I wasn’t ever home, and I’m sorry I wasn’t at your graduation. I know this is what you’ve always wanted to do though so I’m glad you’re finally there.”
“I accept your apology, but I don’t know if I will ever forgive you. I forgive too easily to people who don’t deserve it.”
“That’s okay, as long as you’re happy Sierra. Your dad says he’s sorry about the way he reacted before you left. ”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay well...goodbye.”
“Bye...”
That was the end of their conversation. Since then Sierra has seemed happier knowing that everything was close to okay with her parents. About a month later her brother and sister called and excitedly told her that they were going to visit her. Once they got here Sierra and I told them everything about our bucket list. Another month later we had finished our bucket list, with some help from Sierra’s brother and sister, and decided to stay in the UK. With a little help from our family, we payed off the rent for our small apartment. We later enrolled in college and worked hard to get our degrees. We had made these few months a time in our lives to remember forever.