Unlike most people my age I could say I’m a world traveler. Since I was a newborn I’ve loved the thrill of traveling. The excitement of waking up early, packing, even impatiently waiting for a few hours at the airport terminal; it’s like an adrenaline rush. Every summer my family and I would go to New Jersey and New York to visit family and that was pretty much how far I’d go, but when I was 7 years old my grandmother took me to Cuba for about a month to visit some of my family. Going through immigration, just knowing I was somewhere other than the United States made me feel so cool, as silly as that sounds.
As years passed by I continued to travel to the boring Northeast until I was 13 and I got the chance to go to Europe. I went to England, France, and Spain; I don’t think I could ever fully explain how completely at home I felt. I loved hearing all the different languages at the airport, witnessing how different everything was. Our first stop was the Madrid Airport where we had a 4 hour layover before heading to London’s Heathrow Airport. The airport in Madrid was nothing like I’ve ever seen before. The architecture was extremely modern with golden yellow poles throughout the ceilings; it seemed like that’s what was holding up the roof. The trash cans had three different holes; one for plastic, one for regular trash, and one for aluminum! Even the trash cans were in a neon color.
6 hours later we arrived to the place where I would later realize was my home away from home, London, England. The amount of people that were scurrying around the streets, the accents, just the entire atmosphere was overwhelmingly thrilling to me. I’m completely obsessed with fashion so imagine my ecstasy when I looked around and all I saw was absolute fabulousness. I would stand there in awe as I’d admire the beautiful history that flooded out of that city. The Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tower of London, the London Bridge, and riding the famous London Eye. I walked the streets marveling at every thing I passed, taking pictures of insignificant things. I was home.
I later on traveled to Paris where I was very disappointed at the conditions there. The city was filthy and the architecture was definitely subpar to London’s breathtaking monuments. Riding the elevator up the Eiffel tower was possibly the most fun I’d had in the city of love, but the view was nothing less than beautiful. As we moved on to Spain I felt a little more open minded and excited on how the trip would carry on, because in my opinion nothing could be worse than Paris. Well I was completely right. Barcelona was an incredibly magical city. With all the culture, the colors, the Mediterranean Sea; Barcelona was a sight to see. Being Cuban and Colombian I thought it would be easy conversing with the locals, but little did I know that natives to Barcelona spoke in a dialect called Catalan. As jet lagged as we all were, we traveled down to see the Sagrada Familia, and it was a sight to see.
After my unforgettable trip to Europe, I continued to visit the Northeast until last Spring Break when my mom decided to take me to Europe for my fifteenth birthday! I was ecstatic when I heard that we were going back to England and France, but even more excited because we were also going to Switzerland, and what is now my second favorite place in the entire world, ITALY.
The most interesting thing that happened to us in England was that my mom and I got lost in the middle of Regents Park (a suburb of London), and in Paris we were fortunate enough to get incredible seats at the Moulin Rouge! After a 12 hour bus ride from Paris to Switzerland we finally arrived to ravishing Lucerne. Driving past the Swiss Alps was incredible, and when we found out where our hotel was my mom and I were super excited. Our hotel room looked like it was completely draped in IKEA furniture, modern and classy; but the best part was the view! You could see the silhouette of the Swiss Alps as you opened the snow white curtains hanging on the window sill. Switzerland was amazing.
After a short, but sweet stay in Lucerne we were finally on our way to destination I was waiting for…. ITALY! We first stopped in Florence where the smell of soft Italian leather filled the air and so did the pizza! After Florence we embarqued on our journey to the city on water, Venice. We rode the gondolas and it was so much fun. I ate gelato, rode in a water taxi, and ate A LOT of pizza. The next day we traveled to Rome where I was very disappointed. It was very dirty and the people were very rude. Besides the bad moments we had in Rome seeing the Coliseum, the Trevi Foutain; visiting the Vatican and being one of the lucky people that got to take in the heart stopping perfection that is the Sistine Chapel was really cool.
After all the fun, my journeys had come to an end. I was sad to leave, but happy to be coming home to my friends and family who I hadn’t seen or talked to for 2 weeks! Traveling around the world is definitely an addicting drug I can’t stop craving for. Traveling to me means escaping reality and entering another world filled with wonder, excitement, and in my case, lots and lots of Pizza.