Alex Kolter
European Adventure
A guy just going to Europe and learning a life lesson.
Ever since I was little kid I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. I don't know why, just mostly because of the culture I guess. As I got to seventh grade, I was twelve years old and I wanted to meet people. And I saw a little poster. Explorica: Go to travel to Europe! And I'm like “You know what, let's go to Europe and meet new people and see culture and stuff". There was a Explorica fundraiser for the trip, and I raised money for the explorica trip with my mother. I got the money. I made my goal, and my mom drove hastily to the Denver airport. I don't know why she was rushing me, but she was. I remember my heart pumping as I got closer and closer to the Denver airport. I was carrying a bag, a big briefcase that was ten pounds, not even! And I got my ticket and I said goodbye to my mother, my mother gave me this speech of “how much I've grown up” that kinda Mother's speech. And I said goodbye and I met with my group and I met up with the only boy in our group and I met this kid named Denzel. And Denzel, he seemed pretty nice. He didn't talk much, he was more introverted than me and we just talked a little or we stood next to each other until we got on the plane. I slept on the plane on the way to the U.K.
We were supposed to meet this group in the U.K. from the airport and when I got off the plane I didn’t realize how drowsy, I took three Benadryl, I'm in a different time zone and I'm grouchy. So, we met this other group and then we had to wait for our guide. I decided to sit on a bench in front of a poster and I didn't know what kind of poster. I saw the other group, which had two other guys pointing, kind of laughing at me, and I thought these guys were jerks because because I don't really like to be laughed at for no reason. Especially by physical appearance, and I was judging them on their appearance because these guys are muscular and wearing caps military caps. One looked like a frat boy. Like he goes to Starbucks every single morning and every single afternoon. So I didn't I didn't think I liked them very much. Then we went to the hotel and I had two choices because all of us boys were in one little tiny room: watch London politics or hang out with these new people. And I didn’t understand London politics. So I hanged out with the two boy that were laughing at me.
It turned out the names were Alex and Connor. And they actually did seem pretty nice, they were much more extroverted, they just like to talk like normal people. Now after two days in the U.K, we went to France and as we traveled from Paris to southern France, I kind of started to notice that Denzil was kind of being, rude to people around him. This one time he bought this sword and it was a good sized sword and he was swinging around in a tight little street. The streets were pretty narrow and people were trying to avoid him as best as best as they can and they were like six feet away from him at least.Then after that he bought a tomato and then dropped it “accidently” on someone. And instead of just saying “I'm sorry” he just kind of laughed and moved on. I was trying to buy something from the guy and he didn't appreciate me very much after that because he was a bit mad. But I started to hang out with Alex and Connor a little bit more. These guys turned out to be super-duper nice. We were walking in this local market, like you know how we have the farmer's market here, it's basically the same thing in the middle of Paris. This farmer guy dropped all his tomatoes or peaches it wasn’t exactly clear. They were red, but it looked to me they were tomatoey but they were furry. They were probably peaches. But I notice how much of these guys have help and I have to picked up all these peaches and the guy gave us some peaches and they were really delicious peaches, they were the most fantastic peaches I've ever had. And I noticed how they didn't buy a sword, they didn't swing it around scare people at all, you know they're absolutely making sure that they didn’t insult people's culture.
And after that trip, I went back to the U.K. I was heading back home and I noticed the poster I was sitting on. And I noticed the poster was a condom poster and it said “Latex condoms: Pleasure for your woman,” and apparently where I was sitting, I was covering the W and O, so I just said “Pleasure for your man”. I know I just realized Holy crap these guys weren’t judging me by my appearance at all, they were judging me because I was covering a W and O, and instead of pleasure for a woman, it said “Pleasure for your man.” So I learned a lesson like right then and there. It was don't judge people off the people's appearance judge of how what they do in how their attitude towards the other people.
We were supposed to meet this group in the U.K. from the airport and when I got off the plane I didn’t realize how drowsy, I took three Benadryl, I'm in a different time zone and I'm grouchy. So, we met this other group and then we had to wait for our guide. I decided to sit on a bench in front of a poster and I didn't know what kind of poster. I saw the other group, which had two other guys pointing, kind of laughing at me, and I thought these guys were jerks because because I don't really like to be laughed at for no reason. Especially by physical appearance, and I was judging them on their appearance because these guys are muscular and wearing caps military caps. One looked like a frat boy. Like he goes to Starbucks every single morning and every single afternoon. So I didn't I didn't think I liked them very much. Then we went to the hotel and I had two choices because all of us boys were in one little tiny room: watch London politics or hang out with these new people. And I didn’t understand London politics. So I hanged out with the two boy that were laughing at me.
It turned out the names were Alex and Connor. And they actually did seem pretty nice, they were much more extroverted, they just like to talk like normal people. Now after two days in the U.K, we went to France and as we traveled from Paris to southern France, I kind of started to notice that Denzil was kind of being, rude to people around him. This one time he bought this sword and it was a good sized sword and he was swinging around in a tight little street. The streets were pretty narrow and people were trying to avoid him as best as best as they can and they were like six feet away from him at least.Then after that he bought a tomato and then dropped it “accidently” on someone. And instead of just saying “I'm sorry” he just kind of laughed and moved on. I was trying to buy something from the guy and he didn't appreciate me very much after that because he was a bit mad. But I started to hang out with Alex and Connor a little bit more. These guys turned out to be super-duper nice. We were walking in this local market, like you know how we have the farmer's market here, it's basically the same thing in the middle of Paris. This farmer guy dropped all his tomatoes or peaches it wasn’t exactly clear. They were red, but it looked to me they were tomatoey but they were furry. They were probably peaches. But I notice how much of these guys have help and I have to picked up all these peaches and the guy gave us some peaches and they were really delicious peaches, they were the most fantastic peaches I've ever had. And I noticed how they didn't buy a sword, they didn't swing it around scare people at all, you know they're absolutely making sure that they didn’t insult people's culture.
And after that trip, I went back to the U.K. I was heading back home and I noticed the poster I was sitting on. And I noticed the poster was a condom poster and it said “Latex condoms: Pleasure for your woman,” and apparently where I was sitting, I was covering the W and O, so I just said “Pleasure for your man”. I know I just realized Holy crap these guys weren’t judging me by my appearance at all, they were judging me because I was covering a W and O, and instead of pleasure for a woman, it said “Pleasure for your man.” So I learned a lesson like right then and there. It was don't judge people off the people's appearance judge of how what they do in how their attitude towards the other people.