It was the winter of 2014 and I was sitting in the car with my stepmother, Jessica. We pulled up to our house that my dad, Jessica, Hannah, and I have lived in for a little less than 5 years. Jessica got out of the car to grab the mail and noticed that there was a letter addressed to me from this group called People to People, so she handed me the letter. I was very curious to what laid behind that envelope. I was fiddling with the letter down the driveway into garage, and into the house. I took off my black Nike shoes, and walked into the kitchen, just waiting to tear open the envelope. I sat down on the right side of the black granite island, I always sat on the right because we had two chairs, one look like a boy and the other a girl. I opened the envelope and noticed right away, a blue capital letter P inside a box in the upper hand corner of a tan paper. I read the letter in my head, having an anxious feeling hit me with every word I read.

Once I had finished reading, I started daydreaming about how cool it would be to go to a different country, explore the world, and meet new people. Then I started thinking “Where do I want to go, Ireland?, England?, China?, Russia?” Jessica curious asked

“What does the letter say?”

I told her

“It’s a student ambassador program, where you got to go to different country and learn their culture, have new experiences, and meet new people.”

She thought that would have been really cool for me because she knows I am really fascinated with history and culture. The original itinerary was going from Ireland to Wales, then England, and finishing off with France.
A few months before at the monthly meetings in Troy, they reversed the itinerary, but I’m glad because I got to do the fun group activities with the friends I made by the end. We went over some rules and requirements. At this meeting we also found out that we were teaming up with a group from Minnesota, I didn’t know it at the time, but some of my favorite people were from the Minnesota group.

Later my parents told me, I had to pay $2000 out of the total, because they wanted me to work for this experience and not just have it handed to me, so I did an excruciating amount of yard work and inside work.
Days and months rolled by, and I was filling with buckets of anticipation each day.

The day finally came! I could barely sleep. It was 9:00 AM and I had to leave for the airport. My dad, Jess, and I stepped into my dad's black Dodge Journey company car and drove down to the airport.

When we arrived into our parking spot, I was so overcome with the anxious feeling, I wanted to run to plane.
We waited for a while in the airport, but when the plane came I was about to burst with joy. We boarded the plane in the center. I was happy that my seat was not a window seat, but an aisle seat because I’ve always loathed the nauseous feeling I get when I have a window seat. After a couple movies and a super uncomfortable slumber, we arrived in Paris.

We grabbed our luggage, and headed out to our bus. I remember I only wanted to sit by my only good friend that I had, Ryan.

Now I realize that was not a smart idea because I didn’t try to connect with someone else and not just stay in my comfort zone. But I did, and the bus toured around the city. During the tour me and Luke became friends. At the time I didn’t really notice the dirty city, and mean Parisians, but looking back at some of the pictures, I do notice some anger in correlation with New Yorkers, and the unsanitariness with Detroit.

I also became friends with Jade, David, and Adam during our time in Paris.

After our 3 days in Paris, a dirty white city, we headed to Normandy.

The other ambassadors who have veteran parents or siblings laid a wreath at the memorial, which I distinctly remember telling myself to not shed a tear. It was weird because I don’t know why but it was there, but it was developing in the crest of my inner eye, and hearing our national anthem playing in the background.

After Normandy, we took a ferry to England, and went to UKSA(United Kingdom Sailing Academy). Here I bonded with Connor, Adam, Halle, and Lauren. During the different activities that were fun, like kayaking, rowing, raft building, and weird competitions, had no value to me at the time, during my reflection of the trip in Atlanta and Mt. Pleasant, I realized this was super important because it was time we started to bond, and work as a team.
After our eccentric time in UKSA, we traveled to London and other towns in England that I started bonding with the others.

Wales was our next stop, before the trip I had in my mind that this part of the trip was going to be the “boring” part, now looking back I realize, I judged the book by it’s cover. It’s funny because it was in Wales where I learned the most about myself.

After arriving to the Full On experience building, we departed from the bus, and put our bags on the walls, as the instructor told us, then he said projecting his voice through the room,

“I want all of you to start dancing. Just dance, don’t care what the others think. I won’t judge you, your peers won’t as well, just DANCE!”

It was a very unnatural for me, and I felt uncomfortable doing this because I hated going out of my comfort zone. Everyone was staring at me, at least that’s how I felt, but after this experience I was able to make a fool of myself and be happy with myself.

After the dancing, the instructors started talking about what we were going to accomplish with them. How we were going to rappel down a castle, but most important sharing with us their knowledge about life.
After the frightening castle experience, the main instructor started about how we should approach life.
He said with confidence “You should plant an idea and go full into it, and it’s okay if you fail at it because everyone fails at something. Don’t go halfway and give up, don’t stop.”

When I learned that, it changed my life.

I’ve since tried my activities that I would have never done before like wakeboarding and playing the guitar, which I failed at both, or try pole vaulting, playing the ukulele, and water skiing, which I happened to be successful at.
Later we stayed at a hostel next to a mountain. Before I could never imagine a scale of mountain, but after standing in its shadow, I know how small we are compared to everything else.

We had a day there to ourselves where we hung out. During that time a group of 10 wanted to go up the mountain. I was in a group with Ryan, Lauren, and Halle. With counselor approval we went up, during the ascent the sight was impeccable. The grass was a green I’ve never found in the United States. The colossal clover covered mountain was towering over the hostel, and the broken behemoth boulders.

Once I made my way to the lake with the others, we had to turn back because the counselors told us that was as far as we could go, but the sight was indescribable. I took a picture but it only gives one-tenth of actual beauty.
As we walked backed I noticed what looked like a gray wall coming from in front of us as we got closer, the others noticed it too. The wall of rain had took its final approach to reach us, as we were only a jaunt away from the building.

That night I slept really good, and in the morning I was up really early, so I walked down for a morning coffee, and it turns out my friend Adam was also an early bird, and we shared a misty mountain morning coffee.
The next day I noticed I missed that misty morning, and realized that stressing out is too much work, calming down in your time of day should be at least a weekly thing.

After Snowdonia, we took our bus to a port to go to Ireland.

As the ferry floated across the water, with wind flowing through it like Chicago, to Ireland, I had a missing Wales that rivaled Chuck Nolan missing Wilson.

Being Mr.Brightside I enjoyed Ireland just as much. In Ireland we farmed peat for the elderly, which made me feel happy, since then I have joined CHS Optimist Club, and have helped out with numerous activities.
Later we went to a school where we learned how to Irish river dance, and we also did a talent show. David and I sang don’t go breaking my heart by Elton John, which we butchered, but I didn’t care, and knew if it wasn’t for Full On, I never would have done it.

In the Dublin airport where we boarded the plane for Atlanta, I knew that all I had to remember was my Full On experience and Snowdonia and I would be just fine.

In Atlanta, I said goodbye possibly forever to some of these people, and others, I knew I was going to see again with my determination to keep my friends close.

I was right, about 10 months later, my friend Halle asked me to go to prom in Minnesota with her, and before I knew it I was there with $500 less in my bank account.