Unforgettable

Chapter 1

Classes for college let out for spring break, and we needed a long deserved break. My bestie and I decided to catch some sun and headed south to Florida for about a week.

We went just to relax on the beaches and maybe go to some amusement parks as well. It was the summer and so why not enjoy it before "real life" kicked off again?

It was just my best friend and I and nothing was going to stop us from our fun!!

While wandering around some local shops, we came across a flier hyping some random band and giving info on last min tickets. Our eyes flicked over it and ignored it just like all the other fliers that were in there too.

At the time we may have just disregarded it as just another lame band, but if only we didn't things may have been different, though I don't regret any of the events that transpired later on.

My friend and I returned to that same shop on the last day of our trip for some last minute souvenirs. We once again found ourselves in front of the wall full of fliers due to it being near a section of tee-shirts we wanted to look at. A random guy saw us and walked over "Going to see any of the bands posted here?" he asked. 'OMG creep alert!!' I turned around and quickly responded, "No. Never even heard of most of these before." and then turned back around to continue browsing, hoping that he would just leave us alone. "Oh! Cool cool. Im going to see a new one tonight, and you and your friend here seem pretty cool, and I just thought I'd ask and see if you'd be interested..." He rushed out. "Um thanks but I think we're good for now, but maybe next time..." I trailed off. My friend and I made the 'help me' eyes to each other and started walking away. "Oh, Um... Ok! Maybe next time then?" He said loudly behind us as we walked away, and we just ignored him.

We looked at each other laughed a little and shrugged. Like who just does that? I mean that was a pretty ballsy move, and honestly, we might have been intrigued if it wasn't the end of our trip. But we were also trying to play it safe and NOT get kidnapped. We brought the shirts and other random keychains and things we wanted to buy at that store up to the registers, paid, and left to go to our hotel room.

"What the actual HECK!!??" My bestie said to me as they flopped backward onto their bed. "Oh man, that was crazy right? Like who just comes up to random strangers that weren't even looking at the wall of posters and shit, and tries to start a convo with people that obviously aren't in there for that?" Heavy eye-roll from me here. My friend rolled over and looked at me, "I mean yeah we're totally approachable but did you see the LOOK he was giving us?? I'm just glad we didn't find any zip ties or anything on the rental car."

"Yep, that would've been hard to explain. "'Sorry Mr. Car Rental Person, but we had to flip the car to get away from the weird creep that was following us"' (said in a goofy voice). But we're good, and now we can chill and take a nap before we have to catch our flight." She looked at me deadpanned and then started laughing, "OMG that would have been funny just to see their reactions at least. But you're also right..." broke off into a yawn, "We have several hours before we have to get to the airport so nap time it is!"

We then got cleaned up from the day, set a couple of alarms on our phones just in case we didn't hear them, and then fell asleep. When our alarms went off at 5 pm we did not want to get out of bed, but we had to. We had to do a last check to make sure we had everything all packed up and ready to go.

"Time to go back to the boring real world," I said with an eye-roll and a sigh. We finally gathered our luggage up, rolled it to the elevators, and once we were in the lobby, we got in our taxi and were on our way to the airport. It was Saturday so that gave us a buffer day to chill and work a little on taking care of our souvenirs and putting away our luggage before having to start classes again on Monday.

My bestie and I shared an apartment together which helped save us some money while going to school, but also gave us more freedom to just be ourselves vs when we were living at home. Not that home wasn't great or anything but it could get stifling sometimes.

We got back to the apartment safe and sound, unloaded, and went to bed. The full unpacking could wait till the next day. Once Monday rolled around it was a STRUGGLE to get out of bed and get ready for classes! "Do we really have to go back to school today? I mean we could always fake being sick and just not show..." My friend complained.

"I guess we could... but the one professor did say to make sure everyone was back on Monday so that they could hear whatever the big announcement is. Like, we could skip it but I also kinda want to know what it is. Don't you?"

"Yeah" sigh, "I just don't want to deal with people you know?"

"I don't either but we'll just have to suffer. It's almost the summer anyway! We can do this!" I tried to cheer them up

The professor we were referencing was Professor Lars Forsberg. He teaches Swedish at the college.

Our majors required us to take a language and we had decided that we didn't want to learn anything boring like Spanish. Especially since I learned a lot of it in middle school and the beginning of high school, and was sooo over it by the time I got into college, for my friend, it was the same but they took French. We wanted to try something new and exciting and honestly just rolled a die and depending on the number was how we chose the language. It was between Swedish and German, and the die landed on Swedish.

There was only one class for the language because it was not super popular, but on the bright side, it meant a smaller-sized class and a really chill teacher.

It was rapidly approaching the end of the day, and our last class was Swedish. As we made our way to Lars' classroom, I wondered about what the 'huge' announcement could be.

"Välkommen klass! I have a HUGE announcement for you all!! I went to the Dean and the school board with the idea and they said we can do it!!" He was prancing around the room and waving his hands around very excitedly. "At the end of this year's class, we will be going to my home for several months!!"

"..." I raised my hand, "Um Professor, Your home? Isn't that kinda mmm I don't know, CREEPY??"

"No no no no no no no. Not my home home, but where I'm from. Sweden!" He replied with a big grin on his face. "We'll have to do a little bit of fundraising but as it's cheaper than most of the other places the other language teachers take their students, the board decided to pay for the majority of the trip!! So flights are all paid for as are most of the costs of the hotel. Everyone will have to pitch in about $500 a piece to cover the rest of the hotel and some food costs..." He rambled on about the costs of things and gave us some ideas for fundraising.

My friend and I just looked at each other, high-fived, and yelled "WE'RE GOING TO SWEDEN!!!!"