Summer Escapade

Chapter 8. The Tour

Chapter 8. The Tour

After I got tired of reading, I flopped down beside Alex who was so serene in his deep thinking. There was really something going on or he wouldn't be as silent as a ghost. "Mind telling me?"

"Mind telling you what?"

"About what's eating you since last night," I said. Well, there's no harm in trying.

But he didn't answer me instead he left the bed and said, "Let's go." I was surprised with the sudden change of mood but then again, it's Alex.

"Where to?" I asked anyway to which he only smiled knowingly.

Turned out, he was planning on exploring the city. He'd used his phone to search for some local tourist destinations that we could visit. Makes sense, we're tourists here too. I was amazed when I found out that there are lots of places to check out hiding in this very city we didn't know where to start!

Well, first, we went to this Heatherfield Butterfly Garden. It went without saying. It's a butterfly garden and yes, there were lots of butterflies there. We got to see dozens of species of butterflies with different colors. There were others that closely resemble those butterflies outside the country and they were so beautiful! I've always loved seeing butterflies and to have to see as many of them like in here, it felt heaven. Really, it's like I'm in some garden in heaven. We were lucky enough as some of them were brave and carefree enough to land on our fingers as if they were our pets. I told Alex to take a picture of me with the butterflies. Gladly, he complied. It was even more epic when myriads of them surrounded us when one time they were released into the garden. It was one magical moment. Even Alex enjoyed watching them. I even took a stolen photo of him enjoying the sight. Shhh. He hated pictures. But I did manage to get us a picture together with the butterflies surrounding us. Perfect wallpaper.

Our next stop was Heatherfield Mall or they called it just The Mall. It's not a shopping mall, more of like the Mall in Washington DC where you can find the Smithsonian Museum and stuffs. There were about eight museums in this mall and one I liked the most was the Historical Museum. This one's loaded with relics and artifacts, of course coming from this very land. Making me appreciate its rich cultural heritage. The museum told a whole great deal about how the city was founded and built by...you guessed it...the Heatherfields. Although, there are other families who found the city, the one they called Sir Gerard Heatherfield was like their captain. He was a great statesman, that's what they say, and he did a great job in building this wonderful isolated but not so isolated city.

Well, our final stop for the day since it's already mid-afternoon, was Archie Park. Contrary to what I thought, it's not named after someone named Archie. It's just a shortened name for the Architecture Park. People in this city really liked shortening names. So Needless to say, a lot of architecture were on display. A lot of tourists were there to take pictures and all that stuffs. What's great was that, there's a part of the park, just nearby The Dome (it's a dome where concerts, big events, stuffs, school graduation are held), where you kind of would want to take a day off. It had a relaxing atmosphere with the help of the natural surroundings. I could rest here forever and look at those Cherry Blossoms lining the pathway. They were so worth gazing at forever. This felt good. Really. If this was what freedom meant, then I want it forever! I hope every day was like this!

I was about to thank Alex for this opportunity when I found him spacing out again. Seriously? This was such a nice place to space out.

"Don't tell me you were not enjoying all this time," I said. He was like this all through the day, smiling and seemed to be having a good time when I was looking but then when he thought I wasn't, he'll be back to his deep old thinking. Was there something I didn't know? And then it hit me. I gasped mentally. Did the people back home found out we're here and he doesn't know how to tell me? Oh bloody hell.