During the end of my freshman year I had received an email asking if I could attend a tryout to see if I would make the team that would be heading over to Europe to play soccer. When my mom told me that I had to go to soccer I asked her why, she said that I had a tryout to see if I would be picked to go to Spain and Portugal to play in two major international soccer tournaments that are held there. When I was told this I was very excited. I went to soccer on the weekend to go to the try out. I had got there and my two best friends were there so I was really happy.
Then the practice started, we all started off doing the same thing. I was having fun and I was doing good. All in all the practice went good. About two days later I received another email informing me that I was chosen to be on the team that went to Europe out of fifty kids they chose twenty, so I was proud of myself and my mom was also proud of me. Near the end of June I have to get all of my things and go to the airport. I’m thinking to myself do I have everything I need, then | think to myself this is going to be the last time I’m going to see my parents, my sister, and my dog for almost 3 weeks.
We get to the airport and I then I get with my team and we check our bags in and get our boarding passes. Once everyone of our team mates got their passes we all got together and took a team picture then we all said our goodbyes. My mom told me to do my best and don’t get into trouble and to remember to brush my teeth shower and wash my clothes. Then we left and that was the last time i’m going to see my family in three weeks. Then the real journey began. A 12 hour plane ride to Lisbon, Portugal sitting next to my best friend.
When we landed in Lisbon i was super excited because I was going to room with my friend named Danny and my other friend named David. When we got to our room we chose our beds then we got to rest a little bit. Then after that we got ready and went to the beach and walked along the boardwalk. The environment in Lisbon was very different from Chicago. There were so many people and the weather was very nice also the people were nice. Another thing that was different was the money it was a big challenge for me was dealing with my money.
Because if I see something I want to buy it. Also I have trouble keeping my money in a safe place. Also I tend to lose track of my money and end up leaving money around and other people take it. But when I was in Europe I learned how to keep my money and how to convince myself that I don’t need to buy that 12 pound bag of candy. Also I experienced my friend losing money and he had to borrow money from or coach to buy food and other necessities. That is one lesson I learned in Europe. Now comes game time. Our games where 1 hour long.
But we played in the scorching heat. So it felt like it was the games where very long. But on every game I tried my best and always gave it my all even though we might have lost some games. My coach had told me that even though we lost that we can always take something positive about the lost. For example we lost a game 1-0 and he told us that the positive thing about the loss is that we know things that we can work on because we know what our weakness is. Knowing this we can take this looks and use it to our advantage because we now know what our biggest weakness is.
From that game on we didn’t lose a game on until we made it to the finals. We were the first American team to ever be in the finals. It was a very tough and entertaining game but in the end we lost in a penalties shootout. After the game we were all very sad and frustrated. We then got together and ate lunch and watched the next final. Then we went to the ceremony where we got out second place medal. Then we got too go to France the next day and we went to the beach. The beach was very fun and the food was very good.
Once we left France we went got back to Lisbon. On our second to last day in Lisbon we went to the beach for the whole day and we were able to do whatever we wanted. At night we got back to the hotel and the hotel held a special dinner for us. Which ended our stay in Lisbon. We went to airport the next day and got on a plane back home which was very depressing because being in such a different environment was very fun and we all wanted to stay. After the twelve hour flight we got home and returned to our regular lives.
