Gap Years Diary

• Katie Rowe, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2013

My name is Katherine Paddleworth and I’m free! My friends I were all very excited about next week. Leaving our hometown to fly to many different destinations around the world for our gap year together.
The first part of our gap year started in London. Today we were checking out the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace when we heard lots of loud shouting coming from round the corner. As you can imagine we went to go take a peek at what all the fuss was about. To our surprise it was the Queen. In all the commotion L’tisha slipped over someone’s bag and face planted straight into one of the Queen’s royal horse poo’s all the time trying to catch a glimpse of her idol. As requested by the now smelly L’tisha being a huge Harry Potter fan we made our way to the set of Hogwarts, we quickly stopped at our hotel where L’tisha showered and changed into her Hermione costume, almost forgetting her wand. While we were there catching a quick glimpse of Harry Potter, L’tisha drooled down her chin.
We jumped on a plane and flew to Scotland. Erica unfortunately had beans the previous night and thought it was important to share it with the plane. When we arrived we drove to nearby pub to do some cultural eating in Edinburgh. We tried Haggis and to our surprise it didn’t taste all that bad until I caught a whiff of something gross turned and looked at Erica was spewing in the bucket beside me.
In the third month in we flew to Turkey ready to attend the dawn service in Gallipoli. We took our time to acknowledge what these people had done for our country the drove to a nearby market and looked at some nice Turkish clothes. We all decided to go try some of their coffee. It was a so strong we all couldn’t sleep for two days. As if Erica wasn’t grumpy enough with a goodnight sleep.
We then caught a train to Italy. We all tried some of the finest spaghetti and lasagne we had ever eaten. L’tisha , Erica and I rode a peaceful train to Venice. We then hopped on a Gondola and enjoyed the soothing music as we sailed down the waters of Venice. This was until Erica thought it would be funny to push me in the water. It really should have been Erica as she supporting a hasty spew stain on her chest.
It was the last week of August as we got onto another plane to Bunol. It was our chance to take part in the so called ‘World’s Biggest food fight’ with tomatoes. Also known as the La Tomatina de Bunol. Our next stop was Pamplona and the running with the bulls. Although this was a very good experience I wouldn’t do it again. I saw my life flash before my eyes as the bull clipped my hip.
Lack of money cut our journey short and we all headed back to start the next phase of our lives.