I’ve been telling you stories about my papa going all over the country, but
that’s not all he did. He also went to other countries. After he graduated
from high school, he and his parents didn’t think that he was ready for
college. He wasn’t stupid or too young. They just thought that he should do
something else first. A lot of people do something called a gap year, which
is when you wait to go to college. This often means traveling to other
places. What my papa decided to do was to go on a big ship all the way from
the United States to Europe. Specifically, he went from Maine to Portugal.
Portugal is a country in Europe where they may sound like they speak
Spanish, but it’s actually its own special language called Portuguese. They
speak it in Brazil too. Papa did a lot of driving, but he flew in planes
sometimes too. This time, he flew to Maine, and stayed for a couple of
nights before the ship left. It left from a city called Portland. You’ve
probably heard of the Portland in Oregon, but there’s also one in Maine. The
ship was this really big thing called a freighter. They carry a whole bunch
of cargo across the ocean. Even though it was really big, there weren’t that
many people on it. Papa didn’t work for the ship company, but they let him
ride for very little money as long as he helped clean. It took three weeks.
When he got to Portugal, which the capital of is Lisbon, he spent another
couple of nights there, and then he started to backpack all over Europe. The
whole trip took him about four months. Dad thinks that papa went through a
storm in the middle of the ocean, but he’s not sure, and he obviously made
it home safe and sound.
No comments :
Post a Comment