Scott wasn’t even a friend of mine. He was the boyfriend of a friend, who happened to also be a best friends of my girlfriend. I was friends with Gail, actually, for several years as we went to the same high school.
Over the years, Scott and Gail and my girlfriend and I had double-dated 3, maybe 4 times. Scott was affable enough, and we both talked about sports while Gail and my girlfriend spoke intently about whatever girls who have known one another from elementary school, through high school, and now university, talk about.
Before going back to our separate universities for our second year, the 4 of us got together for dinner. As we were waiting for appetizers, Scott mentioned that he was going on a ski trip to Austria for winter break and I should go along. I thought to myself that might be fun. And then Gail stopped mid-sentence concerning something she bought at the mall to interject, you should definitely go, Patrick. And then my girlfriend said, I’d go if I were you.
I forgot all about it, and went back to university, getting mired in the first set of real engineering classes. Then sometime in October, I got a call from Scott—hey, are you still interested in going on that ski trip? And so shortly after midterms, I found myself driving an hour out of the city to attend an informational meeting at Scott’s church. I forget what denomination he was, but it wasn’t catholic like me and my girlfriend and Gail were. They explained that we would take a bus up to JFK and then a flight over to Munich and then a bus to Innsbruck and we’d ski the Alps for 6 days before coming back to the States.
The total cost for the trip was going to be $1050. It covered airfare, transit, hotel (with breakfast and dinner buffets), and ski passes for 4 of the 6 days (if I wanted to ski the other 2 days, it would be out of pocket). I had a scholarship for my tuition and books. And I had a couple jobs to pay for my apartment and living expenses. But I didn’t want to tap into my meager savings account in the event the Spring semester of my second year proved so challenging as folks were telling me that I might have to concentrate on my studies and be forced to drop one of my jobs.
So the following Monday morning I was in the financial aid office at university, asking whether I could take out a loan to go on a ski trip to Europe. I had never been overseas before, figured it was worth a shot. She enthusiastically encouraged it—traveling overseas is one of the great pleasures in life, and those fortunate enough to do it should never not go, she gushed.
I signed on the dotted line on an application for $1200 (hey, I needed spending money!).
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