Her name was Katia. She was Italian and her portuguese was almost as bad as her english. When sometimes they ran out of reasonable ways to explain something, that was when strange analogies would come into play. That would either get the message through or make them laugh. Nonetheless, they managed to understand each other. One of lil’P first mistakes, was to tell her that is was very likely to keep raining for the next months. She wasn’t expecting that and it took the smile out of her face. But that was nothing, compared with her astonishment about the pastas served in the few italian restaurants she had found: ma che c’è? cosa è questo?. She wasn’t happy about that at all.
Lil’P was Katia’s erasmus mentor. He applied for being a mentor as soon as he first heard about it. He needed to have a close look on how was to be an erasmus student. To be on your own, away from the home country facing the daily problems, the joys, the spirit, the sacrifices. On his mind, someone on this condition ought to be crying for help. He couldn’t be more mistaken. Learning to face the problems alone was part of the erasmus package and it wasn’t a sacrifice at all – it was one of the main goals. Another good thing about being a mentor, was that he had the chance to get the answers to all sort of questions about the too far away countries that he couldn’t find anywhere else. It was more clear what different people really meant and that, was just too appealing to be ignored. Lil’P new dream was starting to form on his mind.
So one night, after an yoga class, he and C. sat down and chatted for two hours about her 9 month experience (no, she haven’t been pregnant, she had been an erasmus student). By the end, lil’P smile couldn’t be any bigger. He decided that night. He was going for it.
Plans started to go bigger and bigger. Picking the destiny was like picking an ice cream out of a menu of a brand you don’t know very well. Despite all of them being sweet, you still try to pick the one you think you’ll like the best, but you always end up with a big set of them anyway.
Lil’P needed a 2^nd opinion about the ice creams so he started to contact students from his university that were or had been studying abroad and poke the good and the bads about it. Eventually he started to trim down his ice cream list and it was time for lil’P to take the hardest step: to tell his parents about his intentions. At first, his parents didn’t knew anything about it. Despite all the hurdles he had to face on his own, it was hard for him to tell them about his decision to go to a too far away country. Sure, it wasn’t really too far away. Sure, it was only for 6 months. And sure, it was very important to him. But it was way too expensive for them.
So, what was the solution? A trade-off. Lil’P sold some his stuff like his scooter, the one that eventually replaced his green bicycle and was parked most of the time anyway. He also pruned his ice cream list and he finally decided which was the most yummy one. A place where everybody would be at least 25cm taller than him, and whose main language he didn’t knew a word of. It was perfect.
The green light from lil’P parents arrived only after he received the results of his application, but that didn’t stop him in the meanwhile. Besides all the fuss with the academic and bureaucratic details there were like a million things to take care of being one of them to buy plane tickets. It would be lil’P first plane ride.
In the last night, he almost didn’t sleep. His mind was wired to a different voltage already and all he could think were the next 6 months. From the inside, a plane didn’t looked that much. Just like a big BUS with wings attached to it, he thought. The take off was very early in the morning and when the pilot delayed it, even until then, lil’P was afraid his dream wouldn’t come true. The pilot claimed it was foggy in the destination – for lil’P, that could very well be part of some secret plan to finally call everything off and forbid him to reach too far away countries.
A couple of hours later he said on the speakers they were allowed to take off. The big BUS finally started to move to the runway. The moment the engines got full trust that’s when lil’P understood that that was no big BUS after all and that there was no going back. He was flying to his dream. Next stop: Utrecht, The Netherlands.

(to be continued)