As young kids we tend to believe that our customs from where we live are normal things. At 13 years old, I was able to visit another country for the very first time. Here is what I experienced during my time there.
Let me start from the beginning, I was 13 years old when my family have decided to send me to Peru in summer. I was going there to see family and play soccer with a team who were touring and playing against professional academy soccer clubs. I had my good time there in Peru as I loved the food there and the environment was so different than I was used to. It was like seeing another world as if I just landed in a different planet with people who speak a different language that I have yet gotten used to. I was living with my family members who were strangers for me at the time and I lived in an apartment where it was build right next to each other. I will describe it with the details I can remember. Going to my family members I remember seeing colorful signs, dirty and unpaved roads with loads of traffic swing by. The street filled with people walking and vendors selling their products from people in the streets. The honking of cars for the impatient drivers to go when the light turned green for one second. When I arrived there, I saw trash on the pavement and on the trash cans they have. The grayish sky that never shines the sun in the air. I saw the building I would be staying at. It was besides this big yellow building where my uncle would live. Three stories tall, built with concrete pavement, rusted rails that seem to barely be cleaned, tall windows with a balcony on the side of the building. It was something strange to me as I always was used to a house space and grass around it and a parking where multiple cars can go in. I would then see the building that I would be staying at. It was a grey building in with a balcony on top of the door and sliding doors made of glass with it. I looked up noticing it was the same structure of my uncle building just personalized and built differently than I was used to.
Again, as a 13-year-old kid who just traveled to another country, I was not expecting this drastic change of environment. The honking of cars in heavy traffic, the dogs on top of abandon building barking at you, the shops that were in house on the street where you can buy things you needed, kids playing soccer after school in the streets, the drug dealers on the next block at night being there to sell you the product they recently got, children coming in when traffic stops to do services for people so they can get paid, the beautiful artifacts and building in the major cities in Peru, the protests from people about their current government, and many more has happened when I was there in Peru. Even the way soccer was played there was different, I had to get adjusted to the skill these kids in the streets have as some of them even went through me pretty well. I would stay at my grandpa's house for a little as I was mainly there to play soccer.
I would then leave my grandpa's house to go and play soccer for the team my dad had paid for me to play in. It was the first time I was with a different group of players before. Back at home I would be coached by my dad with his team and I never played with anyone else but my dad. So, when I got there, I was really shy, and I didn't know how to start a conversation with any of these people. I would get to know them more as time went on through and I was able to connect with them pretty well. I would go against professional academies where they develop kids to become professionals. It was a great experience, and I was able to connect with an agent from Peru who I still talk to. I would get in trouble though because I was getting blamed on something I did not do which would almost get me kicked off the team. It was about how we broke one of the wooden boards from under the bed and we didn't know what to do. So as dumb teenagers we decided it was best to throw it out the window from the hotel room to another house so they wouldn't know who did it. Of course, the civilian who saw teenagers throw a wooden board near their own house would report us and we would get in trouble. I was being blamed though because apparently some of my teammates saw me throw the board over there which is not true at all as I was the youngest one of the whole group, so they wanted to blame the youngest one out of the whole team. Overall, I would come back to the United States with a whole different perspective of the life I had in Peru. I would be grateful for the things I am able to do that may not even seem that serious. I was glad I had to experience my dad's home country as I got to see both the good and bad of the country. If you need any advice from me, it is to eat as much as you can because once you leave, you're going to start craving Peruvian food.
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