My birthday in the USA

As going to the United States of America has always been a dream of mine, I could not be happier to even have the chance to celebrate my birthday over there. I turned seventeen and my American family suggested to go to the mountains for the weekend. Of course I told them that it was a fantastic idea and I would enjoy it a lot. So on Saturday, I woke up and I found some papers in the hallway that said "Happy Birthday Cris", there were also ribbons on the handrail along the stairs. That made me happy already and the day was not even started yet. I get ready and then we go to Best Buy because I wanted to get a camera. I was in the USA and I was taking pictures with my phone, so I thought it was better to get an upgrade. Once I found one that satisfied me, we went back to the car and drove to Dillon.

Our neighbors have a house there and they told us we were more than welcome to go there and spend the weekend. Tom and Carol are really nice people. So anyway, as we arrived, we started making a puzzle, listening to music and chatting until the clock marked five thirty p. m.

We all changed into fancier clothes and drove to the close town of Breckenridge to have dinner. We ate at Hearthstone, which was very elegant. I felt very lucky to be there. It was a different kind of birthday. Usually, I would spend it at home with family, and perhaps I would go out with friends for drinks, but nothing major. Here I was in Breckenridge having dinner instead.

The day after my family called me on Skype because all my relatives were there (I have a twin brother so they were celebrating his birthday and they wanted to say happy birthday to me as well). After I did that, we went to a resort to use the hot tub and it was amazing. The weather was cold but it was so nice to be in a warm pool, I could have easily been there the whole day. Right after we went to have a hot chocolate and checked out of the resort. We went to Breckenridge again. The night before we did not see the city so it was a good time now to go back and walk around. I like it, it has a little downtown where people can walk around, the atmosphere is great and the people are very nice.

We stopped in many shops. The first one was an All Colorado Things. They had everything Colorado from t-shirts to sweaters and cups. I bought a long-sleeved shirt and then we moved on to the next shop, Olive Fusion. Here my American parents bought some olive oil. This place has a good variety of oil so I got the opportunity to taste a lot of flavors of olive oil (which I love, just like every Italian does). We stopped at Bubba Gump to have a snack and then moved on to Starbucks because it was just so cold and we wanted to be warm. I liked this Starbucks because they had also a fireplace, and of course, that is where I sat down.

After all our stops we went back home where we started the second puzzle, which was way harder. These puzzles were unique because they were made by someone and each piece was different from the other. The next morning I woke up and my American parents were gone and my American brother was still sleeping so I continued the puzzle.

It was amazing to wake up with snow falling. I have never seen snow before on my birthday. The atmosphere was cozy. My American parents came home, we had lunch and then we went to buy some stuff. When we came back we all sat next to the fireplace and chatted.

On Tuesday, we had to go back to Greeley so we cleaned up the house and packed. On our way to Greeley, they wanted to take me to lunch at one of the places they always go to but three of them were closed. Three! Anyways we finally succeeded to have lunch and continued our journey back home. It was crazy, there was ice on the roads, it took us some time to reach Greeley and it was impressive to see snow there too! When we left it three days earlier the sun was shining, and now it was something like zero degrees Fahrenheit!

It was sad to be back because I started the new trimester and I wish I could have a few days more of birthday celebrations, but it is okay. I was back to reality and was going to start another incredible trimester.

- Cristian

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