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The girls sit outside the bus admiring all the cute boys in Switzerland. Mrs. Bjork approaches Dan, who is drawing a sketch of a mountain. She checks in to make sure that Dan is doing okay and reminds him that although it’s great to always follow the rules and please others, he should also “live a little” and fully enjoy the trip (132). Mrs. Bjork reminds Dan that he might never return to Europe, so he should make the most of it. When Dan softly replies “okay,” Mrs. Bjork encourages him to speak louder (to boost his confidence).
On the bus, Kelly stops Dan to apologize for waking him up when she was sleepwalking. Amy asks Dan if he plans to ignore her for the rest of the trip, and he becomes immediately flustered. During the four-hour bus ride, Dan hears that Amy was talking about him, and Shelley overhears the conversation. She urges Dan to talk to Amy, but Dan is scared because of the last time he tried to tell a girl how he felt. Three years earlier, his friends told him that he should ask a girl out whom he was friends with, and Dan thought it was a great idea. He told her how he felt, but she turned him down, citing his being “ugly” as the reason. Dan was mortified, and his friends laughed at him. He stood alone in the playground, wishing to never go through that again. On the bus, Shelley tells Dan that he’s a good person and that she’ll do what she can to help him with Amy. Dan smiles and relaxes a little.
In Munich, Germany, Dan is enthralled by the art and architecture. The group visits a famous brewery, and anyone who is 14 is allowed to drink a beer with permission from their parents. Dan lies and says that he’s 14, and Mrs. Bjork lets him get away with it. Everyone watches as Dan tries his first beer. He takes a few sips but hates the taste and already feels inebriated. Dan goes outside to find a Fanta soda and spots Amy and her friend being harassed by a man who is drunk and thinks that Amy is his daughter. Dan gets in between them and puts his fists up, and the man runs away. Afterward, Dan talks to Amy and manages to make her laugh. They joke about the kiss on the ear, and Dan is relieved that Amy found it funny. All of a sudden, a man comes out of the brewery and vomits right in front of Dan and Amy. His vomit lands on Dan’s face, and the sight and smell make Amy sick.
Dan sits in the back of the bus, scowling, while the other kids complain about how he still smells like vomit. Dan thinks back to a day when he was drawing a dragon that he was proud of and another kid told him that his drawing was terrible. On the same day, a girl in Dan’s class saw the same drawing and offered to buy it. Dan hasn’t wanted to show anyone his work since, but when Amy asks to watch him draw, Shelley encourages Dan to let her. Amy is impressed and gifts Dan a Fanta soda. They talk for the rest of the bus ride, and Dan compliments Amy’s hair. When Amy pretends to fall asleep on Dan, he isn’t sure what to do, but his friends hint that he should stay put. Dan sits smiling as Amy cuddles next to him.
The students are all placed with families to spend a week living the authentic Austrian culture. Dan, Darryl, and Braden are placed with a kind, elderly woman named Helga who doesn’t speak English but can understand it. She instantly notices the smell on Dan, and after the long bus ride, she urges him to get in the shower and washes his clothes for him. Helga’s niece, Annette, helps out around the house, and several other students are also staying with Helga, including some girls who are Dan’s age and some university-age girls. Everyone enjoys a delightful meal together, and Dan is grateful to be around such a great group of people. After dinner, he spots Helga watching tennis on TV and sits down to join her. Helga comments on John McEnroe, who is famous for his extreme temper, saying that she wishes he would be kind. Dan admits that he admires McEnroe’s confidence in himself and wishes that he had some of that himself. He confesses that he has spent the past two years closed off to making new friends because he worries about getting bullied. When Darryl and Braden invite Dan for a walk, Dan decides that he would rather sit with Helga.
The students learn about the German culture at the local university, including the basics of the language, the waltz, and Marlene Dietrich. Dan realizes that people are much friendlier when they don’t have all the baggage and memories of school to worry about. Back at Helga’s house, Dan goes outside to collect his laundry and finds two girls his age smoking cigarettes. Both are French but can speak English, and their attitude toward smoking is more casual than what Dan is used to. He decides to go against what he knows about smoking and tries it, but he immediately coughs and sputters. With a red face, Dan announces that he will never try smoking again. The girls laugh and give him a mixtape filled with French rap. They ask him if he’s ever been to a discotheque or danced with a girl. The question reminds Dan of a school dance in which a girl named Katie, who everyone referred to as ugly, was sitting alone. To help her feel better, even if just for a moment, Dan asked her to dance. Katie got the wrong idea and tried to kiss Dan, and when he rejected her, she became upset and yelled at him. Dan’s friends looked on with amusement rather than empathy.
With the help of the older girls, Dan gets into the adults-only discotheque. He’s nervous and overwhelmed at first, but the girls help him loosen up by dancing with him and telling him that everyone looks silly when they dance. For the first time in years, Dan is carefree and comfortable. He walks Amy home and feels lighter than air as he leaves. Suddenly, Dan realizes that he doesn’t know how to get home and it’s the middle of the night. He comes across a rack of unlocked bikes and tries to take one, but a group of punks comes out of a garage and starts chasing him. Dan grabs a bike in an effort to escape, and as he rides away with the punks on his heels, he feels alive and confident. At home, Dan is welcomed with his first ever cup of coffee. He remembers the day he went grocery shopping with his mom and she told him that he should take the European trip. Dan wasn’t sure, but his mom wanted him to experience the world and expand his view. Now, Dan is grateful that she pushed him to do it.
Dan spends the next few days attending classes and field trips, and he appreciates the sense of routine and not having to rush everywhere. When their time in Salzburg, Austria, ends, the kids say their goodbyes to their new families. Amy gives Dan a lighter with his name on it that she bought back in Paris, and Dan is surprised that she’s been thinking of him for so long. On the bus, Dan sees two other kids breaking up and hears someone mention how a relationship can’t last under these circumstances anyway. He turns to Amy and tells her that he just wants to be friends, expressing worries about one of them getting hurt when the trip ends. Amy walks away in tears, and Dan turns to the window and cries.
After their time in Paris and Lucerne, the group moved on to Munich. Between each destination was a transition period and a time for Dan to reflect on what he experienced and consider how he had grown and what he had learned. While Dan sat drawing a mountain, Mrs. Bjork approached him, sensing that something was wrong. She was attentive and kind, and she forgave Dan’s faults more than he forgave himself. She was patient with him and attempted to help him navigate adolescence and build self-confidence, highlighting the theme of Overcoming Fear to Live in the Moment. By telling Dan to “live a little” (132), Mrs. Bjork reminded Dan that each opportunity before him may never be presented again, so he should grab onto it if he could. She hoped that Dan would learn to enjoy life and embrace excitement, rather than fearing what might go wrong. Dan took this advice to heart, as is most evident in his attempts at drinking beer, smoking, and going to an adults-only club. Although these aren’t necessarily safe or wise decisions, they indicate a different side of Dan that was finally coming to light. Rather than saying no to everything, Dan was finally opening up and willing to try something new. The memoir approaches these moments with a sense of humor and levity but is also clear about the damaging effects that smoking and drinking can have; Dan hated both experiences, but at least he now knew that he hated them. He started to see that experiencing things is much more fulfilling than simply reading or hearing about them. At the discotheque in particular, Dan felt totally free and unencumbered: “I’ve missed this feeling. I feel comfortable in my own skin” (215). After years of being bullied and being told that he wasn’t good enough (both internally and by others), Dan finally returned to the carefree mentality that he had when he was younger. In accessing his childlike sense of fun, Dan ironically matured and grew as a person. When punks chased him the same night, he allowed fear to propel and energize him rather than freezing on the spot.
To convey the effect of full immersion in the culture and replicate the experience of living with people who didn’t speak Dan’s language, the book doesn’t include translations for most of the dialogue that occurs with people who speak German or French. This not only adds to the memoir’s realism but also helps characterize the people whom Dan interacted with but couldn’t fully understand. Helga, for example, spoke only German, but she and Dan shared an unspoken understanding. They were both fans of tennis, and Dan felt comfortable talking to Helga about his securities. His conversation with Helga reveals that he did in fact desire more confidence but wasn’t sure how to achieve it. Helga and the other exchange students became like family to him, and his time with them thematically amplifies Discovering the Independent Self because they accepted him as he was and created an environment in which he felt safe and trusted.
Along with his own personal journey, Dan developed a closer bond with Amy, despite his reluctance. Amy was insistent and open, while Dan was shy and closed off. Amy kept trying to spark conversations and show an interest in Dan’s drawing hobby, and he accepted it after some encouragement from his friends. Amy turned out to be funny and kind, and she was the only one who didn’t mind that Dan smelled like vomit on the bus. Being with Amy made him feel lighter than air, as is symbolized by the splash page depicting him strolling in the sky after walking Amy home. The fact that Amy liked Dan just as he was and didn’t tell him to change or point out his flaws helped Dan see that he was worthy of being liked (including by himself). The relationship improved Dan’s confidence, and each “first time” that he shared with Amy was a time that helped shape him, thematically emphasizing The Impact of First Experiences. Dan’s biggest mistake was rejecting Amy because of the fear of being hurt, and he spent days reflecting on this choice.
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