By Khrystyna Halatyma

Staff Writer

Senior Nick Cruz loves to travel with his uncle to Italy. While Cruz was in Italy 2 years ago, Cruz’s uncle was helping an old lady with her house and he asked Cruz to help clean. After cleaning out the back room Cruz went to throw out the trash and saw this cat, “just you know chilling by the garbage can,” Cruz said. After hesitating for a few seconds, suspicious of the stray, Cruz decided to go ahead and throw away the trash.

“The cat latched on to my leg, nails and everything. I was freaking out, and there’s this old lady from across the street, I think she was Sicilian cause I really didn’t understand her Italian that well, she came running across the street with a broom, and she started hitting the cat off my leg,” Cruz said.

After the old lady succeeded in getting the cat off Cruz’s leg, she spoke to him in broken English and said, “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be back.” The lady then returned to her house and came out to Cruz with a bread basket “full of like these different arrangement of breads and they were really beautiful, freshly baked too, which was awesome,” Cruz said. “So she just gave this to me in an act of like forgive me because I’m pretty sure that was her cat.”

After experiencing not just Italy but also Spain, Italy, Puerto Rico, Germany, Mexico, Venezuela, and Canada, Cruz believes that traveling is important for students.

“It’s a good experience; you have so many stereotypes going into the country that you’re going to vacation in, and once you actually experience it and realize that the stereotypes aren’t necessarily true, you just have a way deeper appreciation for their culture and for the things they do on a regular bases. It’s a good way to get out of the “American Dream” and just experience something else.”