Sara contemplated back and forth whether she should go to Italy by herself or not. She had less than 48 hours to make her decision. The same morning as take off she decided to go for it. Once at the airport she promised herself that she would make the most of her weekend. Obviously the trip wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but she owed it to herself to at least try to have a good time.

Important to note in this story was that she never told anyone about the huge flop with David before she left for Milan. She felt ashamed and stupid about planning and booking a trip with a guy she met once to then getting stood up, the humiliation was at it’s peak. She also had the feeling that she should have known better and therefore decided to keep what happened to herself.

When she got to the hotel in Milan she felt better already. On her bed was a flyer that offered a day trip to Venice for a reasonable price the following morning and she booked it straight away. On the bus to Venice during a break Sara met another solo traveler. He was a young very open English guy named Jake. They hit it off right away and had the same sense of humor. Mostly they were making fun of the other passengers on the bus that all seemed to be well over 60. Included on the day trip was a local guide in Venice, but Sara and Jake got bored and decided to run away even though they got clear instruction to stick with the group. They went for a delicious lunch and had lots of wine followed up by getting lost in Venice while looking for real Italian sorbet. At one point they even managed to cut a long line to a gondola by pretending they were newly in love (Jake’s brilliant idea). It worked!

On the way back to Milan they discovered that they had the same favorite TV show and decided to watch reruns on the 6 hour bus ride back to Milan. They wrapped things up by having dinner and drinks back in Milan by the majestic cathedral .
Sara had a great day with lots of laughter and wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any other way. She told him the true reason she was in Italy and Jake expressed how happy he was that she got stood up. Sara couldn’t agree more.

Back to David. He realized Sara was having a good time in Italy and send text messages expressing how he was the one missing out and he knew it would turn out that way (portraying himself as the victim in the story). From hes’ writings Sara got the impression that he thought everything was back to normal between the two. This was clearly not the case for her. She felt no trust for him and she took her time and expressed how she felt. David did not take that well and responded with a simple “ok”. They never spoke again. That didn’t bother her much, she got a fun weekend and was a friend richer thanks to him.