Tikva didn’t know why she had been slow to open the door, to let her friends in...to start off the adventure of her life. Perhaps she’d been too much of a perfectionist, insistent on getting every little detail right; on making sure that not a single tchotchke was out of place, so that they wouldn’t suspect that her whole life was out of place. She’d always been the cheery, fun, smart, quiet center of the group, and that was what she believed she had to be once again before they were all torn apart- their glue.<br/><br/>It didn’t help that she just<i>had</i>to pick the hottest group of friends this side of the universe and that her confused teenage brain wanted to love them all down on the floor and none of them at the same time knowing any moves she made could hurt someone.<br/><br/>But she knew she couldn’t leave them all out in the cold when they were counting on her, when they wanted to know why she’d invited them all in. So she took a deep breath, cleared her mind, and let them all in.<br/><br/>“Hey, all you cool cats and kittens,” Tikva said, quoting<i>Tiger King </i>dorkily- again. “I’m so glad you’re all here for my very belated birthday party. Tonight’s gonna be an epic 18th rager, for sure- because I have friends who make everything epic- but...there’s more. Hopefully a few days should be enough notice, and I know you all don’t have any conflicts...anyway, I’ll just stop rambling and get to it.<br/><br/>“Now that the country is ungrounded, flights and hostels are super cheap and things are getting back to normal”- like she needed to remind any of them of coronavirus, which had only recently started to abate for the summer- “my father has plane tickets booked for all us this Saturday to- EUROPE! Eek!”<br/><br/>Tikva let that settle in the air for a minute before saying, “The plan is to go to six different places that I hope will help me find myself and help all of us have one last hurrah together. Paris, for the art and history; Amsterdam, for the party scene; Krakow, for...my father’s family history”- since her father’s side was Polish Jewish, and she swallowed at the prospect of meeting some of them- “Athens because Gia dared me to try octopus from there once; Jerusalem for the history and the free Birthright tour of Israel; and lastly, Tokyo before heading home. My father insisted on picking that for me, but he didn’t say why.”<br/><br/>She did have an inkling of why, or who she was meant to find. But that was personal...he didn’t have that much care for her. Did he?<br/><br/>“Anyway, we’ll be staying in each city for approximately a week and a half, and during that time we’re of course free to explore any surrounding places we want provided we’re back in time. And speaking of time, the pizza’s going to be here soon, so how have you all been?”