So this is the story of how in 2017 on a semester abroad, I met one of my all time favorite favorite musical artists Ed Sheeran, international pop star in a hotel bar in turn, Italy. So this is that story. I was in my second Co Op work semester, in 2017. Going into that from some government communication work. And this is actually how I got into the educational field, I applied for an internship at the International Labor labor organization at their training institute, which is in Turin, Italy, which is in the northern part of Italy. And I decided to pursue this opportunity, even though I did not have really the finances for it. But we made it work, I worked a summer thru at McDonald's, and decided that this was the next step in my life. So I packed up all my things, I found a place to stay in the old Olympic Village in turn Italy. And I stayed there for about four months and did this unpaid internship at the training center of the International Labor Organization, working on in their training unit on a gamification project, working on adding some fun elements to some of their trainings, and producing a course specifically on gamification. So the actual semester, there was lovely, this was one of the best periods of my life. And in fact, it was probably the peak of, of my young adult life going to Italy. I myself, I'm Italian. So it was, it was a really nice travel experience for me as well. So it arrived there in early 2017. I had made all kinds of friends at the office. I was traveling to different cities every week, and really enjoying my time there getting to know the culture having all kinds of adventures. And it was a really good period of my life. And so this is the backdrop for this most exciting experience of meeting Ed Sheeran randomly in in a hotel bar. So on the day of I had already had an established group of friends at the office that I was quite close with. And on a regular basis, we would you know, go out for drinks, or what the Italians call Appa TiVo, which is a drink and a little kind of pre dinner snack kind of thing. So on this day, in particular, it was it was my friend Chad knees, birthday, so we decided to have a nice little night out. And we started doing the regular app in a TiVo run. So we went to one part of the town and, and had basically a small dinner with drinks. And then personally, I was quite tired. So I was I was ready to go home at this point. But someone in the group had suggested that we hit one more location, a nice hotel bar that, that they knew that was quiet and very comfortable. So we went to this location. And at some point during that day, I had even mentioned to one of my friends that Ed Sheeran was in town doing a concert and that I had been too late to buy tickets. But I didn't think about it again until until this very evening, when we arrived at this hotel bar. We ordered a round of drinks. I remember thinking it was quite expensive, but you know, I would have this one drink and I would go home. So after we ordered the drinks, we were chatting for a few minutes. And there were very few other people in this hotel bar, just another small group of Italian gentleman. And so when Ed Sheeran international pop sensation, walked into the bar with a group of about 15 other young men all looking a little bit under the influence. Immediately to me, it became very apparent what was happening. I was a big fan of Ed Sheeran. So I knew that this was him. He has very distinctive arm tattoos. So I was immediately in shock. None of my other international friends really understood who this was. So I immediately decided to act. And so Ed Sheeran had passed us him and his his group had passed us and gone towards the actual bar. And I decided to follow him and tried to get a handshake or say hello or something. So my friends were you know, with bated breath asking each other like who is this guy?
And oh my goodness, you know sage to go say hi to him. You're a big fan. Go ahead. And so I got up, I went over to the bar, he was facing the bar, and I immediately panicked because some of his group started looking at me I was a little unsure. So I just tapped him on the arm. I said, Hello, I'm a huge fan. I hope you have a really nice night tonight. Can I shake your hand and he shook my hand and that was pretty much the extent of the interaction between him and I. So I shook his hand. I saw a few of my friends, you know, watching from the other side of the bar, but I shook his hand politely and I followed my friends back to our table, and I remember quite distinctly, our drinks had arrived and I was so starstruck, I just down the entire glass of white wine that I had gotten, I was quite nervous. It had been a really interesting feeling to have met one of my one of my most favorite musical artists, and in such a random way. So that was the highlight of my of my trip to Italy in some ways, the most surprising experience and very exciting for me, I immediately messaged all of my friends back home, who were in fact Ed Sheeran fans and could be excited for me, unlike my international friends in Italy, who really had no idea who this man was. But that's the experience that I had meeting one of my idols so it was very exciting and probably the peak moment of my young adult life
