It Started Out With Coffee At Starbucks, chapter 1

Let me tell you about myself... My name is Rachel Sawyer. I'm 23 almost 24, I have straight brown hair that's past my shoulders and bright blue eyes. I'm starting my last year of university this September and I'm studying to be a journalist, but I majored in photography for my first two years which means I could easily be a photographer or once I'm done school a magazine or newspaper column writer. The year I turned 12, a band I didn't know called Green Day released their third CD, Dookie. Ever since then I was completely hooked. By then, I could play drums and guitar thanks to my older brothers Jeff and Kyle. The day I saw the premiere of the video for Basketcase, I fell in love with Green Day's bassist Mike Dirnt. It was thanks to him I wanted to play bass too. Within the next year I perfected playing bass and I was really good. On my 14th birthday, Insomniac came out. By this point, I knew enough about Green Day to know that two members of the band, Billie Joe and Tre, had both gotten married and had started families. Then the band took a two year break and in that time frame my focus was no longer on perfecting songs by my favorite bands but more on my friends, family, my boyfriend Josh and being captain of my high school's cheerleading team. Around the time I turned 16, Nimrod came out and I bought it and then I learned thanks to the internet and some Green Day fan sites that Mike had gotten married and him and his wife had, had a daughter. 3 years later, I was 19 and still a Green Day fan and that year Warning came out. Over the next 4 years, I heard practically nothing about Green Day. This past January, my 20-year old sister Bridget was watching MTV and found out Green Day was making a new CD and it was going to be out by June. She called me right away and we both had an extremely loud and full of excited screaming phone conversation. So it came to be... That June on the 21st, I was home to my family's house in Toronto, Ontario from my usual home of New York City where I was going to NYU and me and Bridget were standing outside HMV to get American Idiot the second the store opened. That morning at 10am, we were the first official American Idiot CD purchasers at that store. That day was full of music blasting throughout the house and a week and a half later, Bridget, our friends Nicole, Isabelle, Allison and myself of course had just gotten home from a day of tanning at the beach when we turned on MTV to watch TRL and found out Green Day was going on tour. Since it was the summer we decided to go to a concert. But since there were none scheduled for Canada at the time we picked to go to the one on August 28th at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California. The next weeks were full of planning and spending and on August 25th we left for California but we were without Allison because she had to stay home and work. Our first day in California was the best and the next two days were equally good but on the 28th we were busy getting ready when Sacramento had an eartquake. And that is where the story begins...

On the tv - *** In breaking news... Sacramento, California has just been victim to an earthquake which has cancelled tonight's Green Day concert at the ARCO Arena due to minor damage to the arena. The band has released a statement saying that there will be a rescheduled show for all of the fans that had tickets for this one. In other news... ***

Rachel turned off the tv in the hotel room, sighed, looked at her Nicole, Isabelle and Bridget and said "This totally bites. We spent all of our savings to fly here for their concert from Toronto and now... It's cancelled. As if the quake wasn't scary enough we're gonna miss our last chance to go to a Green Day concert before university starts up again." Nicole laughed and said "Rach calm down. There'll be another concert we'll go to." "No there won't... Since when is Green Day gonna be in Canada or close to it in the next few months at least?" "You've got me... There was nothing on the list for this tour when it started." Rachel stood up, grabbed her purse and said "The city's fine so I'm going out. I can't stand being in this hotel room any longer. Now where to go... Where to... I know! I'm going to Starbucks. Call me cell if anything happens." Bridget looked up and said "Can I come too?" "I suppose Bee... You are my little sister and it was you who told me about American Idiot and all." The two girls left the hotel and walked down the street to the closest Starbucks.