MEMOIR

One time when I was up north I went to my grandma’s house. We went around Bemidji shopping and all of a sudden we went to the travel agency. I asked her what we were doing there and she said
“We’re going to Florida!” I was totally shocked by that. My aunt Paige rents a house for a month to go on vacation. So over the next few months I kept packing and repacking my suitcase to make sure I had everything right. Then all of a sudden it was already October 23rd. So I woke up at 4am and got ready to leave to the airport. We had to take two different planes there. I was a little nervous because I had to make my second plane fifteen minutes after I got off the last one. And just my luck the second plane was all the way on the other side of the airport. So we just made it on the plane. I was relieved.
When we arrived in the Panama City airport it was about 2pm. The airport was very small and only had about three planes total. The inside of it was all bright green and pink colored. When we stepped outside you could just smell and taste the saltiness in the air. You could hear the crash of the waves on the beach.
The house that we were staying at was in a really fancy neighborhood. It had a big metal gate. It had a number password to get inside. The house that we were staying at was a lighter purple or pink. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a living room and a really big kitchen. Outside there was a pool and deck area. At the bottom of the steps there was a hot tub that flowed into a pool. We were only about a block away from the beach.
Panama City is very different from St. Cloud. In the city there are huge roads overlapping each other. There are Shopping malls the size of Valley Fair! They had all of the major stores like Old Navy, Hollister and Nike. On the outside of town by the beach it’s like a whole different world. There are huge beaches, hotels on every block and big fancy houses. There are stores that you could never find in Minnesota. Some of the stores that were right on the beach were little huts that had everything either home-made or found on the beach.
My favorite thing to do was go to the beach. There were so many things to do there! I went boogy boarding on the somewhat windy days when the waves were big. Looking for the best shell was like digging for buried treasure. The best time to find the shells was in the morning before all of the tourists were there. Another good thing to do was just sit on the soft sand and listen to music.