I’m really lucky that my family has vacationed in some interesting places. These are my top three favorites. 1. Los Angeles I flew into LAX with my parents and my cousin, which I thought was exciting since that airport is always in movies. We visited a lot of tourist attractions and spent most of our days on the beach.Newport Beach and Venice Beach were my two favorites. Since my cousin and I were watching the TV series The OC at the time, we had so much fun at the Redondo Beach boardwalk, where the restaurant scenes were filmed. Although this was interesting, the beach itself had way too much seaweed for us to enjoy swimming. Beverly Hills was an interesting place to visit, especially when my cousin and I got treated like celebrities at one restaurant we ate at! I think they mistook us for someone else! We went to Universal Studios, Disneyland, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and of course we saw the big Hollywood sign.
Hotel Beach
2. Nassau, Bahamas This is the first place I ever traveled to as a kid, when I was 3, and the most recent place I have been to as a teenager. It’s somewhere I can just relax, lay on the beach, and listen to the island music. Recently, I stayed at an all-inclusive resort with my family and my best friend. Every day my friend and I both relaxed by the pool or on the beach, and drank virgin strawberry daiquiris, our favorite drink. The pool entertainment was fun, seeing as the employees got all of the guests involved. The only problem was that many people were getting stung by jellyfish, including my mom and I! The marks looked as though something wrapped itself around us and squeezed very hard, leaving a bright red line. On the up side, on a visit to the Atlantis Resort, we saw no jellyfish. This was certainly the best part of the whole week. I had always heard about the Atlantis water park, but I finally got to experience it for myself. There are so many different water slides, such as the one that goes through the middle of a clear tank of sharks, which you can watch as they swim right above, below, and even beside you. The best attraction at the water park is The Rapids. It is a lazy river, except it has huge waves that push you through it very fast. My parents enjoyed it so much they stayed in it almost the whole day. I enjoyed the sun every day. One morning we took a boat and floated by some celebrities’ houses, one owned by Nicholas Cage! The boat took us to a giant flea market, where my best friend and I bargained with the ladies and got some really great deals. I have never gotten a darker tan than the one I got in Nassau.
Times Square
3. New York City I love this city! What more can I say? The shopping is fantastic, the Broadway shows are amazing, Grand Central Station is gigantic, and Times Square is even brighter than it is in the movies. I was in New York during my Spring Break, which included St. Patrick’s Day. This was the day my mom and I had to catch a plane back to Toronto. It was really hard to get a cab in all of the commotion. I got to see the parade though, which was great. The majority of the week it rained, but that didn’t stop me from shopping most of the time. Life is never dull in Times Square, which is where I saw the play, The Adam’s Family. I also saw Mamma Mia - my all-time favorite play, which I first saw in Toronto. Stomp was different, but I thought it was exciting how they use different objects to make music, with some comedy added into their show. Another thing I did was tour the NBC studios, along with a tour of the city that showed us all of the locations that different movies and TV shows were filmed. Being a big fan of Friends, I thought it was the best part of the tour when I saw the building they live in on the show. Central Park is definitely worth seeing as well as the rest of the city. Unfortunately, I did not see the Statue of Liberty, but next time I guarantee I will. I would love to go back to New York to watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve - it’s always been a dream of mine. Someday, I would love to backpack across Europe, as well as visit Australia. What I enjoy most about traveling is going on city tours, swimming on the beaches, and taking pictures of the amazing views!
