Missing Summer. By: Liz Aldrich

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Coming to school this year was extra hard. This year, as with every year, as I get older, I get less and less excited for the end of summer and the start to a new school year. This year was also one of the most exciting summers that I have had in a long time. My family is not one to travel or even go on vacations really. In my whole life, my family has been on two vacations, both to Flordia with my cousins. Those were both very fun trips but the last one was when I was about eight. So I have not traveled very far or traveled at all in a very long time. This year, my friend, Anna, invited me to go to Portugal with her family on vacation. This was one of the best trips I have ever been on. Before I went I was so excited to see a new part of the world, with a different culture, different food, different languages, and different people. When I went, there was no disappointment. The plane ride there and back were both about eight hours, but the time flew by with excitement and the great movies provided on the plane. I loved it in Portugal once I got there. The whole country, which we visited many different parts of, was absolutely beautiful. The country was very old, unlike modern America, and has buildings and structures that were thousands of years old. We went to different shops and restaurants and cities and everything we visited was no short of amazing. My favorite days of the trip by far were the beach days. Portugal has some of the nicest beaches I have ever seen. The water was blue as a clear days sky and the waves were insane. There were so many surfers that went so far out into the waves, it was so fun to watch. The water was very cold though, one day it was 60 degrees when we were at the beach. But, I went into the water anyway because we were in Portugal!  Throughout the week we were staying there, we did so much. We went sightseeing in famous cities like Porto. In Porto, we saw the most beautiful art on the buildings that would be considered graffiti here but, in Portugal, it is everywhere and it is truly an art. We also went to a real castle one day. The castle belonged to King Ferdinand and it was beautiful. It was bright yellow and orange and so lively. It was also humungous. Visiting the castle was extra cool because last year we had just earned about King Ferdinand and then I got to go see where he lived and even see his room! Visiting Portugal, as many of my relatives put it, was a "once in a lifetime opportunity." Which I am so grateful for and I can say with confidence I will never forget my trip to Portugal. It made me want to travel all over the world to see what I have been missing my entire life.

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