My fondest memories are ones that I learn something from. This is one of my favorite memories and now that I look back at it seems kind of dumb that I made a big fuss over this. This is how I learned to listen and follow directions. Unfortunately I was 8 and I had to learn the hard way.

It was really early in the morning. The grass was covered with dew, the streets dead-- no noise. As fast as we could me, my mom, my sister and my grandparents got in the car and left. We had to catch the boat that was leaving from Boston. We were going on a cruise from Boston to Bermuda. On the way there I fell asleep because I was exhausted, but I could tell that it was a long drive because when we left it was as dark as a black bear and when I woke up it was a clear sunny day.

As I awoke, there it was, the largest boat I’ve ever see. It was massive. Soon we were in line. My mom drove us there but unfortunately she couldn’t come with us. It was just me, my grandparents and my sister. We had to wait in line to get on the boat. It was a 30 minute wait but it seemed like 3 hours. Soon we were at the registration desk to get our room key and we had to get our picture taken for our ID cards. Before I knew it we were on the boat. Our luggage was brought to our room for us so we didn’t have to worry about carrying it around with us. We went up to the deck and waved goodbye. I saw my mom. I waved goodbye to her and she blew me a kiss, then the engines started. We left port for our destination Bermuda. We went to the buffet and got some food. My sister and I hung out there all the time and got ice cream. We loved the ice cream. To this day I have never had ice cream as good as that ice cream.

Two days after we set sail my sister and I went to the buffet to get some ice cream. At this time I kind of knew my way around the ship, but I was not completely familiar with the ship. Any way back to the story, we get to the buffet and we get ice cream. I finish my ice cream and I want to get another one—because I was feeling greedy.  My sister says no as she finishes her ice cream. As she was going to throw her napkins away I sneaked off and went to go get another ice cream cone, but the machine conveniently stopped working. When I was going back to where she was, I couldn’t find her. I got nervous. I searched the entire buffet looking for her and she was nowhere to be found. I ran out of the buffet my nervousness turned into tears. I remembered how to somewhat get back to our room. As I was running around trying to find my sister I saw some familiar hair. A glimmer of hope appeared. I ran up to her, and sure enough, it was my sister. She hadn’t realized I was gone. We got back to the room and I went to my bed and took a nap. I didn’t tell anyone about what happened, I just enjoyed the rest of my vacation.

Now I’m just happy that I don’t have as many times like this. I usually follow directions and stay close to whoever I’m with. I have had plenty of other incidents like this at stores and other places and I learn from them too.