A Special Place

Throughout my childhood  I was able to see different cities around the globe because of my parents curiosity to explore the world. Every year, or sometimes two times a year I needed to pack my things to go for “new adventures”, as my parents would say. As a child, I didn’t really enjoy all the traveling because nothing would grab my attention. To me, all places I had been to were very similar and had nothing special to offer. The languages, the foods and minor details in buildings or monuments differed in every place I had been to, but these things weren’t worth the long trips. I always thought these trips were a waste of time and pointless, but I have come to appreciate them because I got to see a very special place. A trip to Venice, a unique city in Northern Italy made me realize that the world is full of amazing places, but unless I explore, I will never know that they exist.

It was the month of August and we were heading to Italy to visit our family members and to explore some new places. We got on the plane, the flight was eight hours long. All I was wishing for when I was in the plane was to be home. I hated sitting down in an uncomfortable seat for eight hours, listening to a disturbing airplane noise. We arrived at nine in the morning and we had the whole day ahead of us. My dad always says “We will sleep enough when we die,” so telling him I was tired and I wanted to sleep wasn’t an option. We went to my aunt’s home to take showers and change because we were going to visit Venice. “Venice, a city built on water, is one of the most beautiful and visited places by tourists,” my aunt said. Her comment had no effect on me, I still thought this trip was going to be a disaster. I was expecting to see a few  buildings, monuments and many people, nothing I hadn’t seen before.

After four hours of driving by car, we were finally there. We entered inside the city and for the first time I was awed. It couldn’t be human made, no architect could have ever thought of such a fascinating city. There were buildings build on water. These fancy buildings  looked like royalties palaces. These palaces had spacious balconies . Most of the buildings were connected together , friendly attached side by side. Those that weren’t connected with each other due to the many canals, were connected by bridges. This unity made it look like everything belonged there. Each palace had a color, the brightest colors were used, colors that made you get a feeling of happiness. The palaces differed from each other not just by color but also by diverse decorative patterns and the many shapes that were used. Some palaces were decorated with colorful floral patterns on the surface and others with geometric patterns. I saw diverse window shapes; circular, triangular and rectangular windows. These palaces had flat roofs made with red tiles. Most of these buildings had small boats in the front areas.  I had never seen such colorful and artistic buildings, although I had traveled to many cities around the world.

I was walking with my family members on  a narrow street of the city, observing the amazing places this city had. It was so easy to get lost because there were tourists everywhere. I heard all kinds of languages: English, French, Italian, German and many others that I couldn’t identify. Everyone looked amazed by the beauty of Venice. Although crowded by many tourists, we still managed to get to Piazza San Marco. My aunt sent us there because Piazza San Marco was the main public square in Venice. There were little markets everywhere. These markets were  very clean and organized. As I was walking, I could smell freshly baked bread, the pork thighs that were hanging close to the windows of the store, and the sweet melted chocolate on the desert market. There were also many caffee’s in Saint Marks square and we decided to go to one to take a break from walking. I ordered a panini with prosciutto which was a sandwich with cold cuts and an orange juice. As I was eating, I was also observing the square. Across from where I was sitting was a huge church. The church was decorated with bright mosaics . The mosaics showed different scenes, as if they were trying to tell a story. The mosaics were made of gold glass pieces which gave the church a shimmering look. In the sides there were more palaces. In the middle area of the square was a huge gothic stone that held four horses. The horses heads were all pointed to different directions. They looked powerful and fierce horses, as If they were trying to protect the territory. In the center of Saint Marks square were many people, who would throw bread to white doves. When the doves saw the bread they approached people in a friendly way . It was very relaxing to see such view. For a moment it seemed like the birds and the people were of one species and that they were communicating in the same language. I decided to save some bread from the sandwich to give to the white doves. I went to the center of the piazza and as soon as I threw the bread in the air, I was surrounded by dozens of white doves. I really wanted to touch one so I threw some bread on the floor and when the dove wasn’t looking I grabbed it with my hands. The dove wasn’t trying to escape but just stayed there looking at me. Its wings felt so smooth and soft. I held it for a while and then kissed it on the head and  let it go.

After we ate, we decided to experience a gondola ride. In the city of Venice there were many gondolas, which were little rowing boats, used to take people from one place to another. Leading the gondolas were Italian man, wearing black pants, striped black and white shirts and huge hats. As they would row, they would also sing in Italian with their amazing voices which made everyone admire them. I had the advantage to know what they were singing because I knew the language but even if you didn’t know the language, the sweet melodies were enough to make you like them. We didn’t have to tell them we wanted a ride, because they could read us, but they still respectfully asked if we wanted to get in. A man leading the gondola, helped all of us get in it safely. My eyes were wide open during the whole ride. I was watching everything with admiration and wondering about the history of the place. As we were moving through the green water channels, I noticed the magnificent palaces that had the most beautiful colors, small and large, white or red bridges, old churches decorated with glassy mosaics, monuments of different animals and of holy saints, the many tourists walking through the narrow streets, boats of all sizes, gondolas of different designs and the birds flying in the bright blue sky. You could have never gotten bored of such view because you saw all kinds of colors and shapes and the most beautiful designs.

After passing through many narrow water channels, we got to the Grand Canal of  we got to the Grand Canal of Venice. The Grand Canal was a wide channel of water. We were moving towards the end of the canal. We ended up in a beautiful Lagoon, that was surrounded by many small islands on all sides. I got to see that the sea filled the water canals and the channels of the city of Venice. It was a spectacular view seeing how the bodies of water interacted with each other. All over Venice you could see this unity. You could see it with the attached palaces, the doves getting fed by people and also with the many art pieces that were contributing to the story of Venice. Nothing was out of place, it seemed like everything was connected. The trip to Venice wasn’t a waste of time after all since I got to see things I had never seen before. Prior to going to Venice, I was pessimistic when it came to traveling, but this unique city had the ability to change my perception. I was very grateful to my parents that they had send me there. I was sitting next to them and I hugged both. I thanked them for the amazing experience. The trip to Venice made me want to travel to more cities around the world because I knew now that extraordinary places existed. Venice was just one of them.

 

Self-Reflection on Descriptive Essay

 

My descriptive essay portrays Venice, a special place that made me change the way I feel about traveling. Before writing the essay ,I made an outline with the main points that would be discussed in my essay. From there I was able to expand my ideas and I could write a full essay. I read my first draft and noticed many grammatical mistakes. I fixed these mistakes and I wrote another essay. My essay includes parts of Venice that I found appealing. I used sensory details to paint a picture for the audience. The context of my essay included many detailed descriptions of the place , which helped readers visualize Venice. In my introduction I had a strong thesis which helped readers identify the purpose of the essay. My Professor’s feedback helped me realize that I had many unnecessary sentences in my introduction. For future essays, I have to be more precise so that I don’t confuse the audience. My essay was organized because My introduction , body paragraphs and conclusion were well thought. In my introduction I introduced the event , in my body paragraphs I described  Venice in depth and in my conclusion I tried to sum up all the information I had written about throughout the essay.

I have learned that it’s important to take breaks when writing. When I wrote  the whole essay in a limited amount of time , I wasn’t able to process my ideas properly. I did that with my first identity narrative essay and I got a low grade. With my second rewrite I did a paragraph an hour which helped me organize my thoughts and write a better paper. I used the same strategy for my descriptive essay. Another prominent component that needs to be applied when writing essays is peer review. Peer review helped me see many mistakes that I wasn’t able to see when reading my essay. Getting to hear someone else’s point of view also  helped me know what is needed to keep the audience engaged. Before writing my essay I read “The Corner Store” an essay written by Eudora Welty. This essay was a good example of how a descriptive essay is supposed to look like. The essay gave me a better idea and inspired me to write. Our professor suggested that we read “The Corner Store” and I did so because at first I wasn’t so sure how I would write my essay. Taking suggestions helped me in the process of writing the descriptive essay. I tried to be as descriptive as writer Welty was.

Before writing the descriptive essay we had to a simple exercise in which we had to describe an object in detail without giving up the name. We had to use sensory details to describe the object. This exercise helped me understand how I need to write my descriptive essay.