A Place That Is Significant To Me

Essay Question: Include an image of a place that is significant to you. Share its story with us.

Standing on the deck of the ship in Baltimore Harbor, I looked out to clouds of smog and dirty brown waters. Trash surrounded the boat and the docks looked more than desolate but battered and decaying. Within four or five hours of travel, the shades of brown receded, being replaced by an endless horizon of deep blue meeting an equivalent blue sky. Crystalline turquoise waters, generous affable people, and gorgeous, glistening pink sand are the images that come to mind when I think of first setting eyes on Bermuda. I had never been outside of the United States and visiting Bermuda opened up my world to the glory of travel and what it can do for the mind body and soul.

Despite being only miles from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, for me and everyone around me, these cities could have been a world away. I live in a community where everyone knows one another and rarely leave. But my eyes were first opened to the possibility of another kind of life when I began traveling out of the state on college tours, north, south and west of my home. Yet it was Bermuda that truly opened up the world to me, giving me a thirst for travel , a sense of curiosity and the need to see the world.
It was not just the place but the journey itself that was so amazing. In the three days on ship I met people from several cultures and was exposed to life in another