To begin with, one day around 4th grade I woke up, and it was feeling just like any other day. I went to school, came home and had dinner with my family. Soon after that, my mom said she had a surprise for us. My sister didn’t quite understand what she was talking about because we didn’t have any clues for what the surprise might be. My mom showed us our suitcases, and we immediately knew that we were going to fly to Poland because my mom had been calling my grandma every week and telling her how bad she wanted to go see her parents. My sister and I started packing our bags,and my mom told us that we were going to leave tomorrow to go to the airport.

The next day my mom had already called, and asked her friend if she could drive my family to the airport. She agreed to take us. Once we got to the airport we had to wait about 1-2 hours to board the plane. We had seats all next to each other, and I had the window seat. About 15 minutes later the pilot announced that we were going to take off soon. The plane started to line up with the runway behind the other planes, and we started to gain speed. The plane took off, and I immediately felt butterflies in my stomach.

The plane started to turn to the sides very sharp, and it felt like I was sitting sideways in the plane. I started to worry that the plane would stall and fail since I know a lot of planes have done that before, but my mom told me that every flight does this and that it’s normal. My mom’s advice helped calm me down, and I was calm the rest of the way to Poland. Once we landed we immediately had my mom’s old friend pick us up and drive us to the train station where we hopped on the train and went to Zakopane, Poland. My grandma thought that my family and I would visit in about 2 months, but we decided to surprise her and show up randomly at her door. Once we arrived outside her house we had to be very quiet, so she wouldn’t be able to hear us. We knocked on the door. She opened the door about 10 seconds later, and she started to yell out of excitement because she couldn’t wait to see us. About 2 days later we started to walk around the town that my mom grew up in. I realized how lucky and fortunate I am to have all the things I have at my age because my mom never had the things I had when she was my age. My grandma started to explain to us that my great grandma had recently passed away, and that she wished she got to spend more time with her before she passed away. It clicked in my head that I should do the same thing with my grandma and not take spending time with her for granted. Once we got back to my grandma’s house, we enjoyed some dinner together and about a week later we had to leave to go back to the U.S. To end with, I told her how much I enjoy spending time with her, and that I’ll never take it for granted.

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