California Rules!

I have always hated writing essays in junior school and back then they were known as compositions. Compositions took up so much time and besides the topics were not intriguing enough. Okay I must admit there was the element of laziness on my part. When I went to high school, essay writing took a new format and there were some essays I enjoyed writing. They mostly had to do with travelling.

I guess this is probably because I had not travelled much, internationally anyway. I have been at the most prominent places in my country; Kariba, Victoria Falls, The Great Zimbabwe but outside my home I have not done much travelling. I listened with envy at my classmates who always seemed to go on holidays abroad. Each of their experiences seemed breath-taking like paradise itself. ‘One day when I am rich and famous’, I told myself ‘I am going to visit all famous places;  The statue of Liberty,  the Pyramids of Giza, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, Disneyland- everywhere.

But more than anything I wanted to visit California. This was influenced by the movies I watched as most of the films I watched had been shot in California. I nearly kicked my sister the first time she came home from the States. She had not been bothered to go to California, and here I was desperate for any opportunity that would take me to my dreamland.

‘It is just a state’, she lamented and she clearly made it clear that Connecticut is where her heart lied. She did get me lots of post cards though and pictures of the state. I have taken a liking to writing travel essays for some time now. California has the lion’s share. One day I’ll be Miss California, like Dante said ‘a rich girl from the top of the food chain”.