Spanish subway

We traveled to Madrid; the country's capital for vacation. In the capital, few locals speak English. Compared to the surrounding cities, more English was spoken in Madrid than other nearby cities.

 When we traveled, only our dad understood Spanish so he spoke to the locals for us to get directions, ordered our food, and allowed us to enjoy our trip to Spain without consulting a Spanish to English dictionary.

Although the rest of our family did not speak Spanish very well, Annie attempted to speak with the locals. Normally Annie attempted to speak Spanish on the subway.

One of the only phrases she knew in Spanish was "Habla Ingles?" (Do you speak English?) On the subway, Annie would ask locals if they spoke English. The most common response was no. On other occasions, old ladies would look at Annie and dig in her pocket for a caramel. The ladies normally took two caramels out of their pocket; one for me and one for Annie. Once Annie learned that the older citizens had candy in their pockets, she knew her target. When we rode the subway, Annie asked older citizens if they spoke English and they gave her candy. Since we only rode the subway 3 or 4 times throughout the trip, we recieved 6-8 pieces of caramel.

Ellis Island

I went on a trip for school last year to Ellis Island. My class visited the Ellis Island museum and were strictly told not to get off the ferry when it arrived at the Statue of Liberty. We explored the museum for three hours. After that, we exited the museum, checked to see that everyone was accounted for, and headed back on the ferry.

Once we were back on the bus, we were already far behind our schedule because once we got off the ferry, the buses did not show up for half an hour and the buses were scheduled to be in the parking lot at Ellis Island when my grade got off the ferry. Once  the grade was in the buses, I had no way to contact my dad to tell him the buses were running late.

Once we were back at school after school hours, my dad went over to me and showed me where he was.We strolled over to the car, entered, buckled our seat belts, and my dad started the engine. When the engine did not turn on the first time, we did not panic; my sister and I panicked by the third time the engine would not start.

Annie and our dad explained that they were waiting in the parking lot for an hour with the car running because the buses were scheduled to come at that time. I explained that the buses were late and I could not call home because I forgot to bring my phone. By that point, all of my classmates had departed with their parents to return home. The three of us exited the car and entered the school. We entered the office conveniently to the left of the entrance and called someone to tow our car.

We returned to the car and waited in the parking lot for two hours. Every fifteen minutes, our dad would exit the car and check the time by looking through a glass window in a nearby classroom. After two long hours of silence and frustration, we decided to check the upper parking lot to see if the car towers were up there. We discovered they had not come at all even though we stated our location and it had been two hours since we called.

At this point, it was around seven in the evening and the buses arrived at five in the afternoon. I gazed over at the elementary school next door and noticed a blue Subaru pulling into the school parking lot. I shared the news with Annie and our dad and we strolled over to the school. We found the front entrance and entered. The lights in the school were on and we made our way to the main office. While our dad called our mom to come get us (she had just come home from work), Annie and I dashed to the bathrooms down the hall.

After our dad made the phone call, our mom arrived in the parking lot ten minutes later.

The next day, our dad's car was still in the parking lot. He had to call someone to tow his car to our house. This time, they showed up and brought the car to the driveway.