"Thomas Jefferson designed this house exactly the way he wanted it. The most unique room in the house is his bedroom, where his bed is between two separate rooms so that when he woke up in the morning, he could immediately put on his boots and go outside or roll out of the other side of the bed and begin studying." I looked outside the huge bay window as the tour guide continued on about Thomas Jefferson 's house, also known as Monticello. The sun shone on the green hills and the trees outside were almost ready to bloom for the spring, so different from the desert that we came from. I took a breath and thought about how I got there. Earlier in the school year, my entire eighth-grade class began preparing for our special trip to the East Coast …show more content…
She faced forward again. I looked around in my small square foot of personal space then looked out the window. The world rushed past and I felt the airplane’s wheels push off of the ground, and we were gone. I watched the buildings and eventually the land fade away as we flew out over the ocean, about to turn east toward our destination. I looked down and read for a while; but when I looked back out the window again, I didn’t recognize anything down below. Five days later, I stood in Thomas Jefferson 's house of his own design and thought about all that he 'd done in his life. He went to Nice, France, and lived as an ambassador. He learned new languages and educated himself on the world on the other side of the ocean, even centuries in the past. He came back to America, the United States, and was immediately invited to be a leader in the brand new nation. He built a super cool house with a library right next to his bed! New things got thrown at me left and right over the course of the past couple days- difficult roommates and annoying seat partners and obscure scavenger hunt questions. I saw snow and the most beautiful green hills that I 'd never seen before. The grass was so much greener than the fake turf of home. I even ordered my own food for myself at restaurants and woke myself up each morning. I became an independent student on the other side of the