Narrative Essay #1

Sensory + Figurative Language

Directions: Write a 450-650 word story about a favorite memory. In doing so, you
should aim to use as much sensory detail as possible in order to “show” the story rather
than “tell”

For help with including figurative language, reference this list.

Being a fairly indecisive person, it’s no surprise that my input into family decisions
growing up was typically minimal. Whenever we began planning for a vacation, I would
almost always have little to contribute to the conversation. This was especially true
when it came to choosing a destination. As long as there were interesting things to do
there, the specific place never made much of a difference to me. Despite my indecision,
there was one major exception to this rule. I had always been really interested in visiting
Iceland. There was something about the open landscapes and natural wonders of the
country that caught my attention far above any other location. Luckily, when my family
eventually got a chance to go on an extended vacation, we made the decision to go to
Iceland.
As we walked to our first hotel in the capital city of Reykjavik, fireworks boomed
overhead as crowds celebrated an event unknown to us. We spent the first few days of
the trip in Reykjavik, and despite the spontaneous celebration of the first night, and the
great food we got to try around the city, it still didn’t feel quite like I had hoped. Reykjavik
was a fun place to visit, but as our time in the city came to an end, I couldn’t help but
feel that I hadn’t really experienced the country yet. When our few days in the city
expired, we continued to our next major stopping point, being a much more remote town
on a peninsula north of Reykjavik.
Driving away from Reykjavik on the morning of our fourth day, something began
to click. The multicolored buildings slowly shrunk away into the horizon, giving way to a
wide green landscape. The lack of trees made the uneven terrain visible for miles
around, with rocky mountains always looming in the distance. Our car wound along a
marble track road through tunnels and over bridges. Jagged cliffs of volcanic rock and
distant spouts of water pouring down mountainsides could easily be picked out from the
inconsistent landscape. Flocks of sheep took the form of white dots on the rocky ground
far away.
Getting out of the car at our first stop, the dry, cool air seemed much fresher than
it had before. A single rounded peak stuck up into the sky with the ocean’s coast visible
past it in the distance. Walking up to the small waterfall that we had picked as our first
destination, I could feel the mist on my face from the crystal clear water crashing down
on rocks below. This was by no means the most grand display that the country had to
offer, but I could feel that I had found the exact spirit of the country that I had been
looking for.