I couldn't believe I was finally here. I was in Venice, Spain. This is my favorite place in the whole wide world. I was here because my school decided that the top ten students with high GPAs could go to Venice, Italy for one week. This trip was all paid for and even the plane tickets were paid for, too. We were staying at the Best Western Hotel Monticarlo. The place was beautiful with its colors.






When I first came into the colors, brown and gold were drawing me in like a spell. I acted as if I had never seen those colors before. There were lounge chairs and tables in the hotel lobby. I felt like I was a queen who came back home. The front desk guy was pretty nice. He gave me some names of places where I should go visit. If I was amazed by the front lobby then you should have seen the expression on my face when I went to my room.






My room was better than amazing because of the rich colors of gold and blue mashed together. It had seemed as though an artist did the room, and that I was privileged to see this magnificent work of art. I wandered if all the other students got a room like mine. The room had a queen size bed, a couple of tables, one dresser and one bathroom. The place was perfect. Even the bathroom looked good. It had a hot tub and shower with same color scheme.






While I was basking in this beautiful room, someone knocked at my door. I told them to come in without really looking at the door. My best friend, Mason came inside. He was one of the students who came to this beautiful place. Mason was pretty tall for his age. He had solid black hair and blue eyes. When he smiled, his dimple would appear on his upper left cheekbone.






Mason was gorgeous in his own way, but for some reason I never liked him more than a friend. “How do you like this place?” Mason said. I looked at him and told him “I love this place already and I only been at a hotel so far. I love the way the colors mush together and create a magical place like a fairy tale. It makes me believe that anything could happen here”. I said with a smile on my face. He looked at me as though I had truly lost my mind. That look on his face made me laugh my head off.






Mason said “Did you really get all that from looking at this room? Oh, don't answer that because I already know the answer. You did get all that from this room”. I said “As always you are right; I did get all that from looking at this room. You have always known that Venice was my dream place. This city was the setting of my favorite book. You know the book “The Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare.” Mason said “I don't know how you can love that book, but I understand what you mean.”






After ten minute of goofing off, Mason left the room so he could get some sleep. I told him that I would see him tomorrow. I changed into my nightgown and went to the huge bed. Mason didn't know that one of the reasons I love Venice is because some people call it a love city. I would love some romance in my life. The one guy I have a huge crush on was here on the trip.






His name was Erik Night. He was in the same grade as me. He had brown hair with chocolate brown eyes. He was as tall as Mason. He had broad chest and shoulders. He was in my definition a hot guy. He was also smart, funny, kind, and talented. I fell asleep while I was thinking of him.





I woke up the next day with the sun beaming at my face. It felt good to see the sun. I was still happy that I was here. That night I had a dream about Erik and I being married. Yeah, I know that was cheesy, but some people (like me) dream about the last thing they were thinking about when they went to bed. I got off the bed and went to go look out the window. When I looked out, I was struck by Venice's beauty again.







After standing there about ten minutes, I went to the bathroom to take a warm shower before I started my day. The water was perfect for my body. I felt better when I was done with my shower than I did before I took it. I called room service and asked for pancakes with grape juice. That was my favorite kind of breakfast to eat. The food came in a few minutes. By the time the room servant left, I was already digging into my food. The food was warm and tasty.






I looked at the time and I saw that I was going to be late for my meeting with Mason if I didn't leave right now. When I came down stairs to the lobby I found Mason. He said “Oh you are in big trouble, young lady. I had to wait down here for a long time. You should know how I loathe that so much.” I didn't mean to laugh but his face was twitching all over itself. “Don’t you dare laugh at me” but by then he was laughing too. That’s what I loved about Mason; he would be mad at you one second, and the next, laughing with you. When we calmed down, we talked about the place we would go to visit that day.








We decided to go to the famous St. Marco's Square. When we got there, we saw lots of pigeons scattered around. We weren't the only students there. A lot of my classmates were here. I guess it would be fun to hang out with them.






Mason and I got to feed the pigeons and walk around the place. We saw this big building. It looked like it was a mansion. It was a pretty cool place to see. I was thinking too much about what the name of that place was that I didn't even notice that Erik was right next to me. He said “Hey Zoey”. I jumped up because he scared the ghost out of me. He stood there and laughed at the way I reacted. I felt the heat come to my cheeks. After a little while I said “Hey Erik”.





I looked around for Mason so he could help like he always did when I was near Erik. When I found him, I saw that he was far away and talking to Emily Jonson a girl from our school. I turn back to Erik since Mason would be of no help to me. When I looked at him, he had this weird look on his face. I just ignored it and said “Are you having fun?” He said “Yeah, I am having fun. This place is pretty cool. I love how they allow us to feed the birds.”





I looked at him and I felt as though we were connected on some deep level, even I couldn't understand. “I thought the same thing.” was all I said to him. “Well, don't great minds think alike?” he said. I was thinking this was a dream because Erik and I don't really talk a lot except for the occasional “hey” but that was about it. So, this felt weird but in a good way. I loved the sound of his voice. He made me feel like I was the only person on Earth who was special.





I shouldn't be thinking like that because then I will get my hopes up before we even get together and that’s a big wish on my part. Then I remembered that Erik had said something, so I looked at him and said “Yeah that true. Um... well I have to go back to Mason. It was nice chatting with you. See you around.” I left right away; I didn't even stay to hear his response. When I got to Mason I asked him why he left me there. He told me that it was because he had wanted me to get over my fear of talking to Erik. I looked at him for awhile then I asked him where we should go next. He had said Dodge's Palace.






I asked Mason where this place was and he pointed at the mansion I had looked at earlier. It was near the place where I had been talking to Erik. I was awed at the beauty of the palace again. I asked Mason why they called the place “Dodge's Palace”. He had told me that it was the place where the rulers of Venice had lived. The world dodge meant “duke” in Italian. I was surprised at his knowledge and asked him how he knew all this information.







He smiled at me and said that he wanted to impress me, so he studied all could about Venice and learned about that palace. I told him I was impressed and then we smiled at each other. Something that I love about Mason is that he loves to learn a lot of things and he wasn't even shy about sharing what he knows or showing off as most people do in our school. I told him that he was very helpful because I was just curious about the name of that place and I also said thanks to Mason with a big happy grin.







We walked to the palace and found out that the place was packed; however, we went inside. The palace was the most beautiful work of art. I just stood there doing nothing but looking. Then I heard Mason's laughter. I turn to him and said “Why are you laughing at me?” He answered with a laugh “I am laughing at you because of your face. You look like your dumb struck.” I looked at him and then asked “How bad do I like look?” “You don't look bad, but you look adorable like a little kid.” He said. I laughed at how he used the word adorable. I said “Thanks for the compliment, I really needed one. You are the best friend anyone could ask for. I am so lucky to have you in my life.” He smiled and said “Stop acting so girly. You know that I am not that sappy.”











I looked at him and after a while I started to walk around the palace. The palace was pretty big. It seem as though it could hold thousands of people then hundreds of people. I saw some bedrooms and offices. The bedrooms look like four regular rooms together. The offices looked like it could hold a lot of people and a library and still have a lot of room.







I learned that the palace was not only where the dukes had lived but where they had meeting and the city hall was in there too. The city's court was there too. It was a wonderful site to see. I thought about how it would be if I was living there in the past. I thought I might be scared to live there because of the court. I wouldn't like to run into a prisoner on my way to my room.









I snapped out of my dream because the scenario was too scary for me to think about it. I looked around some more and that’s when I bumped into Erik. The weird thing was that I somehow had lost Mason again. Erik said “Hey Zoey, nice to see you again.” I said “Same here Erik. What do you think of this palace?” “I think it's great except about the part where this place is the court. That part is a little scary.” I laughed at him. He asked why I was laughing at him. I said “I am laughing because I was thinking the same thing just a minute ago.” He looked at me and said “That is pretty cool. Hey, I wanted to ask you if you would like to go out with me tonight.” I looked at him with a surprise look because I never thought that he would ask me out. I looked at him for a while and he said “You don't have to say yes if you don't want to go, but I would understand. He started to walk away when I finally said “no, that not why I didn't say anything. It was just that I was shocked. I would love to go out with you tonight.” Then he said “Great, meet you at the front lobby let say at 8 o'clock. See ya tonight.” then he walked away.






When I got home I took a long bath and washed my hair. I looked through all my clothes and found the perfect shirt and a perfect skirt to go with it. I laid them out on my bed and went to the bathroom to do my hair. It took me thirty minutes to choose which style to go with in the end. I chose to let half my hair down and pin the other half on top of that. When I was done getting dressed, I looked at the mirror.






If I say so myself I look as sexy as you can get. I laughed at my own joke. I looked at the time and it said 7:52. It looked like it was time to get going. I was hoping tonight would be a night that I would never forget. I left the room. On my way out I bumped into Mason. He asked “Why are you in such a hurry?” I totally forgot to tell him about my date with Erik. So I said “I can't believe I am saying this, but I am going on a date with Erik Night. I am about to faint because I can't believe he asked me out.”





I looked at Mason and he looked like he wasn't surprised at all. He looked more like he knew this would happen. He said “Why can't you believe that you are a totally hot, smart, funny, and kind girl who any guy would be lucky to have. So it isn't a surprise to me that Erik has finally come to his senses.” I loved that I had a best friend like Mason. I gave him the biggest hug I could and told him “Thank you, but I need to go.” I also told him that tomorrow we would have to go out on a friend’s day.





He just laughed at that, inside I knew that he would be happy to do that, but not that he would confess that to me. I left him laughing and went down stairs.





When I came to the lobby Erik was already there as if he was waiting for me for a long time. I came to him and he gave me a hug. In minutes, I could feel my cheeks heating up. Erik just smiled at me. I asked “Where are we going tonight?” He said “That would be my problem la Niña (girl)” with a huge grin. We walked out the hotel and into the night. He took me on a boat ride in the Venetian canal. All around us was mystical lumps that looked like stars. It felt like I was a princess with her knight in shining armor/prince charming.





The canal was a magnificent sight to see. On the side were houses and restaurants. I looked at couples dining in the restaurants and old couples in their homes just sitting and talking. This was a city where romance took every corner. I look at Erik and he look at me. Then we just started to talk about random things. I asked him “Where do you plan to go to for college?”






He said “I would love to go to the U of M. how about you?” I told him “Well, the U of M is the place I want to go too.” we laughed right there. I asked him about basketball “What position do you play in the team?” “I play point guard. It like I am the coach on the court. I tell the other player what to do and then they do it” he said.







We kept on talking like this the whole time. We didn't even notice that the boat ride was over. When we got the boat ride, Erik took my hand in his and held it there. I loved the way his hand felt on mine. It was like we were made for each other. Erik took me to the Campanile Tower. Right there I gave him a big fat hug. I told him that this was one the places that I really wanted to see. He told me that he was happy that he took me here then because the smile I had was worth it. I started blushing again.





We climbed the tower and made it to the top in twenty minutes. I was surprised at the beauty of the city of Venice. I could see all the places I been in Venice like the Best Western Hotel Monticarlo, St. Marco's Square, Dodges Palace, and the Venetian Canal. I loved this place. Then I looked up and met Erik's eyes. In those chocolate brown eyes were hidden emotions that I couldn't understand.





I asked, “I know this sound weird, but I wanted to know why you wanted to go out with me. It's just that you never acted like you were a little bit interested in me. So why now?” He looked at me for a long minute the he said, “I never acted like I was interested because I didn't understand what I was feeling. I decided to act on my feeling for you when I saw the big smile on you at St. Marco's Square. I wanted to be the one to cause you to smile like that.”





I looked at him as if he was just a dream and not real. It didn't make any real sense because Erik was a big shot and I was nobody. How could I have thought otherwise? I open my mouth to say something, but Erik cut me off. He said, “I know that you don't believe me when I say that I really like you. I can bet you think I am better then you, but in truth you are better. I like you for you and not just your looks. Not to say that you don't look sexy. I really would like if you would give me a chance.”






I looked into his eyes and saw that he was tell the truth, so I said “I will give you a chance and to tell you the truth, I liked you since our freshmen year. It was the day you bumped it to me and helped me out with my fallen books.” He looked in to me. Then suddenly he took me into his arms and kissed with such passion that I couldn't believe it. Then he said “I remember that day too.” then he kept on kissing me. This was going to be a trip that would never be forgotten.




The end