Holiday Essay For Standard Grade

“Good morning, this is your captain speaking.”

I was sitting on the plane ready to go to Toronto with my mum. We’ve been on lots of good holidays but Canada was definitely the most memorable. We planned to see the CN Tower (the tallest building in the world), Niagra Falls and the Air Canada Centre.

Our flight was at lunch time, I prefer travelling at night but that was all that was available. The flight was seven and a half hours: the longest flight I’ve been on in my life. It was really boring. Well, at least we got a free bottle of water.

When we arrived at the hotel I looked out the window to see what kind of view we had; being night time I couldn’t see a thing. The following morning I looked out the window and there in front of the hotel was the CN tower! For breakfast, we went to Yong St, which happens to be longest street in the world. After a breakfast of bagels and coffee, we walked around the city to see where things were and how close they were to our hotel, which was pretty central. We also had a subway close to our front door.

A couple of days in to the holiday we went to see the CN Tower. I was very exited about it. I was especially looking forward to seeing the glass floor; I was even more excited about standing on it! Going up in the elevator took 60 seconds exactly. The ground dropped away beneath us.

We rose up higher than the birds flying in between the buildings. When we got to the main level, I was amazed at how far I could see. There was another level below the main one which had the glass floor. When I stood on it at first I felt a little dizzy when I looked down. The people walking around at the bottom were like tiny dots moving slowly across a piece of paper. After a few minutes I was confident with walking over the glass floor, four hundred and fifty meters above the ground. So we had seen the bar, the restaurant and the glass floor. We were about to go back down when we found that we could go even higher. There was only one lift to carry us to the peak of the building in operation; there were at least a hundred people waiting to get on. It took us twenty minutes to get to the lift but when we did, it was worth the wait. From the top we could see at least twice as far; yet even with binoculars, I still couldn’t see the end of Yong St. Since there was so many people still waiting, we could only go up for ten minutes but even then I enjoyed it.

The next day we went to Niagara falls. We took the bus from the cities main bus terminal and it took us a couple of hours to get there. When we got there the sight was breathtaking. The waves crashed off the rocks at the bottom and the sound was deafening. There was a series of tunnels behind the falls which we went through first. We were only a few meters away from the falling water. We were so close to it that we could even feel the spray.

After the tunnel we went on the Maid Of the Mist which sailed right into the mist of the falls. It was almost impossible to see: I could barely see people who were only five feet away from me. After all that we went for dinner in the town of Niagara. It was like a mini Las Vegas with loads of bright flashing lights and casinos.

On our second last day we went to the Air Canada Centre to see a basketball game. The Toronto Raptors were playing Boston Celtics. Before we went into the stadium there was a place called the ‘fan zone’. There was a eight foot basket ball net there that I was able to dunk into. I thought that was really cool. The game was surprisingly quiet, nothing like a football match. There was also music playing while the game was being played which I thought would be a distraction to the players. Still, in the end Toronto won 89-77.

I thought Canada was a memorable holiday because it is the furthest I have ever been from home. It was also the first time I had ever been outside Europe. Without a doubt going to Canada was my favourite holiday.

My Comment

This would suit either a Standard Grade personal essay or be suitable for the writing section of the final exam. This piece was written by a competent fourth year. It contains a neat structure, nice description and those all-important thoughts and feelings.