On December 31st, 2007 we travelled on a plane with a suitcase each to Nassau, Bahamas, to move into our new home. There was a container full of all our furniture on its way. The first guy in charge of it stole all of our money and ran off, so we got it for free the second time! When we got to our house, the electricity and water were off, and the furniture hadn’t arrived yet, so we went to our real estate agent’s house to talk to him. He gave us a few air mattresses and a potato masher, and promised to get some people to turn the water and electricity back on as soon as he could. We got some candles and food at the store, and went home. My stepdad blew up the air mattresses manually while my mom and I lit some candles, and I got to read by candlelight, which was really fun - I even wrote a letter to my friend and sealed it with wax! In the morning when we woke up, we had no water to take a shower, so we took a bath in the ocean! I had never done that before.

We then went downtown to buy or rent a car because we didn’t have one, but our taxi never came, so we hitchhiked with a Bahamas guy who didn’t wear shoes and kept one foot out of the window! I had never hitchhiked before, so that was really exciting! Later that week, I started school. It was a new school, which was really fun and exiting, even though I was nervous. I made lots of new friends. Our furniture still hadn’t come, so we went out to buy couches. Most of our furniture is old, and I can’t remember buying it because I was so little, so it was fun to buy some new stuff.

Later that week, our electricity and water came on, which was really exciting. We were so happy! It was nice to be able to shower in actual water. Our furniture still hadn’t come, so we bought a little TV. It was really small and cute. We weren’t expecting our furniture for a month after we arrived, and luckily it came a week early. One day I came home from school and most of the furniture was already set up and unpacked! That was exiting, because I didn’t think it was going to come for a while. That night, we got to watch TV on a big TV and sleep in an actual bed! That was a great night. After that, not much happened, but it was still really fun to live in the Bahamas. The roads flooded once, and we drove for two hours through roads we had never seen to get back home - what an adventure! Moving to the Bahamas was a really fun experience; I would definitely recommend it to anyone! Just make sure to find a good container company if you want your furniture to get there on time.

On the 12th day of moving, Bahamas gave to me...

12 conch shells conching

11 starfish sitting

10 fans a spinning

9 stairs a winding

8 dolphins swimming

7 seagulls squawking

6 buses late...

5 PAAAALM TREEEES

4 hummingbirds

3 musketeers

2 fighting Ows

and a Colonel in a pantryyyy...**

**Ow and Colonel are our cats. The first thing Colonel did when he came into the house was to run to the pantry. He knows where the food is!

Emily Zumchak is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program

All photos courtesy and copyright Emily Zumchak