Assignment 3- Eleanor Badgett

I am very lucky to get to travel a ton with my family, and while I definitely learn a ton traveling (my family likes to say we take trips, not vacations) I would definitely say my perspectives on the world have been shaped more extensively by the places I have lived. Right after I turned three my family and I moved to Baltimore, Maryland where we lived on the 11th floor of a high rise apartment building just blocks away from the inner harbor. There were very few kids in the building so Beppy and I spent most of our time playing with each other, but after a few months of living there a brother and sister duo moved onto the sixth floor. We were so excited to have new people to play with, but there was a catch, they only spoke spanish. I know it would be super awesome if I could say I learned spanish in order to talk to them, but I didn't, so I can't. But not knowing each others languages didn't stop us from communicating, we biked and played with rollie pollies in the courtyard for countless hours. When not playing with our Spanish speaking friends my mom, sister, and I spent a lot of time out. I remember often riding the light rail to the inner harbor where we could go to the aquarium and watch the dolphin shows, or rent peddle boats on the water. I always look back very fondly on my memories in Baltimore, and I am going to be honest I truly had no idea of the dangers and crime present in the city until very, very recently.  I think this is due mostly to how young I was while living there, but I also think it could be due to how we interacted with the city and our perspective towards it. After a year in Baltimore, my family moved to a small town in Bethesda, Maryland called Kensington. Not only was the size a contrast from Baltimore but so was our environment. Kensington is a quiet town packed with kids. It seemed like every house on our street, Ambler Drive, had kids living in it.  Here, Beppy and I made many, many friends from all over the world (this time they all spoke English), due to its proximity to D.C. our town was kind of a melting pot. All of these friendships lead to many many memories, and while I am no longer in touch with the kids from Ambler, I can confidently say the experiences we shared had formative effects on my life and perspectives.