BEARS ON THE ROAD

Weirdo Mountains and PVC Pipes: What They Have in Common

2011-07-31T01:42:00.000-05:00

We got to Guilin and were picked up at the airport by the taxi the hostel arranged for us. This is the first time my parents arranged this and it is nice. Usually we battle our way wherever we have to go on local transport, but this many weeks into our trip my mom says she is getting too old for all that.

The exterior of the hostel was a bit unpromising with the gambling house on the bottom floor and the crumbling stairs. It was so late we just grabbed our key and went to bed. In the morning after looking around a bit the hostel proved to be pretty nice. The rooms have air conditioning, there is a pool table, it is clean and we found where they were hiding the western style toilets. I HATE squat potties, or as my dad calls them, “cat toilets”.

After breakfast we took some buses out to the Reed Flute Cave. I never found out why it is called that. Perhaps it is because of all the vendors outside selling noisy plastic whistles. It should probably be called Over Excited Rainbow Cave. That’s because practically every surface in the cave is illuminated with a rainbow of fluorescent neon lights. All of the formations have fruity names like “A centipede frightened by a magic mirror”, “A bumper harvest of melons and fruits”, and “The crystal palace”. The crystal palace is a large chamber with a lake and a photo booth and a large row of stalactites and stalagmites backlit with in a harsh blue. We saw several people putting their hands, feet and trash in the water. One girl filled her water bottle in the lake and then drank from it! Near the exit of the cave we entered what I will call the bat cave as it had several mid-sized bats swooping here and there. After the cave we took the bus back to town and stopped for lunch at a Pizza Hut where they served excellent Oreo milkshakes.

The next day we went on a bamboo raft trip down the Li River. We were picked up at our hostel by a mini bus and taken to a section of river south of town. After fending off the vendors trying to sell us squirt guns and flowered headbands we set sail in our “bamboo” (PVC pipe) boat. The mountains are some of the most famous in China. They come in a wide variety of unusual shapes like spikes, columns, camel humps, goat horns, and one I thought was shaped like a hot air balloon rising out of the river. The shoreline was covered with long fingers of bamboo. It made me wish there were some pandas around. During the trip we also saw water buffalos on the shore and when we stopped for a break we saw a large herd of them go into the water to cool off and go poo. Back on the water two families squirted us with river water (with its buffalo poo) and looked shocked when we all screamed at them to stop. The rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful.

At the end of the cruise we took motorcycle cabs down the mountain and then a couple of buses back to the hostel. Along the way we stopped in Yangshuo for dinner. Pizza and ice cream again! My chocolate milk came with a small cup of sugar syrup to sweeten it with!

The next day we went on an exploration of the city. After walking around all day we went on a nighttime cruise of the 2 rivers and 4 lakes. The whole town was lit up just like the Reed Flute Cave. There were pavilions with musicians playing traditional instruments and one where there were fake musicians pretending to play instruments. The cruise took us past the twin pagodas of the sun and the moon. These thankfully had no flashing neon lights. By the time the cruise was over the buses had stopped running so we had to walk all the way back to the hostel. We arrived exhausted and drenched in sweat.

We are staying here until we go to Hong Kong – my mom says HK is like Disneyland and I will love it. Actually, there IS a Disneyland in HK! I wonder if my mom will surprise me with that?

Pandas make it all better- Chengdu

2011-07-31T01:30:00.000-05:00

The next morning after our arrival in Chengdu was our panda tour. The guide told us to look at the first enclosure until she called us. In half of the enclosure were 3 young pandas happily pulling and stuffing their faces with bamboo. After we took millions of pictures and watched them a while, we were intrigued by another large clump of people, so we headed over and saw a larger panda doing some weird routine.

He would climb into his cave halfway, with his rear sticking out, climb in fully, stay there a couple seconds, climb out, walk around a corner, come back, stand up, and start over. This became less of a mystery as we rounded the bend, where we saw that he was going in and out of his air- conditioned room between bites of bamboo from his feeding area! Our guide called us and so we headed to the next exhibit.

This exhibit turned out to be home ground, and if you’ve read any of my New Zealand blogs, you know what I’m talking about. We turned the corner and saw the unmistakable red panda. A review:

 Red pandas are not related to pandas, but raccoons

 Called pandas because they eat bamboo

 Live naturally in the Himalayan area

 Cute

 Picky eaters

Several of the red pandas were lazing about eating bamboo, but others were climbing into the red panda playground and sitting in trees. Some had ruined tails, and one had no tail at all. This was because the red pandas fight and bite each-others tails.

Soon the keepers brought apples for the red pandas. One stood up on his hind legs and begged, but came down soon after no one threw him apples. The worker set down the apple basket next to what I assume was medicine, and turned around to get something. The red pandas sniffed the medicine, and after judging it to be inedible, crowded around and set to work on the apples. Our guide called us again, and we went to an indoor exhibit. There were about six 3 year old pandas eating bamboo. Some were lying down while eating like a Roman banquet, others sitting like toddlers eating cookies, and one was completely hidden in bamboo. We also heard a pandas three goals in life. Here they are, in Panda and English:

1. Lose Weight(Too Fat!)

2. No More Dark Circles Under the Eyes (Ugly!)

3. Have Color Photo (My Pictures Are Always Black and White!)

1. Rrrm Grrmmf(Rrr Grr!)

2. Mm Grar Rrrg Growll(Grrm)

3. Rarf Rrrrr Ggrfm(G’r Rrrrf arf Rrrrg!)

We admired the pandas, and then headed for the nursery. There were no BABY baby pandas, but young ones. Our tour guide pulled away because we had something else planned. We put on plastic aprons, gloves, and shoe covers, and headed in to the panda holding place. Basically, they stuffed a piece of bamboo or fruit in the baby panda’s mouth, and plunked him into your lap. On my turn, the panda flopped over onto the bench, so I didn’t get to hold it for long. It weighed surprisingly little – I guess they are 95% fur. Its fur was coarse and fuzzy and he didn’t pay any attention to me because he was so busy stuffing his mouth the whole time. Pandas pretty much eat all day long. I snuggled the panda and then we left.

That night we went to the Sichuan Opera and, after they served us tea, the show began. First they played music only, and then they did the dances. They did a play where a guy danced and crawled on his knees with a bowl of fire on his head, a shadow puppeteer (who made a flying and sitting bird, and owl, a horse, a dog, fighting monkeys, a rabbit who got eaten by a dog, and a swan), the flame breathing and face changing,( I alone know the secret) a person who could imitate his flute, and a puppet dance. We got an early night’s rest for our flight to Guilin.

Terracotta Warriors: The Worst Guards Known to Mankind

2011-07-31T01:23:00.000-05:00

After our plane flight, we took a bus to the Terracotta Warriors. WARNING: For all those who are considering a Qin Dynasty burial, terracotta warriors, in addition to not lasting for long, can NOT, I repeat can NOT protect you from the ever-flowing mass of invading tourists.

Pit 2 was mainly terracotta shards and crumbled dust, but we did see some whole pieces, such as a wagon wheel and a head. Pit 3 had mostly complete parts, like torsos, arms, legs, heads, and even horse heads, appendages, and 1 horse behind. There was one cavern filled with headless bodies.

However, Pit 1 has complete bodies of warriors, each with their own face. Invisible chariots are pulled by horses, and, despite the missing arrows and spears, the severity in their faces make it seem like they are going to attack at any moment. One room was filled with soldiers, many of whom had lost their heads, I assume discussing battle strategy. The horses behind them make my nickname, ‘’The Headless Horsemens’ Convention,’’ seem accurate. Where spears used to stand, there are empty hands, but the way the hands are put up, it looks like they once held drinks.

We excavated our way out, and were chilled by the sight of REAL DOG SKINS hanging on stands all around the marketplace. We hurried back to our hotel, and after unpacking, headed out for dinner. We first stopped at a hotel, but then we saw the sea turtles next to an aquarium full of animals that they serve for dinner and cleared out.

Next we stopped at a restaurant and got noodles, tofu and steamed broccoli in garlic. First they brought out my cold noodles in sesame sauce. They were spicy and hurt my mouth, so I stopped eating them. Accidentally they brought out a plate of steaming meat, so we had them take it away and bring out our tofu. Our tofu was also spicy, resulting in me drinking half of the giant water bottle. Lastly, they brought out the steamed broccoli in garlic. It was alright, but what really drew my attention to it was that it was the only part of the meal not trying to burn my face off. We went back to our hotel and got an early night’s sleep.

Shanghai! I LOVE this place!

2011-07-31T01:20:00.000-05:00

We took a bullet train from Beijing. It was very clean and comfortable and the ride was really smooth. I didn’t even know we were going so fast until my mom pointed out the monitors that showed our speed – 198 miles per hour!

We took the wrong exit from the subway, but immediately walked into a STARBUCKS!!! I got a vanilla frappuccino and some vanilla macaroons! The workers were so friendly and my parents were really happy to get some coffee. My mom brought some via packets, but they ran out a long time ago and she now knows why tea comes in lined packets and sealed canisters! All the tea she brought from home is in Ziploc bags and it just colors the water now and tastes like nothing.

Our hotel had a wonderful view of Pudong and part of the Bund. We headed out to see the sights and do a walking tour. There was a tower named after Big Ben and a lot of other cool buildings. We went into the 5 star hotel that the people in charge of destroying all of China’s old relics stayed in while they were ordering everything wrecked. We ate at the Pizza Hut and had dessert at the Haagen Dazs! My parents felt guilt about the Papa Johns thing in Beijing!

The next day we got up early and headed out to the Costa café for breakfast. I had a croissant and apple juice and my parents order these giant coffees. We decided to visit the Yu Yuan gardens. It was really hot so we were glad to find another Starbucks! 1 vanilla frappuccino and some iced coffee later, we were ready to go. The area around the garden was really beautiful too. It was all these really nice shops and restaurants surrounding a lake with ducks, tons of goldfish and turtles.

It was wonderful inside the gardens There were little vase shaped archways, moon gates and lots of lovely pavilions. Water lilies and carp ornamented every pond and canal. After walking around and admiring all the wonderful we head back out into the market and ate delicious fried noodles and some rice.

We went to a traditional teahouse that was on a marble bridge overlooking the goldfish pond. It was really nice! We all ordered teas with fun names – my dad got the Jasmine Fairy, my mom got Golden Lotus with Jade Sleeves and I got the Dragon Well tea. Mine was awful! My dad won’t stop harping about it because mine cost more than $20 – US dollars! I mostly had my mom and dad’s teas – his was the best. The leaves opened to show a red flower and the red flower opened to show a string of small jasmine flowers. My mom’s was nice too. I bravely ate all the tofu tea snacks to make up for not drinking my tea.

We walked around the market streets some more, just enjoying the scene.

I really love Shanghai!

Beijing- If only the Forbidden City were still forbidden

2011-07-31T01:15:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Beijing, China at 2pm and, getting some Yuan, caught a taxi to our hotel. Apparently the driver didn’t want us in his cab because we’d only have to pay 10 Yuan. So he gave us a mini tour around Beijing efficiently raising our fare to 26 Yuan. After all that, he drove us to a street near our hotel and told us we’d have to get out and walk the rest of the way. We walked to hotel and stowed our stuff. Then we went to look for some food, because we hadn’t eaten real food for days and my stomach sounded like a car engine starting. We wandered around Tiananmen Square for some time until, after looking at several gasoline smelling Chinese places and a MacDonald’s with only hamburgers, we found a KFC. Now you may think, “A Kentucky Fried Chicken? You’re a vegetarian!”. However, I took down a 7-Up, a huge box of fries, a chocolate sundae, and a roll.

Next we found the Chinese Classics Theater and bought tickets for the 8pm show. After the prelude was “The Drunken Princess”, in which the Emperor asks a Princess to meet him at the Flower Pavillion but then goes to another palace and the princess he was supposed to meet drinks all the wine herself and gets drunk. Unfortunately, some jerk was screaming the entire time. The next one was about a 50 year old woman who commands and army. That one was not very interesting but the next one was awesome. A king came out with interesting face paint and very intricate robes. A queen, also with elaborate robes, also comes out. They have just lost their kingdom to the wicked Qin. After several dramatic hugs and tear wiping the queen does some extremely cool tricks with a sword that splits in half. The queen commits suicide and then so does the king. The last one was about a heavenly maiden who goes at the Buddha’s behest to scatter flowers to test the faith of one of his followers. She does some tricks with her very long scarf while standing amidst the fog machines. She and her attendant nymphs threw silk flower petals all over the audience and then the show was over.

The next day we went to the Forbidden City. A billion people don’t really do it any favors. The marble steps and pathways are cracked and disintegrating. You have to push and shove to see anything. A million sweaty strangers are touching you and there is trash everywhere. Some of the paint is chipped and peeling and large sections are closed off. The Palace of Eternal Happiness is a rust hulk with rotten floors letting you see down into the disgusting water filled with trash at the bottom. Don’t you feel the happiness? Then we looked at the chips of porcelain in the museum where I found the most remarkable thing to be the imprint of where people had actually put their mouths on the glass.

Next we took the subway to find a Papa John’s. I keep getting the pizza treats because I have been really good about trying all the local foods. We didn’t find it, but we did find a place called Tous Les Jours, it was delicious. Then it was back to the subway for the trip back to our hotel. My parents found a place called “Grandma’s Kitchen”. They were really excited because things were actually marked as vegetarian or not – there have been a lot of problems with that. My dad can speak some Chinese and we all know how to ask if it is vegetarian, but even when we show people the phrase in the phrasebook actually written in Mandarin, they act like they can’t understand what it means. Meat is in everything. My mom is flipping out because she said it used to be really easy to find vegetarian stuff everywhere, but now the noodles are in animal broth and pork or chicken is in everything. Anyhow, the stuff from Grandma’s was great, but I had eaten so much at the bakery that I just had the rice.

The next day we had our Great Wall tour. We were with extremely friendly people, which was really nice. First we went to the Great Wall. We saw the Imperial cell phone towers (that is what they are now anyway). I made it 3/4ths of the way up, but it was so crowded and went so slowly that my mom was afraid we couldn’t get back in time for our bus. It was also really sad. There was trash everywhere! People were throwing water and coke bottles off the wall, food wrappers, used tissues, and various other unpleasantness were all over the hillsides. Everyone was pushing and shoving, again a million sweaty strangers all touching you.

I decided to stop at the Great Wall gift shop – it is right on the Wall! – and then head back down. I was already a “hero” for climbing even that far. I got my hero medal and we pushed and shoved our way down.

Me with all my Chinese friends

We went to the jade factory and watched them making jade sculptures. After that was the silk factory, where we watched them make silk and go to touch the different kinds. We then made our way to the Olympic park to see the Bird’s Nest and other venues. It started to rain and we hurried through that. Next was the pearl factory. Freshwater pearls can have 40 pearls in them! I got a pearl for free and then we went to the tea ceremony. The tea was very good. There was one where when it opened a flower came out of it! She also showed us the “pee-pee boy” this is a clay statue that you use to tell if the water is the right temperature. You pour hot water over it and if the temperature is right, it pees everywhere. Ugh! Sadly, that was the end of our tour.

Trans-mongolian train, the final leg

2011-07-31T01:05:00.000-05:00

Back on the train again. Two things made this part of the trip was super cool for two reasons. One, there were herds of camels all over the place. (See terrible picture from moving train.) Two, when we got to the Chinese border they had to lift our train up, take the wheels off and put a new set of wheels on. This is because Russia and Mongolia use different tracks than the rest of the world.

wild camel

changing train wheels

Thank you again to Dr. Crossthwait, Uncle Daryl, Grandma, Aunt Nancy and Uncle David, Aunt Natalie and everyone else who has sent comments and been following along. Sorry for the long time between posts but it was not possible to access our blogs in Mainland China.

Mongolia! The Land of Camels, Gers and Ankle Bones.

2011-07-13T09:16:00.000-05:00

We got to Mongolia at 6AM and had a long, wet walk to the International Ticket Office to get our tickets to Beijing. My mom 7 I watched “Flight Plan” in Mongolian while my dad bought the tickets.

After we got that taken care of, we walked to our hotel, but got side-tracked by a military procession. We saw all of the soldiers, the head of the armed services and possibly the president. There was a big force of warriors on horseback and tanks and missiles! It was awesome! There was a giant statue of Chinggis Khan (that is how they spell it in English here) seated on a throne in the front of their parliament building.

We got to our hotel and went on an exploration for lunch at 2PM. We found a cool tour on the 12th and booked it; we were also able to eat their pizza.

After that we went shopping. I loved the camel calendars and all of the cashmere. It was so soft! I couldn’t figure out what cashmere I wanted. They also had felted crafts and camel wool. I got a flag and we went to the State Department Store. We didn’t even see ½ of the cashmere floor. On the fifth floor, they have a giant selection of traditional clothing, bags, tsam masks, huge paintings, ankle bones, traditional weapons and musical instruments, and basically everything Mongolian. They had these pearl sewn elephant pillow cases that I really wanted, but I couldn’t figure out what elephants have to do with Mongolia. Darn it!

Next we went to a non-profit handmade crafts store called “Mary & Martha’s”. It is a store that helps out women. They set up and work with cooperatives in rural communities. The poor women make their traditional crafts and they get 50% of the money themselves. The store owners took the name from Mary and Martha in the bible; it’s actually a lady and her husband. I got a hand embroidered bag, a felt necklace and a felted, fuchsia rose. They make their own shopping bags out of old newspaper!

When we got up the next morning, we went to the Nadaam festival. After lots of clueless meandering, we finally found one station, archery. It was just getting started and we saw three men and two women shoot. People come all day long to compete over the two days. The targets were stacks of cups, and I think points were given based on where you hit the stack and how many cups you knock down.

We heard large amounts of cheering and discovered the ankle bone shooting. Well, it seems to consist of a large oval of people chanting while tossing a white tile. When the tile reaches the half-way point one of two people with a wooden block like a Scrabble tile holder would take the tile and put it on the block. Then, after a long time, he flicked the tile at two ankle bones on a table at the other end of the oval. Then the tile was tossed around the other side of the oval for the other contestant to shoot.

It was a large collection of busy tents with throngs of traditionally dressed people moving from event to event. We saw troops of Mongol warriors invading the stadium! There were Tsam dancers in their gorgeous costumes with their incredible masks. There was a flag procession with people dressed like ancient royalty. The woman with the American flag had the most beautiful robes and a phenomenal peacock headdress. After a while, it was all too much amazing and we were starving. We headed back into town. It was so crowded that we couldn’t see the wrestling (we saw it later on TV - the horse racing is out in the countryside, but is almost constantly on TV!).

For dinner we went to the Grand Khan Irish Pub – so we wouldn’t be late for the theater! I had French fries and vegetable rice (it was like Mexicali corn mixed with white rice). My mom made me try the Mongolian pie – hers wasn’t very authentic because it was vegetarian.

The orchestra was dressed in traditional robes and headdresses of red and gold. There were several sizes of horse-head fiddle (which is square box with a long neck with a head shaped like a horse head) all of which make a beautiful sound. The fiddle only has two strings, the male string is made with hairs from a stallion’s tail and the female string with hair from a mare’s tail. They played and people came out to sing a “long song” which is not about the length. It is a song about the land of Mongolia. The orchestra also played a song by Mozart entirely on the traditional instruments. An ensemble came out a performed a “throat singing” piece. This is when a singer sings two or three notes at one time. It sounded amazing. We also saw dancers performing different traditional dances. One of them was about Nadaam and featured archers and wrestlers. My favorite part was the contortionist. She was incredible. She put her behind over her head and framed her face with her feet and smiled. For her last trick she folded herself in half with her behind over her head holding on to a pole with her teeth and spinning around. There was also a tsam dance which is a Buddhist dance to keep away evil spirits.

When we got out of the performance it was raining buckets and quite cold. We did not have our rain jackets because it had been sunny all day. All the people we had seen selling umbrellas earlier in the day had gone inside and there were no taxis around. Luckily we found a restaurant call Le Bistrot Francais where I got hot milk and a chocolate mousse.

The next day, we got up, had some salty Mongolian corn flakes, and headed out with our tour guide to Terelj National Park. First we stopped at Turtle Rock which I thought looked more like a bird with a boy’s head. We climbed about half way up to take in the view of the valley and then got back in the car and drove to a monastery that was shaped like the head of an elephant. It was brightly painted with pictures of various important Buddhist figures on the walls. There was a large censer of burning incense and a large gold Buddha image. On each beam there was a painting of a mouse who looked like he was regurgitating Easter eggs. Our guide told us that this was symbolic of money and good fortune. Outside, we spun all the prayer wheels. On our way out we found a prayer wheel that is meant to be spun by several people at once and so we all spun it by taking a handle and walking around it clockwise 3 times.

The walk around the monastery was beautiful with the monks’ school, paintings on the mountainsides, panels with quotations from a Buddhist holy book and millions of wildflowers, butterflies and crickets.

Next we came to a collection of 3 gers where we were going to ride horses and then have lunch. They offered us pickles before our ride and then the father came home with a sheep in a large yellow plastic bag. The sheep did not seem happy with this manner of arrival and was wiggling and squirming wildly to escape the bag. We were sure the sheep would not have a happily-ever-after, so we mounted our horses and rode away.

I’ve nicknamed my mother’s horse “Gassiopeia”. Can you guess why? Ashe said it was like a cartoon it was so outrageous and she said she was afraid the saddle would slip off because he seemed to be deflating. When we returned a sheep skin was draped over a fence post and the yellow bag lay empty on the ground. Our lunch consisted of steamed yak milk, potato pies, and vegetable soup. Our tour guides had the same except their all had meat (not the yak milk). It was very nice of them to make our lunch vegetarian. They probably think we are crazy. It was all very dense and filling and they made way too much food for us to eat. We all stuffed ourselves to not offend them, but there was no way to eat it all.

Our next stop was the 40 meter tall Chinggis Khan statue with a golden whip. The statue is placed on the site where he found the whip; the whip was a divine sign that he was to conquer the globe (or at least China). We climbed up the interior of the horse he was riding and soon made our way to the viewing platform on top of the horse’s mane. From up there his (Chinggis Khan) face is huge and stares at you like, “what are you doing on my horse?” The view was spectacular. They were constructing hundreds of gers that will eventually replicate the pattern of the ancient Mongolian horse brand. We saw a bunch of golden eagles surfing thermals right beside us.

After we clambered down the stairs (and I got my picture with the Mongolian warrior guarding the door) we got back into the car – I had hoped to ride a Bactrian camel, however, the camels were apparently kjust for sitting on and taking pictures, so we didn’t bother. My mom says we will go on a camel safari in the Negev someday, but they won’t be Bactrian. My dad says he’ll wait for us in Jerusalem. He hates riding animals. It was a wonderful day and we finished up with dessert at Le Bistrot Francais!

Mongolia has been amazing!

The Nerpa-tastic-ness of Lake Baikal

2011-07-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

We got up extremely early and caught the first bus to Listvyanka, a town on Lake Baikal. The lake was immense and was a deep, rich blue. It was beautiful. We waited for the nerpa show, which was awesome. The nerpas sang, danced, kissed each other and played soccer and basketball. One painted a picture and they each rescued two Barbie dolls. They were so cute! We were going to take a boat ride, but it was too cold. We got the next bus back to Irkutsk and headed for the train station to catch our train to Mongolia.

The first pizza we ate in Irkutsk was at a place called Picasso. They have an abstract idea of pizza. It was like soggy white bread with ketchup and mayonnaise with rubbery cheese. On our way to the train station we saw a red and green delivery vehicle with a Papa John’s logo (in Russian) on the side. “Nonsense,” we said. But it was true, there around the corner was a Papa John’s, and we were saved!

Life on a Train

2011-07-13T08:50:00.000-05:00

Our home for 88 hours!

Life on a train is not very comfortable. The ladders are useless, the beds are leathery and lumpy, and random people burst into your compartment in the middle of the night. Your legs fall asleep from doing nothing, and when people open the doors at the end of the cars, you can smell people smoking. Ugh! The dining car was 6 cars away. We went there a lot because it had air conditioning. We were boiling in our compartment and couldn’t play cards together. We could not shower, so we were disgusting when we got off.

To stay busy I sketched and doodled. Sometimes I listened to my Ipod but I had to use it sparingly so as not to run down the battery. We played cards a lot. I lost all of the pinochle games but won several games of rummy. I also read the Kindle and was wishing that we had more than one. I am reading “Emma” by Jane Austen. It is more challenging than what I usually read because there many words and phrases with which I am unfamiliar. Often I stared out the window thinking and watching the land roll by. The scenery was beautiful, with big patches of flowers everywhere, and 80 million birch trees. We saw a couple of rivers, but no moose or water birds.

I do not like living on a train. However, we were able to get off the train a couple times a day and buy ice cream, soda, M&Ms, and water. We got to see a lot of the Russian countryside and it was an interesting way to travel. It was better than an overnight plane or bus because there were beds and there was room get up and walk around. Still, no showering was tough.

The End

I was finally able to post my pictures!

2011-07-06T21:58:00.000-05:00

We have arrived in Irkutsk! I was FINALLY able to post my pictures for Tallinn & St. Petersburg so click on this link to go to my actual blog and see the edited posts:
http://www.bearsontheroad.blogspot.com/

Allie! Thanks for sending me a comment! Hope your summer is really amazing. Miss you,
Zada

Moscow - Holy Cats! I'm at the Kremlin!

2011-07-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

Moscow- When we got off the train we found a café where I got a chocolate donut. First we went to the hostel which was called Godzilla’s to drop off our bags. The first thing we did was visit the Kremlin. It is a collection of cathedrals in the center of Moscow.

There were amazing paintings on the ceilings and doors, with fabulous icons and designs everywhere. There were 6 churches, and we also saw the world’s largest bell, with an 11 ton piece broken off of it. The churches had golden domes with the cross of the Russian Orthodox Church on them.

Next we went to Red Square to see St. Basil’s church, which is actually 10 churches connected to each other. The outside was spectacular and the inside had glorious paintings. The 10 domes were fabulous, each one had a different decorative scheme, checkered, swirled, latticed. All were vibrantly colored. There I also learned that on my birthday Russian troops defeated a Tartar army and one of the churches in St. Basil’s is dedicated to that victory. After that we headed back to Godzilla’s for a good night’s sleep.

We got up the next day and, after eating our oatmeal, headed back to the Kremlin to see the Armory. Inside they have the most exquisite Gospel in the universe. It had giant cut emeralds, rubies, and amethyst as well as pearls on the cover. There were bowls made of carved shells, amazing cups, and some Faberge eggs. My favorite eggs were a big gold one with a gold and ivory train inside and one sitting atop the Kremlin. There was also a cup with Perseus leading Pegasus up a mountain to rescue Andromeda who was chain to a rock. There was another room dedicated to clothes, another to thrones, and we saw Ivan the Terrible’s crown. There was another room with horse trappings.

When we were done we went to the Moscow Cats Theatre. The cats and dogs were so cute! They swung cats out over our heads. There was a cat that did flips. One of the cats got bored and began playing with the tassels on his trapeze. They climbed a pole and as the clowns tried to pull them off the cats held on. A dog dressed as a mailman walked a cart across the stage. One cat walked on a pole upside down. A dog dressed as a ballerina did the conga line with the mailman dog. There were 3 dogs, a mini poodle, a mini pincher, and a bichon fries. There was a Siamese cat and the rest were just generic cats. They were amazing cats doing amazing tricks. In one act the clown was trying to get a cat out of a soup pot but it kept leaping back in. When he tried to block its path, the cat ran up his chest and he pushed it off. It flipped in the air and ran right back up. A little girl went up on stage but she didn’t know what the clown was asking her to do. She was so funny. I loved the cats. We also tried to see Lenin, a communist leader but the line was too long. We had dinner at Pizza Hut and then went back to our hostel.

St. Petersburg

2011-07-03T02:41:00.001-05:00

After our long overnight journey, we stumbled off the bus and found some breakfast before braving the Metro and finding our hotel. Then we dropped our bags and took another Metro ride out to the Peter and Paul Fortress. We went to see the cathedral. It was very beautiful with gold decorations, amazing chandeliers and gorgeous paintings and statues. After we finished looking at the church, seeing the tombs of Catherine the Great and Peter the Great, we went into the shops. I got a nice sparkly blue Matruska doll (finally! I have wanted one forever!)and then we left the fortress.

We took the Metro to Nevsky Prospect to look for food. You guessed it! I got pizza. After our afternoon sustenance, we headed to the Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood. There were four spectacular domes on the outside and inside was possibly the most famous church in the world. Giant mosaic of biblical events covered every surface in the building. The altar is separated from the rest of the church in Russian Orthodoxy by a screen called an iconostasis, because it is so holy. The doors in the screen are opened during the service. There were a couple of gorgeous tombs. The church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was killed. Every last centimeter of the church was so amazing that you can’t really describe it. We took 80 million pictures – well we wanted to, but the battery died and we were stuck with the back-up camera (the underwater one).

Lastly, we went to the Singer building, which had a giant bronze Atlas holding and immense glass globe on top of it. We had dessert inside and then ran back to our hotel to go to bed.

When we got up we ate breakfast and headed for the Hermitage. We had to wait for an hour in the line to get into line to buy tickets! The building was sea green with white and gold decorations and statues all over it. After our long wait we finally made it inside.

We first went to the prehistoric rooms, which were interesting. It was fascinating to see the progression from crude figures and plain pottery to in the end fabulous ideal human images, elaborate gold jewelry and amazing painted pottery and textiles. We dead ended and headed for the next set of galleries. There was a long hall of bracelets, weapons and other jewelry. We were intrigued by some giant boxes and walked into a set of rooms that had the horde discovered in an ancient horse burial. There was fabulous horse attire, handmade rugs of knotted silk, a carriage and a naturally mummified person.

The next set of rooms was a Central Asian gallery with amazingly detailed wall frescoes. We made our way to the next set of galleries where we saw more incredible artifacts from early Siberian, Black Sea and Caucasus cultures.

We next explored the Russian Culture rooms. There were many ivory objects, enameled things, gorgeous furniture and even some clothes. Sometimes the rooms were as amazing as the art in them. There was a room entirely dedicated to black lacquer ware. There were plates, trays and even a set of snuff boxes with portraits of all the royal family. There was also a gold room filled with amazing cameos and intaglio rings, brooches and pendants.

We next ran to some Dutch, Flemish, British and French art. The paintings were lovely, but the giant vases, columns and ewers of malachite, lapis and porphyry were almost even more impressive. Every room had such beautiful ceilings and floors that it was hard to remember to look at the things displayed there.

We had tickets for the Diamond Room tour, which also had gold treasures, like golden laurels. There were many incredible watches, including tiny ring watches and one set in the top of a cane. There were also watches that had special movements. For example, in one a ruby came up into a scene of a lovely room with a fireplace to make it look like the fire was burning. There were also incredible horse blankets with pearls and diamonds embroidered all over them. There were hundreds of beautiful snuffboxes and miniature toilet sets and sewing kits. There was a bishop’s miter sewn over with thousands of tiny pearls and swords practically dripping with jewels.

After our tour we only had an hour left to try to see the Italian paintings. We saw the Da Vinci paintings and the Rafael paintings as well as a sculpture by Michaelangelo. We saw tons of other great works by Fra Angelico, Della Robbia, del Sarto, Pontormo, Bronzino, Verocchio and so any others I can’t name them all. They threw us out before we were half done.

The next day we were able to completely finish the second floor, the Greek, Roman and Egyptian galleries and go back over the things we had rushed through. We saw all the European work on the third floor also. We saw lots of Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet and many statues by Canova, Rodin. I really liked this one statue that showed a girl falling out of her chair and caught mid scream. There was a special exhibit of work by Henry Moore – sketches from London during the blitz.

When we left, we again headed for the Nevsky Prospect and found a café where we rested and recovered – we almost missed our train because we didn’t exchange our e-tickets for real tickets, but it all worked out.

Tallinn

2011-07-03T02:40:00.001-05:00

En route to Tallinn I spent much of my time staring out the window. The Baltic countryside is beautiful, forested and green with little brick or stone cottages and farmhouses dotting the landscape. Farmers were harvesting in their fields. Latvia is the Baltic state with the largest stork population and as we drove through we saw stork posts and nests all over the place. As we crossed the border into Estonia we were greeted by a stork walking along the roadside next to the signpost.

When we got to Tallinn, we headed straight to the Old Town. Each Baltic state is especially famous for one particular type of architecture in their capital city’s Old Town - Vilnius for Baroque, Riga for Art Nouveau and Tallinn for Medieval. So most of the buildings were old brick with crenellated towers, wild spires and it all looked…well, Medieval.

The streets were cobblestone and the base of most buildings was gray stone topped by brick. People in medieval costumes advertised sweet almonds, ginger cookies and other good-smelling food items. We stopped in several stores trying to find my flag, but they were all very expensive. We looked at many houses and when our inadequate lunch of power bars, pretzels and gummi bears was no longer sustaining us, we had…PIZZA in the main square. The pizza was mediocre and also very expensive.

After we left the restaurant, we found this cute little medieval shop with handmade crafts, soap and hand ground traditional spices. We continued our walking tour and eventually made it to the Danish king’s garden. We also passed two archery stands on our way there. This building was also very medieval complete with a spiked barbican and dried up moat. Inside was a large platform with a viewing terrace and a long line of pointed arches making a gallery. It was the perfect picture of a 13-14th century place! We took a few more pictures, got a flag 7 a magnet and raced to the bus station for our overnight bus to St. Petersburg.

I have great pictures, but will have to add them from Irkutsk!

Riga

2011-06-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

We arrived just in time for dinner but first we had to check into our hotel. We resisted the temptation to collapse into bed and left the hotel for late afternoon sustenance. We stopped to take pictures of awesome buildings, and I found a flag. We shopped in some other booths and a linen shop.

Riga is famous for “Art Nouveau” and has tons of buildings in that style, but my mom wanted us to look at the older stuff first. My favorite house was the “cat house”. It has 2 cat statues on the roof. The story is that the merchant who owned the house wanted to join a guild but was rejected. To get revenge he placed the 2 cat statues on his roof with their rear ends facing the guild’s house. The guild took him to court and agreed to let the merchant in if he turned the cats around.

Blackhead's House

We also saw the Blackheads’ House. It was sort of a clubhouse for unmarried merchants. One Christmas they decorated a tree and burned it. That’s how we started decorating Christmas Trees, but I guess the burning part never came over. I guess we aren’t authentic enough. The buildings are all really great, you know, if you like fabulousness.

Next we had dessert. There were blankets on the chairs outside if you wanted to sit out in the freezing. We chose to sit inside. I got a chocolate shake, and my mom tricked me. I can never finish an entire milkshake, so my mom said if I finished it I could eat 2 whole sugar packets. I really tried but my mom made me stop. We went back to the hotel and fell into bed.

This morning we got up and walked to the Art Nouveau district and admired the amazing buildings and their fantastic designs. There were so many incredible things… too many to describe, so I’ll post a couple of pictures and just mention a couple of my favorite elements. I LOVED all the screaming heads, some robotish looking things, a wonderful Medusa, lots of peacocks and several images of my favorite Greek deities (Hermes & Athena). There were also lots of dragons and flowers twining around everything.

Riga was really beautiful and everyone should come visit it!

Then we ate breakfast, in my case, pancakes! Mmmm… Next stop, Tallinn!

Last day in Poland, 7 hours in Lithuania

2011-06-26T15:10:00.001-05:00

Fierce downspout

We got up too early and went to breakfast. I had Polish cocoa-puffs. Next, we went and looked around the old town and went into the castle. The water spouts were shaped like dragons! There were statues on the roof and by the doors. It was really beautiful.

Outside the Wawel

Next, we went shopping. I got an amber pendant at a place called “World of Amber” and a Polish flag. My parents took about 80 million pictures, so we had to stop about every millisecond. We ate lunch at a Polish restaurant and my mom informed me that she had had to eat pizza in every country I had ever been to and was sick of it. We had potato pancakes (YUM) and spinach pierogis. Then we ran all the way to the train station to get back to Warsaw to catch the bus to Lithuania.

tolerating my parents, briefly

After the overnight bus, we arrived in Lithuania. We stopped at a café in the bus station so my parents could have some coffee and I could have some juice, but really what we needed was change for the bathroom. You have to pay to go to the bathroom. We have to pay 1 lita each to go to the bathroom, and I promise you, I will never complain about any American bathroom again.

I open a stall and I find this microscopic hole with two footholds covered in grossness! Then this woman, who I assume was the attendant, comes out and starts barking at us in Lithuanian, so, my mom took me aside and explained the concept of a “squat potty”. Basically, you step onto the footholds, squat directly over the hole, and while trying to avoid getting anything on your pants, you do your business. However, it is almost impossible to avoid getting anything on your shoes. YUCK! And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, my dad comes and tells us that he had a normal toilet in the men’s room! RAHRRRR!

Well, I could complain all day. Anyway, after that we headed for the wonderfully exotic McDonalds across from the bus station (it was 7:00AM Sunday and nothing else would be open for hours, so my parents caved in and let me see if I could get hotcakes and hashbrowns). No, you cannot get those, but we discovered the wonderful McToast! It is an inverted hamburger bun with melted cheese in the middle. When I opened my bag, I found that it was MY favorite kind of cheese! After all of my parents’ carping and grumping, “They don’t have that horrible yellow, plastic ‘cheese’ in other countries! Eat real cheese! Deal with it!” HAH!

I cautiously checked the McDonald’s bathroom and was delighted to find that they were not squat potties!

Vilnius Cathedral

Next we started our walking tour of the Old Town. First we went to the Cathedral. We saw a cardxinal perform the Mass in Lithuanian. The church was really beautiful. After that we looked for the “miracle” square on the plaza. The people of the 3 Baltic nations formed a human chain as a protest for independence. The line ended in the Cathedral Square. They marked the spot with a star and the word miracle (in Lithuanian). If you can find the square you get to make a wish. It was pretty easy to find!

The top of the hill.

Next we climbed Gediminas hill for a panoramic view of the whole city. Once we got to the top of the hill the view was quite nice. We walked around the top a couple times (taking the usual million pictures) and then slowly made our way down the steep hill.

Once we got to the bottom, we went to another café, where I had much deliciousness (an ice cream and steamed sweet milk), while my parents had yet another coffee and a blini (like a strawberry and cream crepe thing).

Next we continued our walk, shopping as we went. The buildings were beautiful with many balconies, columns and pastel fruity colors. Flower baskets hung everywhere. Soon our delicious snacks wore off and we had to find lunch. I managed to find a place with pizza, so I could continue my unbroken line of eating pizza in foreign countries. My mom made me eat the Lithuanian style potato pancakes too, but they had cottage cheese, cucumbers and sour cream, so I just had the unblemished edge of one.

Yet another gorgeous church

Too soon we had to stop wandering and shopping to get back to the bus station. We picked up fries at the McDonald’s (my mom insisted, so we could use the McPotties!) before boarding our bus to Latvia. So far this “expotition” has given two new countries for my list – 14!!! Now, to Latvia (#15).

Krakow ... These are few of my favorite things

2011-06-25T01:49:00.000-05:00

POLSKA! Part 2
Salt, Chopin and chocolate!

We got up before breakfast and got on a train for Krakow. Apparently the woman at the ticket station gave us 1st class seats on the way there, but 2nd class on the way back. Huh, oh well.

After the very long train ride, we arrived in Krakow, dropped the bags at our hostel and went to the bus station to go to the salt mine.

Copernicus!

Salty!

First, we had to go down 380 steps. After that we started our tour. We learned about methane explosions, how they got horses down into the mine, culture and wood.

We heard the legend of St. Kinga, patron saint of salt miners. She was a Hungarian princess and when she was to be married to a Polish prince, she asked her father to give her a salt mine as her dowry (salt was amazingly precious then, one big block could buy you an entire village!). He obliged and as a sign of ownership she chucked her engagment ring down a shaft of the mine. When she arrived in Poland, she ordered the people to quarry a small block of salt and inside that block was her engagement ring! So the salt mine travelled from Hungary to Poland as a gift of great wealth to her new people! Pope John Paul II canonized her. He is huge here! His picture, statue and celebratory plaques are everywhere!

Methane is lighter than air and when mixed with certain gasses, is highly flammable. Unfortunately, miner had to use fire to see. Explosions were common. Miners wore wet outfits and used special torches to burn out the methane.

As you can imagine, getting live horses down there was really special! They were lowered in wooded crates. The horses had to live in underground stables in the mines, so that the horses wouldn’t die of heart attacks.

The miners had 2 chapels that we visited. One of the chapels was small, but the other one was huge. It had salt statues everywhere and a humongous salt chandelier on the ceiling. There were scenes from the life of Jesus on the walls and a salt statue of Pope John Paul II.

The supports were made out of wood because salt preserves it. There was salt leaking out of the wood, but I didn’t think that the mine would collapse, which was good.

The miners made gnomes of salt in front of a mini salt lake. I threw in a zloty and made a wish.

We also learned about tools. I got to help push an old mining machine used to raise and lower salt blocks weighing a ton. Luckily, it was empty.

carriage ride!

After we went shopping, we headed for the elevator and took a bus to the Old Town. We had dinner and took a carriage ride before going to our Chopin concert. Krakow is stunningly beautiful. The Old Town has so many gorgeous things to admire that you need 80 eyes just to try to see it all.

The concert was in a lovely hotel. The first part was a cute chocolate shop filled with little bites of deliciousness. I had just had an ice cream, so while my parents were pigging out on Black Forest cake and MORE espresso, I just had some water (no gas!) and enjoyed the beautiful little tea/coffee room. It had these exquisite glass flower chandeliers.

kingly!

The concert was in a beautiful salon upstairs. The person playing the piano was wonderful. He played really, really well. We all really loved it. He played several pieces including two nocturnes and two etudes, as well as a piece by Liszt and one by Mozart. Everybody clapped until he played an encore. We took the tram back to our hostel and crawled into bed. Tomorrow (after a visit to the castle)we leave Poland.

Warsaw- killer mermaid town

2011-06-25T01:18:00.000-05:00

POLSKA! Part 1

rainbow pegasi!

We landed in Warsaw and took a bus to out rainbow hotel, Jan III Sobieski. After putting our bags up, we first went to the War Memorial of Warsaw’s uprising against the Nazis. Personally, I think it would have been better without little children swinging off the rifles.

We couldn’t get a good picture, so we went to the National Library to look at the rainbow pegasi (yes, Madeleine, there was a hot pink Pegasus). We got several pictures and then were finally able to get a good shot of the War Monument because the little kids left.

inside the Old Town walls

Then we went to the Old Town. The houses had magnificent designs on them. The doors had beautiful statures and there were amazing painted designs. One even had a dragon on it! The flowers were beautiful. I also liked the mermaid fountain.

What was amazing was that it was all rebuilt after WWII. After Warsaw’s Uprising the Nazis destroyed the town, so the people used pictures to build it all back exactly the way it was.

I counted 5 mermaid statues. There is also a mermaid on the Warsaw flag because, according to legend, a mermaid came to Warsaw to rest. She liked it so much that she decided to stay. Fishermen found that someone was releasing their fish and tangling their nets. They were going to punish that person, but when they heard the mermaid sing, they were enraptured. A merchant’s son thought of how much money he would make by having the mermaid sing in fairs, so he captured her. A sailor and his mates rescued her and in gratitude the mermaid vowed to protect the city forever. So all of the mermaid statues we saw here have a sword and a shield.

mermaid warrior!

We ate at a café. Apparently people don’t drink just milk in Poland, because I had to ask for a cup of the milk that they put in your coffee. The cheesecake (which my parents loved) reminded me of the crepe I had in Peru, but the Sacher torte was great! We admired a dragon on top of the restaurant and then we went back to the hotel for a long sleep.

2011-06-25T01:03:00.001-05:00

It's grand and it's central!

Well, we’re in NYC. Mmm… waking up at 3:30AM…BOO! We actually had to take 2 flights – Houston to Memphis and Memphis to Newark. The Memphis flight was really rough; we met some turbulence and the pilot couldn’t turn off the seatbelt sign until we were practically there. The second flight was uneventful.

After we got to the hostel, we grabbed the camera and headed off to the subway. We got off at Grand Central station. After admiring the amazing zodiac ceiling and the architecture, and looked at the clock, and took tons of pictures we walked to the Empire State Building.

We climbed to the top (or rather the elevator took us to the top) and had a spectacular view of the city. After we had made a complete circuit, we went to the gift shop to buy some necessities, like stuffed King Kongs. We saw a gigantic model of the Empire State Building that was made out of Legos , complete with a Lego monkey on top. In the end, I settled on a “Z” with NYC themed pictures.

I can't see the 600th floor from here!

disco delicious!

Next, we stopped for an authentic slice of NY pizza. It was delicious! After that, we proceeded to Times Square to look for the Pop Tart store, the M & M store and the Hershey store. My mom didn’t want Pop Tarts, so she and my dad had cupcakes at a place called Crumbs.

at least it's not swarming with scorpions today!

First we found the M&M store, so we looked over all the levels of shopping. In the end, I chose a little pendant. Right across the street was the Hershey store. If I could, I would have emptied the racks at both of the stores, but I couldn’t. We found out that the Pop Tart store was only a temporary installation and now GONE! GONE FOREVER! The horrors! Ah well, enough pouting.

We went back to the hostel and collapsed into bed. The next morning, we crawled out of bed and down to the subterranean depths of the subway to go to the Metropolitan Museum. We walked across Central Park and took pictures of Cleopatra’s Needle.

no, really, I'm part of the exhibit!

Inside the Met, we saw the Egyptian wing, Arms & Armor, the American Wing (only 1st floor) and the Greek & Roman wing. In the Egyptian wing, we saw the Temple of Dendur, the original supports from Cleopatra’s Needle, fabulous jewelry, canopic jars and amulets made of lapis and faience. We had just a brief look at Arms & Armor, but a long look at American furniture and furnishings. Our last wing was the Greek & Roman wing, where we saw the saw the little girl’s grave stele from Percy Jackson’s Yancy Academy field trip.

This was not a “real” trip to NYC – just a long layover. We weren’t there for 24 hours, so my mom just kind of put together a “Rick Riordan” highlight tour. We mostly tried to see stuff from the Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson and also this Sesame Street DVD I was apparently obsessed with when I was a little kid called “Don’t Eat the Pictures”. We hit the gift shop and then had to race top the airport to… POLAND!

The End of the World

2011-06-20T09:04:00.000-05:00

Well, this is it. The big finish of our trip to San Francisco is the total destruction of the world! I am talking about Gotterdamerung! It means the twilight of the gods… it also means 5 ½ hours of broken hearts, betrayal, poison drinks, polluted rheinmaidens, evil plots and machinations, stabbings, smotherings, neck breaking, self immolations and the world catching fire and Valhalla crashing down in flames.

It started off with the norns weaving fate with cables. They recap the first 3 operas and then as they try to see the future, the cable breaks. Thus ends their eternal wisdom.

The scene gives way to Brunnhilde and Siegfried. She urges him to go back out and resume his heroic deeds. He gives her the ring to pledge his undying love, and she gives him Grane, her horse. He leaves her surrounded by flames and heads out.

Next we meet Gunther, Hagan, and Gutrune lounging on leopard skin pillows and drinking weird glowing lemonade. Hagan tells Gunther that he has great goals to accomplish, such as getting married. He tells Gunther about Brunnhilde and Gutrune about Siegfried. He informs them that the potion he’s made will make Siegfried fall in love with Gutrune and make him capture Brunnhilde for Gunther. Just as they are wondering when Siegried will come to their territory, his horn sounds and he arrives.

Gutrune gives him the potion and he drops instantly to his knees and declares his love. He swears a blood oath with Gunther and agrees to get Brunnhilde for him. That night he goes back to the rock using the magic tarnhelm to look like Gunther and declares Brunnhilde to be his. She is shocked and devastated and tries to escapes, but he overpowers her and wrenches the ring from her hand.

Meanwhile, Alberich appears to his son, Hagan in a dream and tells him to do whatever he has to to get the ring. Hagan swears that he will.

Next morning Sigfried arrives back at the home of the Gibichungs and prepares for the double wedding. During the ceremony, Brunnhilde sees the ring on Siegfried’s hand and realizes the betrayal and treachery. Siegfried swears on Hagan’s spear that he has done nothing wrong, but Brunnhilde next seizes the spear and swears that it will be the instrument of her revenge.

Everyone then goes off to enjoy the wedding feast, except Brunnhilde. Hagan comes back out with Gunther and the three of them plan their revenge for their various betrayals (except for Hagan, who just wants the ring and is actually the one betraying everyone else).

Next morning the men go off on a hunting party. Siegfried is separated from the group and runs into the rheinmaidens (3 saucy sprites picking up plastic bottles out of their hideously polluted river). They give him a chance to return the ring before the curse kills him. He refuses and they tell him that the ring’s next owner will be a noble woman who will return it to them by nightfall.

Seigfried returns to the hunting party and tells them stories of his past. Hagan gives him a potion to help him remember and he remembers the woman truly loves and pledged eternal love to and then horribly betrayed. Hagan pretends to be so disgusted by Siegfried’s broken oaths that he spears him in the back. After the world’s longest dying scene, the hunting party returns carrying Siegfried’s body.

Gitrune accuses her brother, Gunther, of murder, but Hagan admits that he did it. Gunther and Hagan fight over the ring and Hagan breaks Gunther’s neck. Hagan tries to take the ring, but Siegfried raises his arm from beyond the grave and scares him away. Brunnhilde walks in and everyone knows she was Siegfried’s true wife, and the ring is hers.

She orders a huge funeral pyre and invites the rheinmaidens to take the ring from her ashes after she burns herself on Siegfried’s pyre. The fire is to remove the curse and melt the gold back into the river. Hagan runs in and tries to steal the gold from the flames, but the rheinmaidens tackle him and suffocate him with a yellow plastic bag.

That is the second opera I’ve seen where someone is suffocated with a plastic bag – Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades was the first one.

Brunnhilde finally understands what Wotan desired and dreaded the destruction of the world and collapse of Valhalla. The funeral pyre burns down the world and when the ring returns to the Rhein, it floods its banks and extinguishes the fire. A small girl in a white dress emerges from the smoke and water carrying an ash tree sapling. She kneels to plant it as the curtain falls.

And now for my commentary…

The opera was incredible. Unfortunately, Siegfried lost his voice about ½ way through the second act. After the second intermission, David Gockley came out to say he had “a vocal indisposition and had been treated by their specialist and was determined to perform”. He asked for the audience’s understanding. He (Siegfried, did sound better when he came out for the 3rd act, but you could tell he was really suffering).

Again, Brunnhilde was supremely awesome! Everyone leapt from their seats, screaming when she came out. Her applause was thunderous, I was surprised the ceiling didn’t fall in. Overall, my first Ring Cycle was a fantastic experience. The only thing that could have been better was if we had the incredibly cool Viking helmets so many other people were wearing. Ah well, next time and that next time might be 2013! My mom is looking at tickets for the Seattle Opera Ring Cycle!

Good as Gold...en Gate

2011-06-20T01:05:00.000-05:00

So today we went to the Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge, Crissy Field, Fort Point, and Fort Mason. We walked over 6 miles to get to all of them. At Fort Point, we learned about the cannons, cannonballs, and the granite. The ranger told a story about the inefficient cannons. There were 3 forts in this thing called the triangle defense. To celebrate the 4th of July, in 1876, they put a ship filled with fireworks on it in the middle of them all and had a contest to see who could hit the ship first. At this time, they still used completely smoothbore cannons. They started shooting at the non-moving ship, and 3 hours later, they were still shooting. After the tour, we went up to the top of the fort and were almost blown off of the fort. We went back down, walked through Crissy Field, and went to Fort Mason. I found several gigantic pinecones. Soon we had to leave. We went back to the car and drove to the opera.

Tonight’s opera was Siegfried. It opened with Mime, Alberich’s brother, making a sword. He is complaining about Siegfried. When Siegfried walks in, he has a bear with him. The bear walks around and then leaves. Siegfried demands his sword, but when Mime hands it to him, he breaks it with his foot. He vents against Mime and forces him to reveal his (Siegfried’s) history. Mime tells Siegfried that his mother died in childbirth and shows Siegfried his father’s broken sword. Siegfried demands that the sword be completed by that night and storms off.

As soon as he leaves, Wotan appears, disguised as a wanderer. He challenges Mime to a battle of wits. Mime asks about whom live below, on, and above the Earth. Wotan asks Mime 3 questions also, but when Mime can’t answer the 3rd one, Wotan declares that only the one with no fear can reforge Notung, and that person will kill Mime. Wotan disappears, and Mime knows that he means Siegfried and he begins to wonder how he can teach the hot-blooded hero fear. Just then, Siegfried walks in. Mime says Fafner the dragon will teach him (Siegfried) fear.

Siegfried wants the sword, and when Mime doesn’t have it, Siegfried declares he will forge it himself. Mime makes a drink to put Siegfried to sleep so he can kill him and gain the Nibelung treasure and the ring. When Siegfried finishes the sword, he rushes off to Fafner’s lair with Mime behind him.

Meanwhile, Alberich is spying on Fafner. He sees Siegfried approaching, and then Wotan comes in. He suggests that Alberich give Fafner the news that danger is coming in exchange for the ring. When Fafner refuses, Wotan leaves and Alberich hides.

Siegfried comes in and Mime tells him Fafner will wake at noon. Siegfried tells him to leave, and Mime goes a little distance away so he can get the ring after Siegfried kills Fafner. After Mime leaves, Siegfried sees a wood bird. Siegfried makes a flute to understand the bird with, but it sounds awful, so he uses his horn.

Then Fafner enters, driving the best mechanical dragon I have ever seen in my life. It’s also the only mechanical dragon I have ever seen in my life, but this one was really cool. Its paws lifted, steam came out of its mouth, its head turned, and it was gigantic. It is here where I wished you could take pictures in the opera, because if you could, I would have pulled out our new camera and started snapping pictures machine gun style. Well, anyways, Siegfried Kills Fafner, and Fafner warns him about the curse.

Fafner’s blood allows Siegfried to understand the birds. The wood bird warns Siegfried of Mime’s plan. She leads Siegfried to the place where the Tarnhelm and the ring, and while he’s away, Alberich and Mime fight over the ring and the Tarnhelm. Alberich leaves, and Mime, hearing Siegfried returning, quickly gets out his poisoned drink. The bird tells him that if Mime lies, Siegfried will be able to hear what he really means. Mime offers Siegfried the poisoned drink, and there is this hilarious scene where Mime tries to coax and flatter Siegfried into drinking, but Siegfried actually hears what Mime is thinking – I have always hated you, hurry up and drink this, so I can steal all your treasure, and so on. Siegfried kills Mime.

The bird comes down and tells him about Brunnhilde, and he madly rushes off to win her for his own. The bird leaves him with Wotan, and Wotan tries to stop him from reaching Brunnhilde’s rock. When Sigfried is persistent, Wotan bars the way with his spear. Siegfried shatters the spear with Notung and continues on his path. He goes through the fire and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss. Then there is a long operatic scene involving a lot of “I love you”, run away, “eternal bliss”, run away, “always yours”, run away, “burned by the fire of your eyes”, run away, and so on and so on, until they finally kiss…blackout…huge applause.

The opera was great, but several times the orchestra was louder than the voices. Once again, Brunnhilde was the best.

Elephant …seals

After travelling a long, winding, disintegrating mountain/coastal road we finally made it to Point Reyes, where after collecting my Junior ranger book and watching the orientation film, we headed over to the lighthouse.

There was a loud blaring horn that sounds every 20 seconds (I know because I had to time it!). We took several pictures and went inside it to learn about its history and the history of lighthouse technology. This lighthouse was different than most of the other lighthouses I have ever visited because instead of climbing up hundreds of stairs, you had to go down 302 stairs! That was because the weather out there is usually foggy and if the light were at the top of the hill it would be lost in the fog.

One of the activities was to pretend you were a lighthouse keeper and keep a log, so I read the sample logs in the watch room. A lot of keepers and their helpers apparently went mad, were drowned or fired for drinking all the time. Many of them just quit.

After we crawled back up the 302 stairs we went to the elephant seal colony. Check out the new videos posted to our youtube channel. There were several young males frisking and showing off in the water. All the mature males and females with pups were basking on the beach. These seals like to blow bubbles in the water and they have a weird gurgling, deep growly bark.

My last activity was a beach clean-up and learning about Minke whales at Drake’s Beach. I picked up over 50 pieces of plastic in about 10 minutes! And this is a beach that people actually take care of. Please don’t ever buy bottled water, use a reusable container. Also, use reusable grocery bags and NEVER release balloons. Those are the number one killers of sea mammals.

here there be whales... and valkyries

2011-06-18T22:05:00.000-05:00

If you are finished pondering this, then I will tell you about out second opera, called Die Walkure. Remember Fafner or Yardstick? Well, now he’s a dragon. It opened with a stranger outside a woman’s home. The woman’s name is Sieglinde, and her husband is Hunding. She invites the stranger in, and when Hunding comes, the stranger, called Wehwalt, tells his tale. It involves a girl, a forced marriage, and ends with him being chased by soldiers. Hunding tells him that he was one of the soldiers, and lets Wehwault stay the night, but tells him to prepare for battle in the morning. Wehwalt has no weapons, and Hunding ties his foot to a pole so he can’t escape. Sieglinde comes out and unties his leg, and says that she has drugged Hunding’s drink. Wehwalt says that his father told him he would find a sword in his hour of greatest need, aka, now. Sienglide pieces together pieces of Wehwalt’s story, and realizes that not only are they passionately in love with each other, but they are brother and sister! She says at her forced wedding, an old man came and thrust a sword deep into a tree. She gives Wehwalt his REAL name, Siegmund, and after a long, pronounced aria about spring (which personally I thought was unnecessary), Siegmund grabs the sword and the lovers run off. Meanwhile, in Valhalla, Wotan calls for Brunnhilde, a Valkyrie. He tells her to let Siegmund win. Brunnhilde jumps on the table and sings the fabulous Valkyrie war cry “to jo to ho”, and if you don’t know what that is, YouTube it. Anyways, Brunnhilde leaves and distressed Fricka comes in. She pleads with Wotan to let the Volsung (Siegmund) die. Wotan finally gives in. He calls Brunnhilde, and Fricka leaves. He tells Brunnhilde all of his secrets, and Brunnhilde begs him to let Siegmund live. Wotan refuses. Brunnhilde goes off and tells Siegmund to follow her after he dies. He won’t, and so Brunnhilde promises he will live. Next, a pack of gorgeous German shepherds runs across the stage. They were SO cute with their little doggy tongues sticking out. During the battle, Wotan arrives and shatters Siegmund’s sword, and then kills Hunding. He cries by the body of Siegmund, his son, and Brunnhilde runs off with Sieglinde. Brunnhilde arrives at the Valkyries’ landing place (they parachuted onto the stage), then tells Sieglinde to flee to the east and tells her to name her child Siegfried. She gives Sieglinde the shattered pieces of Siegmund’s sword and tells Sieglinde that he will be a hero. Sieglinde leaves and Wotan comes in, furious. He tells Brunnhilde that he will put her, asleep, on a rock, take away her immortality, and the first man who wakes her will be her husband. He shoos the other Valkyries away. Brunnhilde begs him to surround the rock with fire, and he agrees. He regretfully puts her to sleep, surrounds the rock with blazing flames, and walks away from his favorite daughter heartbroken.

I thought the opera was amazing, and Brunnhilde was the best character. I liked the flame surrounding the rock at the end. All of it was great, except for the spring aria. It’s like, Come on guy! Pull out the sword already! How much do you think she poisoned her husband to sleep? And he can’t be that bright either. I mean, the sword appears I the ash tree, and he doesn’t get up, he says, “What is the brilliant light in the ash tree?” but that part was pretty funny.

The next day was great…except for the waking up and some other things I will mention later. We went to the Starbucks and then journeyed to the whale tour boats. We admired the sea stars and the orca weather vane, and then we boarded. First we saw a sea otter with his little flippers and tail bobbing on the surface. Next we saw the fins of Risso Dolphins, and some Pacific White-Sided dolphins that played with the boat. They were really tiny and were so cute!

Then we saw several humpbacks. It was then that I got seasick. I upchucked over the side of the boat. Now, I have never been seasick EVER in my life, so this was a surprise, but at least none of it got on the boat. I felt sorry for the deckhand as he mopped other people’s seasickness results off with a broom. I felt a little better, and my parents had told me to focus on the horizon, but there were two problems. 1. It was freezing, and I was shivering so much I couldn’t focus on anything. 2. The swells that had made me seasick were so large that they covered the horizon.

But after that, I was better, especially when we saw a mola mola or ocean sunfish. It was humongous. After the mola mola, we continued and saw many humpbacks, including one and her baby! When we headed back, we saw a sea otter and her baby and 80 million sea lions, and as they tied up the boat, we saw 2 harbor seals flopping around.

Mmm…Purple Sand….

Next was Pfeiffer Beach, and the sand is PURPLE! Well, first we were on this road that reminded me of New Zealand’s roads, and that is NOT a good thing. For more references on New Zealand’s roads, look at my New Zealand posts. Well, anyways, we were on this road, admiring the scenery and thinking we were all going to die in the marshmallow car. But in the end we made it. We parked and then walked to the beach, and yes, there were streaks of dark purple in the sand. I played in the wet sand, making mountains, but the last one was the best, a giant mountain that was not finished. 3 waves came, but none of them could destroy my beautiful architecture. Then a BIG wave came and destroyed it. GRRR! After that, we took pictures in front of this hole in a rock that was spewing giant waves of water everywhere. Too soon, it was time to leave.

*** Thanks for writing, Dr. Crosthwait! I’m sure you’ll have a great time in San Francisco, but I have one piece of advice for you: Bring warm clothing. ON GELE!

Greeting from ‘Frisco! ...And from Alcatraz.

2011-06-16T23:17:00.000-05:00

After the long flight to San Francisco, we drove around until we found the ultimate life preserver for my parents-Starbucks. After they drank their coffee and I ate my cake ball, we drove the marshmallow car to Lucky, a grocery store. We used our Triple AAA cards at a map vending machine and got ourselves stocked with provisions. Then we found the hotel. We next prepared for Das Rheingold.

It opened with three beautiful maidens guarding magical gold. But then, ugly Alberich comes and tries to seduce them. They swim out of his grasp and tease him. Foolishly, they tell him about the gold and that whoever renounces love and makes the gold into a ring can control the world. They show him the gold, and he grabs it, renounces love, and runs off. In the second act, Fricka the goddess is berating Wotan about giving her sister Freia to the giants in return for building their fortress. A distressed Freia runs in, pleading for help. Wotan and her brothers, Froh and Donner, tell her not to worry. Then the giants come and demand Freia. One holds a giant yardstick (Fafner), so I’ll call him Yardstick. The other – Fasolt, (I’ll call him Bluepants) gets angry when Wotan won’t give her up. Then Loge walks in. Wotan asks him to fix the problem. Loge tells him about Alberich and the ring he forged. Bluepants declares that the gods can keep Freia if they get Alberich’s gold. They take Freia as hostage. The gods begin to feel old age, for only Freia can cultivate the apples that keep the gods youthful forever. Wotan goes with Loge to Alberich’s fortress to retrieve the gold. When they get there, Alberich is invisible using a thing called the Tarnhelm that can turn you into any shape. He is torturing his brother Mime. Loge talks to Alberich and tricks him into using the Tarnhelm to become a toad. They tie him up and return to the gods’ palace. Once there, they make him give up all of his gold, the Tarnhelm, and the ring. Loge and Wotan pile it all up, but Wotan keeps the ring. Then they let Alberich go. Before he leaves, he curses the ring, so that everyone who wears it will die until he gets it back. Soon the giants come with Freia. They tell the gods to pile up the gold and treasure until Freia is completely covered up. Soon they have used it all up, but Wotan still has the ring. Freia is not all covered, so they demand the ring. Erda comes and persuades him to give it up. He does, and Yardstick slips it on. Bluepants tells him to share and grabs the ring. Yardstick pushes him down and kills Bluepants. Froh and Donner pile up all the treasure and give it to Yardstick, who puts on the ring, takes the gold, and leaves. Donner makes a storm to clear the skies, and all of the gods ascend into their new palace, built by the giants-Valhalla.

The opera was amazing. They all sung very well, and I thought that the fire from Donners hammer when he made the storm was a nice touch. The toad effects were also very cute. Everybody was good, but I think the best character was Loge.

The next day we got up and toured Alcatraz. It was really creepy. Cells lined the walls, sorted into categories of good prisoners to bad prisoners. The cells for unruly prisoners had bars like the others, but they also had a solid green door. The door was shut and the light was off. The cells for quiet prisoners had bars, but inside there were paints, canvas, and other entertainment. We saw the library, the dining room, and the recreational yard.

The gardens were stunning, cared for lovingly by an army of volunteers. While looking at some colorful flowers, my mom pointed out a big seagull lying down. I then noticed 3 baby seagulls. They were mottled grey and brown like rocks, and they were so fuzzy and cute. On the way down the ramp, we saw people with cement in a box. They were putting down new cement and were using the tiles to match the color of the new cement to the old. We also learned about the most famous escape ever: 3 men made clay masks and put them in their beds. They rolled up clothes and stuffed them under their sheets. Then they dug out of their cells with spoon handles and crawled through the drainage pipe. They were able to escape Alcatraz, but did they make it back to San Francisco? No one knows. By the time the guards had figured out that the convicts were not asleep, the men were gone. It is hard to believe that they dug out with spoons, but if you took out the bowls, you could dig with them. The men had spent more than a year working on the escape. On the way out, I turned in my junior ranger badge and we went back to San Francisco. Then we went to Pier 39 to look at sea lions. Now I will tell you a true story.

The Pier 39

One day in San Francisco I was eating a tortilla and cheese roll. I was on Pier 39 looking at sea lions. I was about to finish it when something smacked into my head. I bent over the rails looking for my noon sustenance because I thought someone had smacked into me and made my roll fall. However, when I looked up, what did I see? This giant seagull flying away with the last bit of my lunch! The stupid thing dive bombed me and stole my food, and then had the impudence to come back and beg for more! I should have smacked his little smug birdy face! Just think of how my poor, traumatized roll felt! I was just about to finish it when he snatches it from my hand with his never ever washed, bacteria covered, crusty feet or his disgusting bird breath, bacteria palace covered, dead fish, smelly orange beak! EWWWWWWWW! The End!

Yes, you probably think that’s hilarious. Well, while you’re busy wetting your pants or rolling on the floor cackling hysterically and convulsing wildly with giggles, I will remind you it’s probably NOT so funny when it’s YOU eating a chocolate bar, and the ‘’seagull’’ has opposable thumbs…and she’s in your grade… and she has red glasses… and she’s your friend… and she has short blond hair… MWAHAHAHAHA!

Aye, Sea Turtles!

2011-06-11T14:03:00.000-05:00

Again, we were up at literally 1:30, but this time, to go see the baby turtle release. I slept all the way to Padre Island, our destination. We went to the dock and listened to the ranger speech. The rangers on the beach gave us the “ready” signal and the crowd slowly inched forward to the beach.

There were 4 people holding the corners of a net to protect the turtles from hungry birds. Others were holding long white poles with orange streamers to scare away seagulls and pelicans. The ranger in charge, Dr. Donna Shaver, Chief of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery, placed a cooler on the sand under the net, opened it, and began placing turtles in a pile on the sand in front of her. The point of this is to make it as realistic as possible, and they want the turtles to imprint on the beach so they know which beach to go back to if they survive. There were 80 turtles being released, and they were all groggy. Not one of them was moving. Then, one turtle hesitantly began moving tentative flippers. 3 others soon followed him and began leaving tiny turtle tracks in the sand. It was about 30 feet from the pile to the ocean, and the baby turtles could only move 3 or 4 little flipper steps before having to rest.

There were clumps of seaweed on the beach as well as little sand piles and crab holes, providing many obstacles for the baby turtles to overcome, plus the added heartbreak of the waves pushing the turtles back. When they made it to the water, there would be even more dangers.

The four turtles continued taking small baby steps closer to the ocean, until they were almost there. Waves engulfed them, and they began to move quickly, the number of steps they took getting bigger and the number and size of their resting time was gradually diminished. Soon, a wave came and the first turtle began to slide into the ocean, flapping his flippers wildly. The other three turtles soon followed him in. The sight of those four turtles getting in to the ocean must have encouraged them, because soon more turtles began the slow journey to the ocean. Some flipped over, and were stuck flailing on the ground until a ranger flipped them or they righted themselves. Others hit clumps of seaweed and had to crawl over them. It took a long time, but soon more turtles went flapping into the ocean, getting flipped and swirled by the waves until you could only see little heads bobbing up and down in the water. When the last little turtle had finally crawled into the water, we clapped and left.

On the way to the car, we found a giant twisted hunk of blue and white metal with little barnacles all over it. The barnacles were sticking out tiny brown appendages. As part of our annual “turtling” we always stop at Krispy Kreme on the way home. Heartbreak and devastation awaited us this year as we discovered that they had gone out of business! We stopped at a donut place called Donut Palace. I got a glazed donut and it was amazing – not Krispy Kreme extraordinary amazing, but still really good. When we got home the first thing we did was get in our beds and sleep.

Click on the beartube link on the side for turtle videos!

"S" is for Shamu

2011-06-10T22:10:00.000-05:00

Well, this was the first REAL week of summer, since I wasn’t dragged to school with my parents. On Tuesday, we went to Sea world. First we went on Steel Eel, which was a large yellow roller coaster made of a course of ups and downs, moving like an eel, as you can probably guess from the name. Then, we proceeded to the penguin exhibit, which was refreshingly cool… but smelly. It was a slow walkway with a vast odiferous view of penguins swimming, diving, sleeping, and just chilling out on the ice.

Next up was THE GREAT WHITE! I was practically hysterical at the thought of being upside down and was NOT comforted by my parents suppressing giggles, with unmistakable smirks on their faces. HMPH! They probably wouldn’t have been laughing when they were handing over gigantic checks for my therapy. I was still hyperventilating as the attendant came to check my seatbelt. She asked, ‘’ Are you sure you want to do this?’’ I was crying as I nodded my head. I was determined to do it. I had seen a churro stand with-OH!-WARM churros, and I thought, Hey, if this ride doesn’t kill me, I can have THOSE! But when the ride began to move, my last wish was to have my feet on the ground where they belonged. As the ride began to speed up and threaten the first upside down part, I buried my head in my shirt, gripped the hand rails so tight my fingers turned red, and closed my eyes. We turned, and I screamed so loudly I was sure people in Australia were cocking their heads and saying, “Huh, what’s that faint screaming sound?” Unbelievably, my parents were right, but once I began to think, This is actually pretty fun, and I began to ponder what in the world I was screaming about, because I couldn’t even tell when we were upside down, the ride was over.

Then we had to rush over to see Shamu do his show. He opened with a big flip and then went into a show of dancing, leaping, splashing, and flapped his tail at us, getting us soaked. Luckily, I had finished my foot-long churro.

After Shamu and his friends waved goodbye, we went on to Journey to Atlantis. We were boarded into a large boat, and after being strapped in, the boat progressed up a slow large climb. We were turned around backwards by a large circle, and went on a small bump. Then, we were flipped forwards and surveyed a spectacular view of the park, as well as a large drop that would carry us into a large lake. The boat lurched forwards, and we came to the bottom with a magnificent splash, which actually felt good in the scorching weather.

We scurried away to the beluga show, where an acrobat was splashing us with his stuffed dolphin and in turn, was getting splashed by large machines. Then 2 women in wetsuits came out, riding belugas, and the show began. The beluga gave kisses to people, and others showed amazing breath-holding skill. The man with the dolphin- let’s calls him John- managed several times to look like a klutz while splashing into water and not die. A woman dressed as a parrot came on- once on a hoop and another time on a cord, complete with parrots flying in circles and 2 dolphins doing tricks made the show complete.

Next we ran over to see the sea lion show, and we saw a baby sea lion. The sea lion show was a play about who was stealing the fish in the cannery. A detective sea lion and his helper were teamed up with a cook and his sea lion. A little otter was running around everywhere, and then the walrus came in. He was the culprit, and he was arguably the best character. When told, ‘’You should be ashamed of yourself!’’ He put a flipper on his

head. Next, he blew a kiss, and then, when asked, ‘’What are you going to do to get off all the extra pounds you got from eating all those fish?’’ He put his flippers behind his head and started doing sit-ups! At the end

, the walrus blew another kiss, the sea lions waved and started dancing, and the little otter was so cute by waving wildly. After watching all these other animals be nice and cool, we went to the water park. We did the Castaway Cruise, where you just float around a course, my dad and I went to the water slides. We did them all, and then did Castaway Cruise one more time.

Then we headed over to the dolphins. We bought a tray of smelly fish and fed them. Next we saw the sharks and fish. Soon, it was time to leave. :,(.

By the way, have you ever wondered what it’s like to see the Nazca lines from a plane, but had to rely on my words to picture it? Or to watch baby turtles make efforts to get to the ocean and had to refer to pictures? Well, for those of you who still have the patience to listen to me; my blog is going on the big screen! Or, more accurately, the SMALL screen. My parents have set up a YouTube account, so if you click the link on the side, you can see a walrus blow a kiss or watch an orca flip over.

Nassau- The Birthplace of Bahamian Postcards

2011-01-02T15:25:00.004-06:00

When we got to Nassau, I couldn't believe it. It was the exact opposite of Freeport- warm, sunny, with fish swimming in the port. We didn't have to wait to get to our bus, and we got in immediately. While waiting for the boat, we cruised the shop. I saw a shirt that I wanted. It had a shark on it. Then the boat was ready to leave. Our first site was famous. It has a prop from one of the ''Jaws''movie. The prop was a sunken plane. We saw many fish through the CLEAR and WARM water with the ALIVE reef. After that site, we visited a site with lots of other fish. The snorkel gear was much better, so I could actually snorkel. The last site was the site I had been most afraid of-the shark site. After much hmming and hawing, I decided to get in. The sharks were about 25 feet down. I saw 3 of them. Then they brought the bait box up, and I saw one of the things I'd always wanted to see-the dorsal fin of a shark sticking out of the water. ( we were out of the water when they brought the box up.) The last thing we saw before moving too far away was a boat full of shocked people, staring at about 15 ominous gray shapes in the water.

First stop-Freeport

2011-01-02T13:21:00.004-06:00

InFreeport, or FREEZEport, we got to enjoy about an hour of standing in the cold. After that, we FINALLY boarded a boat. We were allowed to sit on deck, and we saw flying fish! After a while, my parents made me get off. >:-(!! When we got into the water, I discovered something else-Bahamian water is deceptive. When you are not in it, it looks warm, but when you are in it, you know that it's cold. 9 tenths of the reef was dead. After several attempts at snorkeling, during which I nearly drowned twice, got a drink of saltwater through my leaking snorkel, and got a huge rash on the inside of my leg from my flotation device, which seemed to be busy making my rear end hurt rather than making sure other boats didn't kill me on accident. In the end, I gave up, of course, right before my parents saw a trumpetfish, a needlefish, and a moray eel. So, of course, ONCE AGAIN, I miss the interesting stuff. Bleh!

Washington

2010-08-16T09:54:00.003-05:00

We then drove to Washington to see my friend Molly.First, though, we stopped at Mt. Rainier, the worlds most photogenic mountain. We went to the Lodge of Paradise. It was really cool.Then we went to Issaquah and stayed with Molly for 2 days. We had dinner at this pizza place, and then we went and played with the cats, then we played on the computer until it was time for bed.The next day, we got up and Molly presented me with a REALLY COOL stuffed llama and a hat with a pegasus on it. What made them even more cool was the fact that she knitted them FREEHAND. Then we got to Boehms and I got a chocolate fish lollipop and a block of fudge. We ate them and we went to Snoqualmie Falls. After getting sprayed, we went to... the gift shop. We got a lemonade with 2 straws, and I got a bee candle and honey stick. Then we went to her house and we went to 2 playgrounds by ourselves. Soon, it was time to go.

Glacier National Park

2010-08-16T07:37:00.003-05:00

We drove to Montana in our car, and our next stop was Glacier National Park. The glaciers were really small! But you could still see them. When I got the Junior ranger Badge, my mom started talking-well, showing off, really, and saying how many Junior Rangers I had, and the ranger asked if I was a Girl Scout, and I said yes, and then he went and dug in a closet to retrieve a Girl Scout Ranger Badge and a badge with a mountain goat on it.Then we drove to a corral, and there we rode horses. My mom had promised me we could ride horses. My dad doesn't like riding horses. My horse was named Winchester, but people call her Winnie because she's soft like a teddy bear like Winnie the Pooh. My dads horse was named Smooth, and my moms horse was named Moose. Before I got on, Winnie put her head on my stomach and rubbed her head on my stomach. Then, I got on, and we rode. We saw 2 coyotes. Then we went kayaking. The water was very cold. My moms horse tried to bite her and push her feet out of the stirrups. Next, we go to Washington!

46, 47, 48 ...

2010-07-26T21:01:00.003-05:00

State number 46 was MINNESOTA, but not really, we were just driving through to get to real state number 46 WISCONSIN! State of cheese! In Wisconsin we went to St. Croix National Scenic River. It was extremely scenic with a colorful array of wildflowers. I did the Junior Ranger program and we explored the river a bit - not enough. We really needed to bring our own canoe or kayaks and spend a few days, but there were mosquitoes the size of mini-coopers! It was so bad that layers and layers of mosquito repellant couldn't hold them off and we are still scratching! Wisconsin, beautiful, but itchy.

State number 47 was MINNESOTA! Really this time (I am not allowed to say I have been somewhere unless I have actually gotten out of the car and done something special or unique to the place - my mom's rule). We went to the International Wolf Center, in Ely. It was superbly, supremely the best thing ever! I adopted a wolf and am now the proud sponsor of Maya, the only female ambassador wolf. She joins my other adoptive friends, Smaug, the Komodo dragon and a baby sea turtle from Padre Island (they don't have names - I would have named it Shelby. Anyhow, the wolves were beautiful. When we arrived there were no wolves about, but soon after that it was snack time! The keepers started chucking hunks of frozen meat wildly all over the place and the wolves came running then! We saw four wolves scrambling around after meatsicles. Some pieces fell in the pond and Maya's brother, Grizzer, dove in after them. The other wolves just watched him like he was crazy. At first I couldn't decide who to adopt; the swimming had me favoring Grizzer, but then Maya made the decision for me by leaping onto her den and putting on a lovely howling performance! We all had a wonderful time and you can track the ambassador pack and learn all about wolves at http://www.wolf.org/ .

Next it was number 48, NORTH DAKOTA! We visited Teddy Roosevelt National Park. The park is spectacular. There are tons of beautiful wildflowers and weird, bare badlands peaks all mixed together and it all looks amazing. We had a perfect day and saw huge prairie dog towns! I bought a prairie dog shirt, bookmark and sticker. They are fabulously cute. It was so much fun watching them play, eat, bark, keep watch and roll around. Next we saw a wild horse. We were amazed because there are only 85 in the whole park. We were even more amazed later when we saw herds of 10 or 11 wild horses two or three more times. There were several babies. They like to roll on the grounbd and we even saw one drinking milk from his mother! Also amazing to see were the buffalo! We never found the whole herd, but we found two lone males. They were right on the road and we drove right past them! I did the Junior Ranger program here too. The last exciting thing for today (I hope) was the tornado we had at dinner. We were sitting at a restaurant and some girl came in talking about this tornado that had just touched down in the next town when one of the people she was talking to looked out the window and said, "You mean that tornado, out there?" Everyone ran out of the restaurant to look and yes, we could just see the white funnel retreating into the sky.

Camp Half Blood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-26T19:59:00.004-05:00

Camp Half Blood was so specatacularly awesome there really isn't a word for it. Take the words: Spectacularly awesome. Now multiply those words by 10,000,000,000. You still won't even be close to how awesome camp was. OK, so I got there, which goes without saying. I met my couns-eler Kelsey. I was in... Apollo. I was TOTALLY not expecting that. Athena-maybe. Poseidon-likely. Not Apollo. I HATE the sun. Oh well. So, when camp began, I met the sword master, Master Thomas. We learned our marching commands, and practiced.Then we went inside. After this, we played capture the flag. My team lost three times and won twice. After that, we went inside and had snack. Gany did not have a very good insult. Gany's full name is Ganymede. He likes insulting the campers. He is hiding in our radio at camp. Once or twice he intercepts an enemy transmission. Our enemy is called the League of Monsters and Machines. A word about the League: they are all children of Hephaestus. They SAY,"Sure, join us, daughter of Aphrodite! Sure, join us, son of Dionysus!" But then they suck your spirit out of you. Everyday we did marching, capture the flag Laestrygonian dodgeball, sword fighting and phalanx training. We also had several special activities like a 35 foot climbing wall, another day we had chariot racing, and on the last day we had archery and sword fighting championships. We also had quests. Each day different people got to go on them. So camp was awesome!!!

Also while we were in Austin we got to see some people that we have not seen in donkey's years. First we went out to dinner with Miss Zada at Magnolia. She is the person that I was named after. She is one of the super nicest people in the world. We also had dinner with Aunt Natalie. First though we went to her house and I got to play with her dogs Inky and Franklin and her cats Gulliver and Kismet. Gulliver is a vampire kitty because he has gigantic fangs. Our last night in town we went to Amy's Ice Cream with Mr. Chris and Miss Rebekah. We were late meeting them because as we were leaving the camp site 2 members of the League came and tried to recruit me. Fortunately a patrol of counselors came and chased them off.

Last stop: Trujillo!

2010-07-13T10:59:00.007-05:00

We came to Trujillo on "Cruz del Sur!" "El placer en viajar en bus!" I think that means, The pleasure of travelling by bus! We had the pleasure of travelling by bus for 2 days! Now, to the casual observer, noticing that Cruz del Sur has reclining seats, pillows, and blankets, you'd think I could sleep well. WRONG! 3 reasons why.

1. there are movies playing 24/7.

2. there are horrible movies playing 24/7.

3.there are movies so fantasticly horrible playing people think they are going to die if they are not rescued immediately 24/7.

Finally we got there, took a taxi to our hotel, and did the coolest thing ever. WE...slept. We got in our bedclothes, ran to the beds, and slept. When we woke up the next morning, we ate breakfast and then took a tour with the owner of the hotel, Senora Clara. She took us to Tucume, and then we went to the El Museo Tumbes Reales de Sipan, where they have all the magnificent treasures from the grave of the Lord of Sipan.

First, Tucume is a complex of 26 pyramids inhabited by the Lambayeque culture, then the Chimu, then the Inca starting about 1200 years ago. The pyramids don't look very much like pyramids any more because they have been eroded over time by the heavy rains that come with a really bad El Nino year. They look like giant mounds of mud. You can see the bricks in some places which are shaped like loaves of bread. That shape leaves a little room for the bricks to wiggle when there is an earthquake. These pre-Columbians apparently were more sensitive to nature's power than we are. Their building are still standing while our buildings crumble into rubble when there is an earthquake.

Then we went to the museum where they keep the Lord of Sipan. Our guide and innkeeper told us that a king would have had two earrings but the Lord of Sipan had 3 which must have meant that he was really important. http://www.delange.org/LordSipanGold/LordSipanGold.htm If you go to this site you can see some of the treasure he was buried with. In addition to being buried with lots of stuff, he was buried with 8 people and 3 animals. The people included a watchman, a guard with his feet cut off so he couldn't leave his post, his wife, two maids, a little boy, and two soldiers. There were also 2 llamas one old and one young, and a dog. He was buried with a thousand little pots in human form. These little pots served to hold offerings of corn and other foods. Each face was individual, some were crying. He had several pectorals made of thousands of tiny shell beads in fantastic designs. On all the things with the king on it had the same clothes, decorations, and attributes as the real king, down to the smallest detail, like his amazing owl head garland made of gold. On the little statues, there were turquoise beads made out of microscopic shavings, and there were at least 2,000,000 beads in all!

Yesterday we started out at Chan Chan. It's the largest adobe city in the world and the largest city in pre-Columbian America. At the entrance gate what did we find but a native hairless Peruvian dog. They are not hairless because of some disease, that's just how they are. They have a higher body temperature than other dogs. When you pet them they feel hot. Like Tucume, Chan Chan had many pyramids most of which have been eroded. The people who built this place had domesticated pelicans that they used to catch fish just like the Chinese used cormorants. There were wall carvings showing the pelicans with fish in their mouths. I learned that the people of Chan Chan were great at using the ocean's resources to get food. Many of the walls had rhomboid or square designs representing the nets they used to catch crabs and fish. There were also fish, pelican, duck, and wave designs. There were several large vultures flying overhead.

Next we went to Huaca del Arco Iris, the Temple of the Rainbow. On the wals there you could see in a few places the remains of the yellow paint they painted with. When we see most runis today they are stone or sand colored but when they were in use they would have been brightly painted. When we climbed to the top of the temple on a steep ramp we had a marvelous view of the city and the mountains and the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Our last stop for the day was the Huaca del Sol and the Huaca de la Luna, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. These two pyramids were the center of the Moche culture almost 2000 years ago. Our guide, Senora Clara, took us around the Temple of the Moon, which was the most colorful building we had seen. Here a lot of the paint on the carvings has been preserved and they are still brightly colored. There were long walls with faces, fish, dragons, snakes, men, and jaguars. One wall was like an "I spy" page of jumbled images. Another interesting thing we saw there was a collection of bricks from the excavation. Each brick had a different mark on it. The scientists have discovered 85 different marks. They think it is to identify the different families or clans that contributed to the construction. While our guide was explaining it to us people kept getting confused and lost and had no idea where to look. We could not go into the Temple of the Sun because it is not excavated yet. So we just looked at it from the outside.

On our way back to the inn Sra. Clara stopped at the house of a friend who makes traditional ceramics and plays traditional music. He had one of the hairless Peruvian dogs. That is where I got to pet one. He and his brothers also played us some songs and Sra. Clara made me dance which I didn't plan on doing. Eventually, my mom and a couple other people from our group got pulled in too and I didn't feel so embarassed after that.

The 7th wonder: MACHU PICCHU!!!

2010-07-10T16:00:00.003-05:00

Today was the main highlight of our trip. Machu Picchu. We took a train straight to Aguas Calientes. We might have had to take a bus to Ollantaytambo, but we got lucky and the landslide had been cleared from the tracks so we could take the train. My mom was taking pictures before we even got there! The train provided food and drinks lots of views of livestock!

As we drove past the landslide area we saw tons of engineers standing beside the tracks and watching the train go by. The train went VERY slowly through here, and as the train moved little bits of sand, dirt and rocks fell from the cliffside onto to the train. Very exciting!

As we got closer we started to see huge mountains and then bits of Inca terracing and ruins. When we got to Aguas Calientes we had to walk through a giant market to get to the bus that would take us up to Machu Picchu. We saw the starting point of the Inca Trail and sometimes saw hikers at different places close to the ruins. We wanted to do that, but it takes 4 days and we would have had to miss either Nazca or Chan Chan and Sipan.

The bus had to twist up the mountains on a road that made me think of New Zealand. It was only big enough for one bus at a time, which was crazy becauses buses are going UP and DOWN that road all day long and a bus is a big thing to edge over to the side of the road, especially if the road is on a mountain!

Finally, we arrived! First we decided to take the long trail all the way through the ruins. It takes you up to the perfect postcard view and there my mother forced us into our fuzzy alpaca wool hats on a scorching, hot day to take the picture you will all see on our Christmas card this year! She insisted that I was not allowed to whine about any picture taking today - no matter how many she took. In the end it turns out she took 389 pictures, at the time it seemed like she took 389,000 pictures.

Machu Picchu was AMAZING! What is so incredible about it is that so much of it is still intact after so many years. Machu Picchu is a huge complex and the location is beaautiful - surrounded by stunning green mountains.

Adding to the wonderfulness of the site is the fact that there are camelids (llamas) grazing freely all over the place. The tourists (me included) all are pestering them for pictures. Unfortunately, the brown llama that looked like it was getting angry and going to spit, did not spit. I really wanted to see that.

While we were wandering around looking through the rooms we found the mysterious and elusive Machu Picchu chinchilla. We had seen piles of chinchilla poo all day, but up until then, no chinchillas. Apparently, the chinchillas have no respect for ancient Incan temples!

We noticed that some of the buildings had masonry that was less precise and exact than others. This was different than at Sacsaywaman where every block was perfectly fit to its place. Maybe these buildings were less important or were built at a different time.

We spent several hours looking at the ruins and terracing. After walking through the site tripping over lizards, llamas and ancient rocks we went to the cafe at the entrance. There we had ice cream and watched the end of the first half of the Germany/Spain nightmare. We watched the second half at a stand in the marketplace by the train station. Stupid octopus! If only Mueller hadn't been suspended! He and Hobbit (that is what I call #8 - Ozil, he looks like a hobbit, don't you think? And he is really short. I don't know if he has hairy feet.) are such a perfect team. They would have crushed Spain.

It was sad, but still a perfect day. We caught the train back to Poroy and there we paid our taxi driver/ extortionist 40 soles to drive us back to Cuzco (it was only 30 soles to get there - it was supposed to be 20 soles, but we were too afraid to miss the train and afraid to go look for another taxi at 5:30 am!). We were starving and exhausted, but it was great. You should all go to Machu Picchu, one of the 7 wonders of the world!

Also, go to the previous post and see the pictures that we finally got to load. You can go to my parents' blog for more pictures.

history and tradition at 11,000 feet

2010-07-08T12:09:00.005-05:00

We arrived in Cuzco at 5am! After we checked in to our hotel, we took a walking tour of the city. There was some sort of parade going on and flags hanging from many of the buildings. Cuzco is very beautiful. Around the city, people were in traditional dress, offering you pictures of their llamas, alpacas, and various other farm animals. Children were having to work all day, offering various sundry items, such as: hats, dolls, bracelets, pictures of goats, sheep, alpacas, llamas, and many other things. At least 20 people on one street were opening menus and advertising restaurants. Imagine, you've just eaten, and then 10 more people advertise different restaurants to you. At least 50 people have offered the same massage place to me. Would you like a massage? How about now? What about now? It's like, Geez, I said no to her and all those other people, so why would I say yes to you? Your throat gets sore from saying no gracias. After all this, we went to Sacsaywaman.(Sack-say-wah-man). It is an ancient Incan fortress like building.The Incan walls here are made of huge stones carved to fit together like a puzzle. They did not use any mortar. The walls are held up by gravity and good masonry. After our walking tour we ate at a restaurant called Jack's which has excellent pancakes. That evening we went to a performance of traditional dances of this area. I noticed that some of the dances resembled dances we saw the Maori in New Zealand. They were all very interesting. I especially liked the one with a man dressed as a monkey in it.

We went to Machu Picchu yesterday and it was awesome! I'll post about that later. Also, the images are not loading properly so I will do an update with those later too.

Como te llamas?

2010-07-08T11:49:00.002-05:00

A phrase which here means: "how are your llamas". Today we went to the Incalpaca and Michell factory stores. They make clothes from llama, alpaca and vicuna hair. Both had little camelid zoos. At the Michell , you can actually pet alpacas and llamas, but at Incalpaca they had all 4 camelids, but no petting. After pestering the camelids enough, we went shopping. I bought a bag, a t shirt, and 2 balls of alpaca wool yarn. Later, from a shop we passed I bought a reversible chullo hat with llamas on it made from alpaca and a matching scarf and gloves. Along the way we saw the world's coolest walk/ don't walk light. I'll post the video here. Finally we went to Touristic Restaurant on the Top.

Stricken with the curse of Rascar Capac

2010-07-04T18:11:00.006-05:00

I spent the better part of the morning puking everywhere. I guess I wasn't sufficiently respectful in my last post about ancient Pre-Incan football players - my mom told me not to post that or maybe it was because I ate nothing except a few bites of dessert yesterday despite my parents' repeated threats and warnings. Anyhow, thanks to my steady diet of water cracker bites and sips of electrolite replacer, I am much better now!

We got to Arequipa yesterday and checked into the Casa de Tintin - which I picked out. It is a great hotel with really nice gardens. The first thing we went to see was Juanita, "The Princess of the Ices". She was very interesting because unlike other mummies found here she was frozen immediately at death and not dehydrated, so she was very well preserved and scientists have been able to do lots of tissue studies they can't do on other child sacrifices. She was probably chosen at birth to be a sacrifice to the mountain gods and raised specially in Cuzco. At the time of her sacrifice she was about 12 years old. When researchers ran her body through an MRI at Johns Hopkins they discovered that she died from a heavy blow to the right side of her head. Her brain was completely pushed to the left side of her skull. Fortunately, when this happened she was probably unconcious from an intoxicating drink of fermented corn called chicha. Because of the freezing, all her organs have been perfectly preserved - she was physically perfect: no illness, no infirmity, no cavities even. They were able to analyze her stomach contents and identify her last meal. Her possessions were almost all intact also and she was from a wealthy important family. They can tell because she owned fabric that was reserved for important families from Cuzco. She had to walk all the way from there to the mountain top as part of the ritual. Archeologists found several pairs of her and the priests grass slippers on the path up the mountain.

While we waited to go in, we watched the Germany/Argentina game. It was hard not to cheer as Germany destroyed Argentine and my parents kept shushing me so as not to offend all the Peruvians, who wanted Argetina to win. Germany crushed them 4-0. Hasta la bye bye, Argentina!

After the ice mummy we went to the Santa Catalina convent. I saw a huge tour group of nuns! There are still 30 nuns who live at this convent, but they have a small section apart form the rest and they don't mix with tourists. Also these nuns all had souvenir bags and several were wearing hats over their wimples. Anyhow, this place was huge! I felt like Theseus in the Labyrinth. It was really beautiful and colorful all painted in vibrant shades of red, yellow, orange and blue. The paint stains your shirt if you lean against the walls - my dad learned that the hard way! There were lots of gorgeous geraniums all over the place and a rose garden also. There is a huge fountain in one of the 10 million courtyards that is filled with goldfish. The convent was filled with beautiful and interesting things and I have decided that I want a 16th century writing desk with dozens of little drawers for my room when we move. My mom just said, "Save your money." Do you think that means my parents won't get me one?

The place was so big that we had to stop at a little cafe located in a lovely garden. I had delicious extra-chocolaty cake for lunch! We finished the rest of the convent after our break. After that we visited some shops. We found baby alpaca reversible llama hats! There were also these really cool chess sets where one side was Inca warriors and the other was conquistadores. My dad wanted one, but my mom said no, because it isn't much of a game when you already know which side will ultimately win.

We stopped at a creperie for dinner and to check on the Spain/ Paraguay game. Spain won. This result was also locally unpopular. I had a butter, cinnamon and sugar crepe - so they said, but it tasted like apples. That is why I couldn't eat it.

Today, I didn't do much - except the puking. There was a lot of that, but I am much better now and after resting, water biscuits and electrolite rehidrate whatever, we were able to go out for dinner. We went to "Restaurant on the Top". And yes it was. After climbing Mt. Everest - well, it was 6 flights and at this elevation I could barely breathe. My mom was calling for oxygen and Nepalese porters by the fourth floor! The view was stunningly beautiful and I ate an entire pyramid of arroz blanco (white rice - I don't know why it comes shaped like a pyramid). Well, I feel fine now and cannot wait for operation "See Camelids" tomorrow!

I see dead people...

2010-07-02T16:34:00.004-05:00

Today we went to the Cauchilla Cemetary. It is a pre-Incan burial ground. It was destroyed by grave robbers 60 years ago and reconstructed by archaeologists. These mummies are originally 1400 years old. The first picture is of a mummified foot. Gruesome! The second one is of an ancient football player. Wonder how many touchdowns he scored! They are wrapped in the fetal position so they will be reborn. They all face the east because that's where the sun rises. Many were buried with severed human heads because these people thought that heads were seeds. Tonight we are taking the bus to Arequipa and the alpacas. Check below for the Nazca photos I promised.

from bad food to Nazca Lines

2010-07-01T18:07:00.003-05:00

7.1.2010

Houston to Lima

The trip began for me on a high note. The airport hotel had a Sonic right next door! The next Morning we had to be up soooo early for our flight to Toronto. I slept the whole way there. When we arrived it was time for lunch. Unfortunately the only place with decent vegetarian options was Coyote Jack's. We ate gardenburgers and their "howlin' good fries". The burger however was "howlin' bad".

When we finally boarded the plane I stayed up for some time watching movies. Finally, in the middle of Percy Jackson, my parents interrupted and made me try to sleep. I soon regretted not sleeping when I could because our plane landed at midnight. We had to go through customs and immigration and then got a taxi to the bus station for our 4am bus. When we got to the bus station we discovered that it was closed until 3:45. Fortunately our kindly taxi driver found us a gas station to hang out in for 2 hours until the bus place openned. My dad and I played war until it was time. Luckily our bus was there and ready when we got in.

Once we got on the bus I went right to sleep. When I woke up it was breakfast time. The food on the bus was good but not great. By then it was not dark any more and we could see the scenery. The south coast of Peru is desolate and desert-like. There are a few trees but mostly sand and rocks. The houses are surprisingly small and most of the roads are not paved.

It was a little after 11am when we got to Nazca. It's a small town and there is not much here but the lines. After we checked in to our hotel we got taken out the the Nazca airport to get a flight over the lines. The Nazca lines are awesome! And so is the plane ride. First, the lines, we saw all the famous images like the whale, astronaut, monkey, spider, and hummingbird. Some of the lines are really just shapes and they're not as interesting. Second, the plane ride is great because the pilot banks left and right so you can look down at the ground easily from your window. A dutch woman riding with us got sick. We are not done sorting our pictures yet so I can't post any but I will try to have some for next time.

Turtles

2010-06-28T13:12:00.002-05:00

Almost ready for Peru! We spent the whole weekend packing and we have gone to see a turtle release in between! The turtles are so cute! Here are some pictures. I will be updating this when I can. I think our hotels have internet but the over night buses we are taking probably do not. Our first stop is Nazca to see the lines and marvel at their mystery. Then we are going to Arequipa to see llamas and alpacas and vicunas and ice mummies! After that we go to Machu Picchu! Send me messages if you can.

Paparoa to Auckland

2008-08-04T06:36:00.004-05:00

July 26, 2008
We drove to Abel Tasman, with golden beaches, not fake gold, real gold and blue seas. We wanted to go kayaking, but blame the 4 meter swells – I’m not writing about this on the 27th. Second of all on the 27th we had a boat to catch. I was in the car and nearly rotted to death from boredom. We drove on horrible roads and when we got close to the edge of the road I thought we were going to fall off the edge. Other than that, I didn’t pay 1/12th of attention to the road.

July 27, 2008
We took a ferry to the North Island, as in a week and a half our adventure to ‘wonderland” would be over. The sea was bumpy, and I like to look out of windows if not go out on deck, but seldom did I look out, because my parents told me I couldn’t do anything else until I was finished with my book. We had to take a nap because if you are rocking to and fro like a mad child stamping and moving wildly that is okay, but if you are rocking like a mother rocks her baby, only in a giant cradle, it seems to hypnotize you and make you sleepy.
When we got there we drove to a campground and saw sleeping ducks, sleeping in the rain.

July 28, 2008
This morning we were surrounded by ducks and my mom lent me a piece of bread so I could feed them. The noise was unbelievable. Ducks pecked, quacked and jumped and pecked, quacked and jumped. They flapped and fought for food. After the ducks saw I wasn’t feeding them anymore, they went to surround another camper.
We went to Te Papa and saw Bush City and saw a fish tank with healthy fish and healthy plants. Then we went to a cave (fake) with glow worms (fake) and then ate a snack, and got on the road. We also saw bags of pony poo, 1 dollar a bag. I am sorry, that is a bargain, even for pony poo.

July 29, 2008
If you’ve ever gone on roads with snow and ice and grit on them, tell me. We drove to Mt. Ruapehu so I could play in the snow. Me and my dad had a snowball fight where we mostly kicked hard snow out of the way. After playing in the snow, we went off to the Agrodome.
There we had the company of two sheep dogs, who didn’t like the fake sheep dog statue. We went to the room for the show and saw the sheep, some of which I petted. Then the show began. First, the sheep were put on stage. They grabbed others’ food on the way and had to pushed on. The people put a gate in front of one sheep, who easily jumped over it.
Then he brought out a sheep and dragged it to a platform and sheared it. Then he threw some wool and we got some. Then he brought out a sheep dog and 2 ducks, who outdid the sheep dog. Next, 4 people got to milk a cow. The cow just ate like a pig the whole time.
Next 4 people let lambs drink from baby bottles. Then the sheep dog ran over and on sheep. Then we pet lambs, sheep and sheep dogs. Then we watched a sheep dog chase 3 sheep into a small gateway. Next we saw a giant machine comb sheep’s wool, which was afterwards spun into yarn.

July 30, 2008
We drove to the Rotorua Museum and I saw a piece of basalt that was hollow and found out the Pink and White Terraces blew up with Lake Rotomahana when Mt. Tarawera exploded. 120 people were killed that night.
After going underground, looking at where people took their mud baths, and laughing at a movie of a grumpy nurse, we saw a movie where the chairs shook. It was about an evil spirit that made a volcano erupt shortly after a group of people canoeing saw a war canoe that suddenly disappeared.
After that, we went to the café, along the way seeing 4 pukekos. The café was filled with birds and bird manure. Then we went back to the camper soaking wet.

July 31, 2008
We went to Hahei Beach and I played with a stick. There was a stream, broken shells, and pine cones. We played for a while, then went to the camper and played Uno and Pass the Pigs and then went to bed.

August 1, 2008
First we went to Stingray Bay, which was just rocks. As the waves came, I threw rocks into the water. Then we went to Cathedral Cove. On the walk I found a stick and played with it on the beach. Have you ever seen “Prince Caspian”? Well, if yes, did you know, when Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan first went back into Narnia from out of the train station through the arch, that was Cathedral Cove? I scared sea gulls, noticed a waterfall with a rainbow in it, and got in a triangular hole/short cave.
The sand was a bright, rosy, pink color. Next we went to Gemstone Bay, which was also just rocks. We climbed over the rocks, then went to Hot Water Beach, where we cooked our feet and found shells that looked like a ram’s horn.
When we went back our feet were covered in sand. I did not want to get in the sea water when it came up because it was cold.
Then we went to Orewa and found a campground, went to the playground, which was too wet, then went to the beach, where we found a lot of whelks and clams. The clams, like all clams, were clammy. I picked up dead ones and opened and closed their mouths. I picked up a live one and threw it into the water quickly, because it hissed at me. Then we went back.

August 2, 2008
We went to the Kauri Museum. A Kauri is a giant tree, which I have not put on this blog entry. First we saw two rooms with Kauri desks, slabs and frames. Next we saw displays or life sizes dioramas of how Kauri trees were used by people back then.
Next we saw how gum diggers lived. It didn’t sound that pleasant. They were up to their armpits in swamps digging holes at daytime and at nighttime they slept on burlap sacks. Next we saw a room full of antiques from households, like a cash register from Ohio and a Primus stove.
Then we went to the gum room which had models of buildings made out of Kauri gum. When we were done with that I bought a “mere”, or a war club, but I got the liver remover kind of club.
Next we went to the Kauri forest. First we went to the “Four Sisters”, along the walk seeing a sort of fungus. The 4 Sisters were 4 Kauri trees, mind you, I did say that Kauri trees were huge, and so these were. Next we saw the “Father of the Forest”. It was a light gray and was very wide around. We had to break our backbones and spinal cords trying to see the top, which was impossible.
Then we went to see the tallest tree. Of course, we broke our backbones and spinal cords trying to see the top of it. We couldn’t, so we gave up trying to do it, and went back to the car.
We drove some more and stopped at a hotel in Paihia. We went to eat out at a pizzeria where the food was delicious. We went back to the hotel and watched a game of rugby where the players did the “Haka”, which is a war dance.

August 3, 2008
First we got on a boat for four hours, and saw a gannet, a seabird with a yellow head. The water was a light blue with dark blue spots. Islands were dotted with sheep and trees. Sometimes the water looked golden. We looked outside and saw the “Hole in the Rock”. We couldn’t go through the Hole in the Rock due to sea conditions.
We got on an island and were there for a while. Lots of sea urchins were on the beach. We also saw two whole starfish and one starfish arm. Then we went to the café and had some fries. The boat suddenly blowed or made some sort of noise and we got back onboard. We didn’t see any sea life. We sailed back and found a campground.

August 4, 2008
We drove to the Honey Centre and ate at the café. Then we watched the bees with pollen on the go in and out of the bee hive. Busy, busy bees. They didn’t even stop when it started to rain. Then we went to the gift shop and bought honey soap after I tried three kinds of honey. Then we went back to find a campground on the way seeing beautiful rainbows.

Te Anau to Paparoa National Park

2008-07-27T04:55:00.003-05:00

July 22, 2008
We got into a moving gondola and were lifted off the ground and saw sheep and a luge ride tracks and trees and everything else you can imagine that would be on a mountain. When we got to the top I made a delicious mess of a popsicle/ice cream.
Then me and my dad got on a ski-lift, helmets on, one pair of eyes closed. You can guess who that was, right? Correct! Me! We (me and my dad) got our instructions and were off. Before the first bend, I ran into the gravel and the lady had to run over and help me out. After that, the rest went pretty smoothly.
After that, we went to Puzzling world. Am I holding up this building? We (again me and my dad) went into the maze and then into the illusion room with a golf ball that ran up, a room where I shrank, and staring dead people.
We took videos, pictures and other things and then took to our campground.

July 23, 2008
We drove to 4 waterfalls and found giant trouts and numerous pretty rocks. We went over a swing bridge to the “Blue Pools”, which if you ask me, are more green than blue. Then we went to another waterfall, which had cow footprints by it!
Then we spent a long time being attacked by birds called “fantails”, because their tails are shaped and look like fans. Then we drove to a café and our campground and watched the “alpenglow” and a pretty sunset.

July 24, 2008
We started by clambering over brooks and boulders. We could see the glacier and mountains and cliffs and the view was beautiful. When we got on the glacier I poked around with my stick as we went along, as it is very hard to stop poking things when you have something to poke with.
We went down some ice stairs into an ice cave. We got to walk a little bit into a crevasse, then went through an ice tunnel and were in yet another ice cave. We talked a bit about why the ice looks blue, and me and my dad poked our sticks in ice water. Then we walked back.
Glacier Fact: Glacier ice looks blue BECAUSE THE AIR BUBBLES WERE SQUEEZED OUT.
Glacier Fact: If you are near a glacier and the water in a stream or river looks milky, that’s from the sediments from the glacier.

July 25, 2008
This morning…you know how I told you we were savaged by ducks? This morning we were savaged by CHICKENS! My dad took me to the farm/zoo at our campground. We saw ducks, furry llamas, swans, pukekos (a type of colorful NZ bird), giant, giant, GIANT pigs, so big and fat the strongest person on Earth couldn’t pick them up. Then we saw 4 goats, a white one, a brown one and 2 black ones. After that we left, as the chicken pen was open and empty. The chickens, all 7 of them, ran as we came.
We spent some time looking at jewelry shops and buying things. We bought 3 jade blocks and my dad bought 2 necklaces.
After that, we went to the Pancake rocks. We parked and saw 2 freaky “parking lot chickens” (my mom called them), they are really called “wekas”. I saw them screeching and flapping and poking at eachother and I guessed they were fighting.
Then we saw the rocks. They certainly did look like pancakes, but I prefer butter on my pancakes. We also saw a couple of rocks I thought looked like a lion, a fish and 3 people. We waited for HOURS for a blowhole to spray.
After that we looked at smushed wine bottles and bought a 3 drawer container made of wood and a necklace and a fernwood box and a pink mussel shell.

Christchurch to Milford Sound

2008-07-21T03:45:00.004-05:00

July 16, 2008
We went to Moeraki and collected a million shells and saw freaky, round boulders.
We went to the Cadbury chocolate tour. Have you ever seen a Cadbury Crème Egg? That’s from Cadbury World. We (I) tried raw chocolate. Results: sour face. My dad wouldn’t eat it, and my mom liked it. After THAT, our tour began. First we saw chocolate buttons and Cadbury Crème Eggs being made. We also saw crumb. I thought it looked like crusty outer layer of dirt and got 2 chocolate marshmallow fish to put in my chocolate bag. Next we went to a warm room with tanks full of hot, melted chocolate. Then we talked about different chocolate and got a Crunchie bar, Moro bar, a Perkynana bar, and a Dairy Milk. We saw chocolate being wrapped, boxed, and stored in a warehouse. Then our tour was over. I looked at many chocolates and finally settled on a bag of milk chocolate buttons and a block of white chocolate. I got in a Cadbury car. Later we spent the evening browsing the town. We saw a giant climbing Cadbury bar but I was wearing sandals.

July 17, 2008
We ditched my dad and went to the Otago Museum. On the first floor was the café and gift shop. On the second floor were things from the Pacific Islanders, like a necklace made of human teeth, a fish skin hat made from a puffer fish, and a sword covered with shark teeth. They also had my favorite Maori weapon, the liver remover. The third floor had a giant moa bird skeleton, a giant crocodile, and a giant dolphin skull. On the next floor we heard about a dig. It was to look for evidence of an early people. Then we saw many animal skulls. We also saw bugs, butterflies and snails. Then we met my dad at the railway station.
We went on the Taieri Gorge (that’s the train’s name) to Pukerangi. Then we went back to Dunedin and walked on a trail to see where the glow worms are.

July 18, 2008
Have you ever read the Guinness Book of World Records? Well, have you ever seen the “world’s steepest street”? I climbed it. It wasn’t that steep (for me). My mom thought it was the steepest. Then I went to the Chinese garden. I put my fingers in a lion’s mouth (it was stone) and took pictures. Then I climbed a Cadbury climbing wall. On the way down I slapped myself senseless and did some karate on the wall. Then we went to the Yellow Eyed Penguin Reserve. First we visited the penguin hospital. Three penguins were there. One was lying down and the other two were standing. Then we saw the penguins. Nine of them arrived. One, we found standing. We also saw a little blue penguin. Soon we had to run like we were being chased by cheetahs to see a penguin trotting on the path. When the tour was over we drove to the camp ground.

July 19, 2008
First, we went to try to see some seals. The road was a muddy, rocky, horrible deathtrap of a road made of gravel. Unfortunately, we saw nothing and it was so windy that 3 of our brochures flew away. Next, we drove to Cathedral Caves. On the way my Dad honked at some sheep and they ran away. Next some sheep ran towards us.
We discovered that the road to Cathedral Caves was closed. Next we saw a stunning forest, little, tiny adorable waterfalls, and a big, giant waterfall. Its name is Purakaunui Falls. I thought it was as big as an elephant.
We turned to go to Curio Bay and saw petrified logs and stumps and more. I collected 4 shells, 2 of which were still alive.
We watched and drove away a hawk eating a dead rabbit. We drove over the dead rabbit, torn to shreds and bloody and meaty. Then the same hawk came back and made off with the dead rabbit. Then we drove to Invercargill, where we found a campground to rest in.

July 20, 2008
This morning we drove from Invercargill to Te Anau. The drive was very long and tedious. There were snow capped mountains and they were so beautiful. We took a million pictures. Then there were the ostriches. They didn’t seem to mind us. The mountains were so gorgeous, so we were sad when we got to the lake, because the mountains and lake were buried in fog.
Next we went to lunch. I had 3 pancakes, heavenly hot chocolate, and a bowl of cream with Flake chocolate. But soon my cream turned sour. Then we (me & my dad) threw around the rugby ball with catches and throws, twists, turns, and misses.
We got onto the boat, a large/medium sized boat, and soon we saw greens, grays and whites. This ride wasn’t so long and so tedious. We went over safety things, yadda, yadda, yah. “Don’t touch the glow worms, blah, blah.” On the way in, we all ducked for a low rock. The cave was, of course, dark with rushing water and waterfalls. When we got in the little raft, the lights went out, but …little lights shone on the ceiling and walls, like tiny little stars at midnight. People pointed and stared, not breaking their necks, like me. They were tiny, beautiful lighted glow worms. At the end, we were warmly welcomed by a bright, loving sun. We got on the boat, greatly astonished and amazed. We looked back to see the brightening lake and our glow worm guide waving. I still want to see more glow worms and their spit trails. Did you know that glow worms are cannibals?
Next I went to “TIP TOP”, the ice cream place. Nurse Petner, sent me a comment and recommendation. I tried the Hokey Pokey flavor, which tasted like honey & butterscotch, meaning awesome! It tasted so good; I ate it, cone and all, something I usually don’t do because I don’t like cones.
Then we checked out our campground with warm bathrooms, a very nice kitchen, an outside grill, and very strange bright red berries that I don’t know the name of. I guess they’re okay to eat, because the birds eat them, not that I want any.

July 21, 2008
This morning we saw a flock of sheep a farmer was ordering around with his sheepdogs. We went up the street, only to be in the MIDDLE of the sheep stampede. Sheep flooded the street to new pens. Some sheep went to steal some grass and disappeared from view into the bushes. We had to stop because the rude sheep began to cross the road. One actually peed in front of us! Rude eating, eliminating sheep. When they were gone, the road had grass and branches and wool and sheep droppings strewn in every which way and place.
Next I went out to kick some snow and who should we come across, but a Kea? He flew down and hopped to the road, inspecting everything with a strange call of, “KKKEEAA!” with a screeching sound. Please do not tire out your throat and stomach trying to imitate this bird’s call.
Then we went to “The Chasm”, which was a rich green forest with crazy waterfalls so loud that it was like a very, very, very, very, very long table when you are trying to talk to someone and have to shout. It was crazy, with holes, bumps, swirls, long drops and pools of water which are truly amazing.
Then we took a boat cruise to the underwater observatory. We saw seals and went under a waterfall! Then we went to the Tasman Sea. It was very, very bumpy. We turned back and … DING, DING, DING! Third penguin of the trip, Fiordland yellow-crested penguins, the rarest penguins in the world! We watched them for a while, got in red suits, and were SOAKED. I mean really soaked by a giant waterfall. We were just dry and out of the red jackets when we got there.
We were bumped around because the building was floating. We went down the stairs and looked at the sea from behind glass. We saw fish, mussels, sea urchins, and sea stars. We were 8 meters below sea level, but did not see sharks or dolphins or whales or seals, just to tell you. There was also orange coral.
When our underwater experience was over, we went back to the boat and sailed to land.

Wellington to Christchurch

2008-07-15T01:36:00.004-05:00

July 12, 2008
Today we went to Te Papa. It is a museum with so much cool stuff; I really couldn’t decide what I liked best. First we went to Awesome Forces. There was an earthquake house, a place where you could make and earthquake, a baby’s crib with bricks in it, and a screen with mirrored walls and floors.
Next we saw “Mountains to Sea”. There was the skeleton of a baby whale. The skeleton was so large it stretched from one end of the room to the other. We saw other sea animal skeletons.
Next there was a Discovery Centre and I walked on blocks, played a Maori stick game and swung what looked like balls on the end of string. I also went into the meeting house, sleeping house and food house.
Then we went to the 1800’s exhibit. I played a ship game and came in second place. Then I smelled some whiskey. It was disgusting! I read about a woman who made whiskey and died when she was in her 90’s after drinking her own whiskey every day.
Next we went to Blood, Earth and Fire. It was about invasive species and how they affect everyday life in NZ. I inspected a cargo hold and found mosquitoes in the tires, bats in the bananas, termites in the desks, spiders in a barrel, maggots in tomatoes, and beetles chewing a mask.
Next I went to the fake meeting house and did some crayon rubbings.

July 13, 2008
This morning we sailed to the South Island of NZ. It wasn’t much. Weather Report: blue skies, turquoise waters, perfect day for sailing. We saw jellyfish and NZ fur seals. Soon someone who worked on the ship said, “Whales on the right side of the boat!” everyone ran like a stampede of wild bulls to the right side of the boat, cameras ready. I am very surprised the boat didn’t tip over into the water. Soon everyone realized the “whales” were rocks, water and trees.
I had done a paper treasure hunt sheet and the winner would get a prize. But when we found out the winner it was someone called Shaun. Soon we got off the boat, got in the car (as on deck 3 there was a garage of people’s cars). We drove and got prepared for the whale watch tomorrow.

July 14, 2008
Have you ever seen a star fish? Probably not a 6 legged one. We were messing around in tide pools after our whale watch.
We got onto the boat and I saw petrels and albatrosses. Albatrosses are like giant seagulls. Then behold! I spotted the whale before anyone! Behold the great SPERM WHALE! He blew geysers in the water, showed his back, and then showed his tail.
Soon… we saw dusky dolphins. Do you know those small bags you carry? The ones you take on trips where you find out the more luggage you take, the more money you pay? The dusky dolphin could fit in one. We soon were in the middle of the pod. One of the dolphins was so close, one inch to the left, I could have held him. They also did flips and flops.
We turned back and once we were at the shop I got 2 plush whales, a sperm whale and a humpback. Then we went to the camper. We saw 2 seals flopped on the grass, and more on the rocks and water. I also saw snails and a crab carcass.

July 15, 2008
We drove to the Antarctica Center. I went in and stood on the North and South Poles at the same time. They had a platform with 2 footprints to stand on with tubes of water from each pole, so you could be on both at the same time.
Then I went into the 4 Seasons room. The snow was bubbles. Next I saw a funny movie about real penguins and seals. Next we saw the little blue penguins. They were all bloody and injured and having check-ups.
Then …we got onto the Hagglund. We were bumped and there were steep hills and gaps. I thought 2 of my ribs had cracked. On the last one the hill was giant. At the very bottoms was a lake 3 meters deep! Luckily, the brakes worked. After that, the ride was over.
Then, PENGUIN LUNCH! Little fish were tossed into the water to the little penguins. After that we went to the gift shop, had a snack and hit the road. We saw alpacas, and ostriches.
I forgot to mention the freezing room. It was all real ice and snow with an igloo and a very fun ice slide. It was -8 degrees Celsius in there and then a giant penguin came in and there was a huge storm with 40 mph winds and the temperature dropped to -20 degrees Celsius.
They also had a room filled with giant stuffed penguins.

White Island to Wellington and pictures

2008-07-11T02:42:00.005-05:00

July 8, 2008
This morning it was exceptionally cold. We had eaten and brushed our teeth and got dressed; we drove to the White Island control center. We got what we needed to get on the boat and waited for take-off. When the boat took off I wanted to stay in the place without a roof (the deck). It wasn’t that cold outside on the deck. I saw White Island in the distance.
When we got there we got into an inflatable raft and got on the island. We climbed a ladder and clambered over boulders to the old, rusty anchor. Few walls were left standing, rust was crumbling down; this was a sulfur mine. We jumped and crawled over sulfur and stone until we came to a spot with steam rising and a cliff of pure sulfur. We talked about the sulfur miners and then were on the move again.
Next we saw the crater of the volcano. It looked like steamy, green pea soup. We heard a story about a miner who disappeared and the other miners found his boots at the edge of the crater. Then I passed a non-breakable rock and some mud pots. We got to taste some water from the stream. It was pretty good. Then I saw a rock that looked like someone’s head. Our tour was over.
We went into what was left of the sulfur factory. I saw some grinders and wheels and a door with a caved-in roof with sulfur crystals all over it. We got back on the ship. When we got back to the shore I saw some diving birds. We got off the boat and I bought some sulfur soap and White Island rock samples. Then we drove to the campground.
Oh, and I saw some seals too (New Zealand fur seals). They were hunted to almost extinction, but then they were protected and now their numbers are rising. They are moving north.

July 9, 2008
This morning we drove to Orakei Korako to see the cave. First we saw geysers and the mud pots. I saw baby mushrooms and toadstools, and animal feces. We finally got to see the cave, filled with water, clear in the front, sea green in the back. The front was a bit too clear. In fact, it was so clear, I didn’t know there was water until I was up to my knees in water.
The water was warm, so I enjoyed getting in. That was good. Getting out, not so good. Luckily, my pants dried quickly. My shoes were uncooperative, like my socks. They were STILL wet after my pants were dry.
Anyways, then we went to see more mud pots. Then we went back to the ferry to get to the parking lot. Then we ate lunch and went to a volcano place; we looked around, did some things including: taking the earth apart and experiencing a fake 6.3 earthquake. Then we went to a shop, I bought 3 post cards (2 kiwi bird cards and 1 with a sheep that had questions we had to fill in) and some m&ms.
Next we went to the Huka falls. It is a rushing river. Not even a shark could swim in it. The waterfall is awesome. What was weird is: the water was as fast as a leopard, but after the waterfall the water was as slow as a snail. After that we went to a good campground. The playground was ‘scruciatingly (as Rudyard Kipling would say) overrun with violent little boys. We got dinner made, ate, brushed our teeth and passed out.

July 10, 2008
We went to see the Art Deco architecture in Napier. Art Deco was a style in the 1920’s and 30’s. it uses geometric shapes and Egyptian and Mayan designs. When Napier was destroyed by earthquake and fire, it was rebuilt in Art Deco style. Art Deco uses cool colors like green, cream, and dandelion and is very bright.
We went to a shop and I bought a little periwinkle bag with a box, a pencil, a bookmark with a design from a building in Napier, and a picture card with a 1920’s woman with a dog designed by Erte. We walked down to the Marine Parade and Daddy and I threw rocks into the Pacific Ocean. After that we went to a store and bought stuffed and model kiwis.
Then we drove to Wellington, found a campground and I went to a playground with a jumping pillow. We then ate some of the chocolate we bought at a chocolate shop, found our camper being savaged by ducks and then we went to sleep.

July 11, 2008
Savage duck attack! Now, all ducks want to get food. If you EVER wake up one morning and see your house surrounded by ducks, try to not let the ducks see you eating. So, we booked a bus ride to the zoo to see the Red Pandas. We were early so we got to see otters, birds, lions, wallabies, kangaroos and a sun bear that was starving and stood up on his gate. We also saw a kiwi and a tuatara.
Then we saw the Red Pandas. Our zookeeper, Paul, let us into Rika’s pen. We fed and pet her. She was so cute and fuzzy and warm, but she scratched me because I wasn’t feeding her fast enough. The next panda wouldn’t wake up, so we went to the next pen with 3 red pandas – a mother, father and baby. It was red panda feeding frenzy! They climbed INTO the food bowl! We enjoyed ourselves immensely. After thanking the zookeeper, we left the zoo. We received wonderful certificates from the zoo for our encounter and Paul wants us to tell everyone to buy only sustainable wood products to help protect Red Pandas in the wild.
We went next to the Wellington Botanical Garden. You have to ride a cable car to get up to the top of the garden. After the garden, we took the bus to the All Blacks store (the All Blacks are the national rugby team and New Zealanders love them) and I bought a cap.

Finally, a few minutes to use the computer!

2008-07-08T03:35:00.001-05:00

July 4, 2008
Last night, we went to bed early, but my parents woke me up at 11:00 PM! We drove to Dallas in the rental car, known as the “dork mobile”. (My family called our rental car that.) We hated that giant, maroon, Californian car. Anyways, I got SO tired that I fell asleep on the duffle bag. If you want MY advice, never fall asleep on a duffle bag, especially if it is filled with hiking boots. If you want to be comfortable, that’s good advice.
When we got to Dallas, we returned the Dork Mobile and went to the airport to get on the plane “United”. That flight was VERY exciting! First, there was a mechanical issue, then there was a medical issue and the plane was like a bouncy, covered roller coaster, meaning lots of turbulence. The views were incredible! We flew over southern Utah and saw Lake Powell and hundreds of canyons. I also saw mountains with snow still on their tops.
When we landed at the San Francisco airport we went exploring. It is a cavernous and sprawling place. We played games, read, drew, wrote and watched movies for a long time. Then we bought candy and went to wait for the plane. I am very excited to get to New Zealand.
My mom is very cold because the airport is freezing. She said, “On the plane, my first words are, ‘May I have a blanket?’”

July 6, 2008
We are in New Zealand! We rented a camper and drove to find food. We went into Auckland. Daddy needs more practice driving the camper van. Driving on the opposite side of the road is scary. Even the STEERING WHEEL is on the opposite side.
We finally found food at a STARBUCKS. We ate upstairs and watched people jump off the Sky Tower (securely fastened). I wanted to sky jump and sky walk. To sky walk is to walk on the outer ring of the sky tower. Unfortunately, I was too young.
Next we went to the gift shop. I saw a kiwi model (the bird) and was eager to get it. My parents said it would break and I had to see a kiwi first.
Then we went up to the Sky Tower. The views were AMAZING! I made a bungee rope for Pooh and he went bungee jumping in the café. Next we went to a grocery store.
Next we drove to Rotorua. We saw lots of sheep, cows, horses, deer and emu. We got to the campsite and ate dinner, made the beds and passed out.

July 7, 2008
After we woke up, we ate breakfast and took a nice, warm shower (as it was freezing outside). Then we drove to the Zorb place (Disappointment of the day): they were only doing water-filled zorb balls and here in New Zealand it is the MIDDLE of WINTER. No way Jose! No water-filled zorb balls.
Then we drove to the museum, Te Puia (meaning ‘the geysers’). It is a Maori Culture center. They have a traditional carving and weaving school. We went with a tour guide. There was lots of cool stuff. There was a fake volcano with the volcano god as a baby, but if you put your hand over the fake lava he got mad and turned into the grown up volcano god and roared at you and exploded everywhere.
Then we saw Maori weapons including a liver remover! Blech! Then we saw the instruments. We put our hand over each instrument and they made the sound of that instrument. We abandoned the tour guide because the group was too noisy and big.
On our way to the geysers we visited a traditional Maori village with a sleeping house and grilled fish. So we went to see the geysers. We saw many geysers and mud pools.
Next we went to the Kiwi house. Kiwis are nocturnal animals and flightless too. So, naturally, it was dark. But the kiwi we saw was fooled. We saw him walk out. He pecked the ground a couple of times, then shook his body, and then retreated to take refuge behind a rock.
Next we went to the gift shop. I bought a stuffed kiwi, a stationary set, two necklaces and a bookmark. Then we went to the Maori singing and dancing program at the meeting house. When the warrior came out with his spear and put down the fern our chief picked up the fern to show that we came in peace. Before we went in we took our shoes off. Kids sat in front. The Maori singers were WONDERFUL!
When the show was over, we got into our shoes and are still driving to the campsite. We have seen black swans and cows and sheep. Oh, and two more animals we saw: a wallaby and a tui (a tui is a black bird with greenish black wings and a white spot on their chest sticking up like a marshmallow). They are weird birds, but cool.

Zada in... "A Close Shave"

2008-05-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to cut my hair for a while now but I couldn't because then my hair wouldn't go up in a bun for my ballet classes. But when the last ballet class was over on Wednesday I finally got my hair cut. I decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love. They make wigs for children who have lost their hair due to illness. There were more than 15 inches to donate.

Here is the "before" picture:

Here is the "after" picture:

I did not expect my hair to be as short as my grandma's dachshund. It feels wierd to have short hair again.

OPEN THE WORLD'S DOOR

2008-05-04T17:52:00.000-05:00

Hi! This is my first post on my blog. My blog is for recording all my adventures, so I can show all my family and friends what I've been up to! I will be writing about my summer trip to New Zealand here.