Four-eign the World

10 Best Things About Rarotonga

2011-07-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

    1)    The amazingly friendly people
    2)    They don’t practice cannibalism ... anymore
    3)    The men are SO huge (arms the size of my legs) which in itself is not a reason to like a place, but given the first 2 reasons - it’s a good thing!

Yeah - Karen took this picture...

4) All the coconut you can eat. More than you can shake a grass skirt at.

Just another nut.

5) The fact you can get on the wrong bus in totally the opposite direction you want and still get to where you’re going (hint: no bus numbers - just “clockwise” and “anti-clockwise”)

Pic from the bus (how does she hang on??)

6) If you miss the said bus, there is always the back of someone’s truck (sort of the same as #1)

Mima's favourite mode of travel

    7)    Your back yard is an amazing natural aquarium - sooo many fish, and at the end of the day - they’re yummy
    8)    The nicest stray dogs in the world
    9)    The police ride scooters
    10)    The only country out of 26 we’ve traveled to that has a departure tax. $110 for Karen and I, but the kids are free ... So we’re sending them home and staying.
    11)    The amazingly friendly people... : )

Do you think she is laughing at me?


See, more coconuts! Of course, Bernie took this photo.

Nearing the End - So Many to Thank

2011-07-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

As we hit Australia and New Zealand and reintegration to cultural norms we have been without for at least 6 months, it is with mixed emotions that we think of heading home and the end of our year away. It is also a time where traveling is easy and the reflection on the year abroad has started, somewhat subconsciously. The first thing and one thing I continue to think about is how many people have contributed to making our year so wonderful and successful. What will follow is more likely a list, because I am not sure how else to thank everyone... but what you will notice is the number of people on the list - it is truly staggering. Thank you to everyone - and please, we hope we can reciprocate the hospitality one day!

Throughout the year we have family and old and new friends to thank for a whole host of things - from looking after our own mail and whatever came up at home to maps, advice, cars, meals, opening their homes, mail packages, books, medical advice, wireless, suggestions....

so here goes -
Mom, Liz, Granny Griz - keeping everything in order at our home including our mail, taxes, storing treasures and our car......
Rick and Kimm - storing the truck and making sure the boat runs ( regularly;) )
Ma, Margarete, Oma - hosted us, amazing brunch we still talk about
Andy - drives to the airport, meals and a few laughs
Garth, Patricia, Logan, Alexander, and Marcus - for the loan of your car while in cowtown and the wonderful Waiperous hospitality (ie white water tubing!!)
Dad, Opa Rudi and Helene - yummy dinner out
Vic and Carolyn - Iceland maps and tips that were invaluable
Dad, Brian Grandpa B, Jayne, Granny Bird - a car for 6 weeks, hosting 2 action packed days in London, hosting us in Salcombe
Bruce and Mona - mmmmmm dinner and maps
Michael, Jackie and Joshi - so much fun in Brittany, hosting us in their amazing yard
Mike and Sue - Thanks for the use of the kitchen and not cringing too much!
Chris and HW, Michael and Stephan - tour guide Michy, Footie games, Birthday bike rides and dinner, hosting us in Trier ....
Geronimo and Marina - what can we say (Chris’ horses for those of you who don’t know!)
Chris and HW’s friendly neighbours - lending us bikes!
Paddy, Racquel and Tiego - fun at the beach and two amazing Portuguese dinners...and a jersey!
Uncle Bertie, Tante Gelli, and Karin -for offering your home and hosting us
Uncle Mundi - special care package (yummy!)
Hofmann clan from Austria - your generosity
Uncle Willy, Tante Crystal, Willy, Astrid, Christoph and Johannes- a wonderful day of sightseeing and getting to know you again......
The Lezzards - a fun ferry ride and a new card game - Honk honk...
Nathan - above and beyond in the now advice for visas to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and yummy thick shakes in Dahab... - watch out Nathan, we are coming to Kauai in March (for real)
Oma and Chris ( again ) - what a great two days in Alexandria together
Andrea - fun for the kids and wireless connectivity
Deanne, Mark and Felicity - 12 great days in your fabulous Capetown flat.
Mrs Koch - helping us with key logistics
South Africa Hwy Patrol - Bernie got his first speeding ticket - thanks!
Jill - cd’s and advice for South Africa travels
Dawn, Jackie and Aaron - package of books and goodies that arrived in Capetown - yay
Sterpins and O’Cosbeys - Vietnam leads and advice
Mennau, Ben, and Denni - super travel companions on a memorable part of the journey
Francois, Dominique and Alma Materre clan (Mayelle, Mattias and Alex) - fun days of homeschooling and trips around Chiang Mai
Dharma - wisdom and help planning our self guided, non portered trek in Nepal
Dindu and family - for showing us a level of hospitality equal to the beauty of the Himalaya.
Dave, Shelly, Cal and Mitch - your home being our home - even if it was a little longer than planned.
Anna - doing all our laundry!
Blu man Chu - Showing us Shanghai and being a great host
Friends of Shaun’s - hosting us for a great BBQ
Daren, Cynthia, Molly, Marcus - another crazy year off family to bounce stories and ideas off. Also for giving the kids real kid time and the adult a break.....See you in Vancouver sometime!
Donna - letting us take over your home and giving Emilia a day of International School life.
Wes, Elise, Thomas, Analena and Sophie - Hosting us in Singapore after a 5 minute meeting in Laos and days before your departure for the summer. Emilia has a special thanks for her American Doll too! Come and visit us in Rossland.
Ian and Claude - you guys are amazing - not sure how we can ever repay the favours - sooo many! But, hope we can.
Karin - for your medical advice via email
Helen and John, Keiran, Paula, Sammie, Gaby, Freesia -playing and feasting on the sapphire coast. Giving the kids “home” friend time. Sleepover time - woo hoo says Emilia.
Cyndi and Damien - great New Zealand tips
Richard - tips on places to stay in Rarotonga
Mark and Tracey, Ben, Kevin, LiLi - for our anticipated home invasion and reintroduction to Canadian ways.
sd20 - for allowing deferred salaries with general leaves - we are so much richer for the experiences

IF I have forgotten anyone - huge Apologies and we owe you double!

So as you can see, the list is long. The thank yous have been endless and have made such a huge difference to the success of our trip.

Japan - a Visit With an Old Friend

2011-06-21T04:30:00.000-07:00

Well it has been about 3 weeks since we left Japan and we have visited Singapore since then and are currently in Australia. Still, I find my mind wandering back to the land of the rising sun every once in a while as our visit there was for me, in many ways, like visiting with an old friend.

Though I lived in Japan over 20 years ago, it was great to be back amongst so much that was familiar. From people's mannerisms, to fragments of language, to the food - it all came back to me with vivid clarity. Well OK, the language did not come to me with any clarity, but I did find myself remembering phrases that I never would have remembered out of the context of being there. In some cases I knew to use the phrase but needed to ask what it meant again - I just remembered to say it. Strange what gets stored in some unused corner of our memories. It was fun to eat Okonomiyaki with the family and especially to have it in Hiroshima - famous for their take on this Japanese dish. And I will always get a kick out of the politeness of the Japanese people who make "sorry" Canadians seem brash.

We went to some sites that I had experienced when I lived there, but it was especially fun to go back to Kurume - the town I lived and worked so many years ago. We even checked out the old apartment - not much back then and pretty much the same now, but the kids enjoyed seeing where I lived. We also checked out the Dojo where I studied Kudo - the art of Japanese archery. I didn't see my sensei, but I was glad to hear he was still around and active in the dojo.

I don't really miss living there, it was an important part of my life at the time, but I also remember being ready to leave when I did. Japan had given me some great lessons and opened my mind to worlds beyond what I had known. That in itself was an incredible gift and likely one of the keys to our Four in the World journey decision.

In the end, like other old and good friends, Japan will always have an important place in my heart and in who I am. And again, like with friends, I will need to make sure I nurture that relationship to keep it fresh.

White Tiger

2011-06-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

3 days ago we went to the Singapore zoo. At the zoo there were white tigers. They are one of the most endangered animals. There are less white tigers in the world than orange tigers. They were hunted for trophies originally but now they are hunted for their fur. In some countries that they have the tiger, if you are caught hunting them you can be executed. Sometimes people will sell tourists tiger meat and say that it is beef. The hide of a tiger can be sold for over a thousand dollars.

Single Male

A tiger can kill almost any species in its habitat. Tigers will eat any animal that they have killed except for other carnivores that they may kill for less competition. Elephants and Rhinos are the only two other animals that I know of that they won't kill unless they are injured, young, or really old. At the zoo there was a case of a feeder who went in and put the bucket of food over his head and lay down. The Tiger killed him. It is a crazy form of suicide.

Two females

When we were watching them, I noticed that the male is bigger and stronger than the females (same as the orange tiger). I thought the white tigers were very cool and I hope everybody can help to save their habitat.

Bye,
Mattias

A Bomb

2011-05-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. As you can guess it is here because of an atomic bomb (called an A Bomb) that hit in world war 2. Every thing was flattened in a 2 km radius . The temperature was 3,000-4,000 degrees celsius. Some people melted to death. Survivors say people were jumping in the river and after there were many dead bodies floating in the river. The US picked Hiroshima to drop the A bomb on because they had no prisoners of war.

The time the bomb exploded - August 6th, 1945

A photo of Hiroshima after the bomb (notice the dome)

The dome stands today as a reminder.

The origami crane is a symbol of peace. It originated from a girl who had cancer because of the A bomb and when she was in the hospital she made cranes for wishes for her life. Some of the cranes were so small she had to use a needle to fold them. She made over one thousand cranes. 8 months after she was in the hospital she died. Her classmates decided to make a memorial to represent all the children who died as a result of the A bomb. I made an origami crane to put at the memorial. It was purple and white.

The dome through the Peace Arch

A monument to Sadako and all children affected by the bomb.

My crane (the purple one) amongst many.

Thanks for understanding the problems an atomic bomb can create and how two generations are affected by it.

Mattias

A Tale of Two Countries

2011-05-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

The Tale of Two Countries...

Twenty-one years ago I traveled for a spell after living overseas and my travels took me to many wonderful places. Two specific countries I traveled to on that particular journey we have traveled to on this trip as well. And while it is one thing to experience a country for the first time, it is quite another to revisit a place after so many years - complete with faded memories and impressions. In Nepal and China this second experience cannot be further apart in terms of changes I’ve seen and impressions they have left on me.

Nepal, for most intents and purposes, would have ranked twenty-one years ago as one of my favourites. That did not change. The people are genuine and always quick with a smile, the towns and cities are chaotic and colourful, and the mountain experience is always exhilarating. China on the other hand I remember to be rewarding, but it was also incredibly hard traveling. It wore me down. The people were harsh, not overly friendly toward us and suspicious of foreigners. Many towns in China in 1990 seemed drab and desperate.

Happy playing - as kids should be.

In Nepal what struck me most on this trip was how little things had changed. Over two decades ago I had the impression that Nepal would go places. Granted, as a country it probably has little the rest of the world needs. But the people were so resourceful; able to deliver whatever travelers desired. Surely this could be extended to other areas like textile manufacturing and at the time this seemed to be happening. In the area of tourism they seemed progressive. On treks you saw a clear system of organization and even attention to being environmentally friendlier like incentives for locals to use less wood and more gas in cooking - the cost passed on to the trekkers.

A Nepalese bus...half full

I always wanted to return to Nepal partly to experience the magic of before, and also out curiosity. How had Nepal faired? Well, the magic is still there, but as a country Nepal has not faired too well. Since my last visit Nepal has gone through years of political instability and violence. The optimism that was evident then has lost it’s shine. The place felt pretty much the same as it did twenty years ago and maybe even had taken a few steps back. Sure there were more teahouses in the Langtang valley where we trekked bringing it on par with some of the more popular routes, but Kathmandu was more polluted, poor, and barely hanging on. Even electricity is regular rationed in the nation’s capital. The general feeling of optimism has been replaced with skepticism typical of places that have long ago seen better times (and the better times of Nepal where never really that good). Now often western tourists tout the places that haven’t changed - that town or country that time seems to have forgotten. I don’t really subscribe to that sentiment if it means people who can’t attain even their basic needs and whose rights are woefully neglected. Nepal, and especially Kathmandu, are like that.

China, on the other hand, is not. Given the above description about China twenty years ago, I do wonder how it made it onto our itinerary for the Four-eign the World trip? It could be that Mima or Mattias circled it on the map, but it also had something to do with the fact that we wanted to see what all the hype was about. Was life in China really on par with all the growth and changes we had been hearing? Well, whereas Nepal felt as if I was back there twenty years ago, China was totally unfamiliar to me. The same cities and spots I had been to were completely unrecognizable outside of a few key landmarks in Beijing. Major infrastructure projects are everywhere as building cranes proliferate both urban and rural landscapes. It seems as though apartment complexes are being built for 1.4 billion people to simultaneously move out of the Hutongs and villages and take up residence.

Shanghai skyline and smog

Xian - symbols of old and new

Even the people have changed - they are somehow softer, friendlier, ...they wear brighter clothes (though the fashionista side of me tells me they have some work to do here...). Sure, in lineups they push as well as they ever did, but they are different from what I remember. They are no longer the communists fearing the evil westerner. In fact, they have embraced more aspects of capitalism than I could ever had imagined possible in a short twenty years. I’ll ignore the ramifications (especially environmental) of this incredible growth, and China’s human rights record will still be questionable for a while yet. However, there are livable cities being built, food in the markets, and happy and fed children going to school.

15 seconds of protest and ???

If Nepal felt like time stood still and even slipped backwards, the contrast of China is one of a whole nation having been transported on their high speed trains. For different reasons, I will continue to think, maybe worry, and wonder about both.

Dun da da dah dah dun dun dahhhh....Disneyland

2011-05-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Dun da da dah dah dun dun dahhhh!

I am a super hero and I am here to tell you about Disneyland!

(He he he...)

Hi this is Emilia and we went to Disneyland while we were in Hong Kong.

The first ride that we went on was called Space Mountain. If you ever go to Disneyland you HAVE to go on Space Mountain. It is a roller coaster that when it starts going it goes into pitch black where you can't see anything. All of a sudden there are some flashing lights but still you can't see anything. In fact, you can't see anything for the whole ride. Then you start going up a steep hill and when you get to the top of the hill you can see lots of stars and planets, then suddenly - zooooom - you zip around the place and there are sudden turns and drops. The first time on it I was screaming. We actually went on Space Mountain six times because it was one of the only non-babyish rides.

Another one of my favorite rides was driving the Disney cars. It was pretty fun as I sat next to mom in a Disney car driving around the tracks. Luckily (because I'm a crazy driver) there were special things attached to the car and track that stopped the car from going off the tracks.

We also went to two shows. My favorite one, Encounters with Stitch, was really fun because Stitch picked me to tell a little about myself in front of absolutely everybody. He asked a few things like what my name was and how old I was. Then he asked where I was from and when I said Canada he said "Canada, Canada, yippee!! Canada... huh? ... Never heard of Canada". That made me laugh into the microphone which sounded quite awkward! The other show was Lion King and it was fascinating. It was well thought out and my favorite character was a flying bird.

I thought Disneyland was quite the experience and if I ever have the chance to go again I would.

Bye, Emilia

Just When You Think You Have Seen It All!

2011-05-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

"Just when you think you have seen it all!" is now the family motto! While we were in Nepal hiking through the mountainsides full of blossoming rhododendrons, Emilia came out with this. How true it is. Nine months of seeing so much and doing so many different things and there seems to be endless more to do.

Hiking at 3000m

In Nepal we reached new heights, hiking to a peak of 4780m...in the beautiful sun - only to be socked in the next day and hiked out in 15cm of freshy. Timing was everything on summit day. Eating delicious Yak cheese made in the village at 3500m that we stayed in for 3 days, playing with the local villager children and stunning the other hikers and porters alike with our kids hiking 10 days with no porters or guides were just a few of the things we did in the Langtang valley. The kids felt proud and confident after that. We were proud of them.

Hong Kong was not new for Bernie or me, but it was fun to share our favorite haunts and to find a new one - HK Disneyland! What a blast and really we just got there in the nick of time for both kids to still appreciate the cheesy little kid stuff. It is a small venue so we did spend a lot of time on Space Mountain (see Mima's blog). And thanks to Dave and Shelley for putting up with us for so long. Our rushed one day visa only took 7 days!

On to China where we became more the attraction than the attraction we were at. The kids tire of it at times but have been in lots of photos too. Hanging out at Blu's place was great, the kids are ready to move in...good food, comfy bean bag enormous chair, pools, soccer fields, kids-this is a life of the rich and famous.

Sightseeing with Blu Man Chu

We volunteered at the panda research and breeding centre - yet another highlight for all of us ( see Mattias' blog). We battled 1.4 billion Chinese to see the terra-cotta warriors, hiked nature's stair master up one of China's 4 sacred mountains- the best part was getting high enough to be above the smog ( seriously), and then.....just when we thought life was good and we started to get a bit cocky about how easy travel was.... Our flight to Beijing went sideways. Really, we landed two hours west of Beijing for some unknown reason. We were held on board for three hours, fed dinner and then told the flight would get to Beijing, but perhaps not for another 3 hours or so, maybe.....so a new adventure of busses, fast trains, subways and taxi to get to Donna's. We have a few unknown 20 something helpfuls to thank for getting us here. First on the plane, then at the train station and then at the taxi stand in the middle of nowhere at midnight! Our Chinese is non existent and we were hooped without their help.

And now after the Great Wall excursion - yet another icon on the world list checked off.... Mima has decided to go to school. She is joining a grade 2 class tomorrow at Western Academy Beijing. Who knows what she will see in the classroom?! She is converted and is trying to talk us into moving abroad to teach internationally. The three schools we have toured are state of the art, and all top notch in all they do, and our friends who work at them all live in pretty swanky places. But not to worry, though she is sold, we are not. We love the fresh air life at home and think our schools are pretty good too, not to mention our home.

Great Wall image by Mattias

We had the luxury of traveling with some new friends for half our China visit - the Rahals: Daren, Cynthia, Molly and Marcus are on a very similar trip. We were sorry to say goodbye to them;) but hope to see them in Vancouver when we get back!

Hangin with the Rahals

Who knows what is left on our "just when you think you have seen it all" list, but we can't wait to see. And we will let you know as we see it!

Racoony Bears

2011-05-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to a Panda Breeding and Research Centre. We volunteered and helped clean up poop and their mess. The poo was very stinky and really really heavy. Did you know that only 20% of the bamboo gets digested? And they need to drink a lot of water even to get that much.

Scooping poop!

We were in charge of Ling Ling’s enclosure. Ling Ling’s poo from one day weighed 38 kilos - we scooped it all, separating it from the bamboo left over. We had to clean up the one day old bamboo that he wouldn’t eat any more.

Their favorite foods are apples and Panda Cakes which are made out of wheat, corn rice and vitamins. We tried a little bit of one and it would be the last food option I would eat. They only get one cake about the size of a cupcake each day so they don’t get too fat. We fed them the apples, cakes and bamboo shoots. They are very intelligent and are amazingly quick at stripping the skin of the bamboo.

Feeding Mei Lei apples

We fed one of the most famous Panda’s in the world, her name is Mei Lei. She was a very queen like panda bear and would sit with the cakes in front of her nose that we were holding while she ate her bamboo. Every now and then she would take a bite of her cake or apple. She is very lazy.

There are only 1600 pandas left in the wild in the world and they are only found in China. Though the Chinese are trying to reintroduce them, the wild bears are stronger and will kill the reintroduced bears for food. There have been no successful reintroductions but they are making a new habitat for bears that is closer to the natural habitat - at the same altitude - so they can hopefully have a successful reintroduction program.

The section of the center that we worked had nine bears. Three adults and six cubs two years old. One of the cubs won’t eat the healthy cake unless it is with a special formula so they have to do that so the bear gets its vitamins. When we were feeding them the apples with special vitamins in them, the bears were so smart that they spat out the pills!

Ling Ling snacking on bamboo shoots

Panda or raccoon?

We also saw some red pandas. There are 5000 left in the world and they are found in a few countries. We didn’t clean their sanctuaries but we could observe them for an hour. They are really funny because they always lie in the trees. One time when we were watching them they were fighting for some weird reason. Our volunteer worker said that the red pandas are territorial and solitary like the giant pandas.

It was so fun I would definitely do it again if we could.

Bye Mattias

Third quarter done....wow!

2011-04-19T05:57:00.000-07:00

As we travel on time seems to just go faster and faster. Already we are in our last quarter of the year. Here is the continued update per country. The countries are in the order that we went, the rest is in no particular order and is a mish mash of all of our thoughts.

South Africa
Best Food-Blts, but clts: burgers in Capetown
Best attraction -Sodwona Bay leatherback turtle laying her eggs; Kruger wild dogs; cape town African Penguins
Biggest Challenge- avoiding speeding tickets; finding lions in tall grasses

Thailand
Best Food: hocho at Niras; Mima's bday food; Bernie's buffet in AuNang; fishing village lunch Ko Chang; banana rolls
Best attraction- elephant bathing riding and feeding; spooning a tiger
Biggest Challenge-finding honest taxi drivers in Bangkok

Cambodia
Best food: Pot Ling;sugar cane
Best attraction-silk farm;trees reclaiming ancient wats
Biggest challenge-being pinned between seats on the sleeper buses

Vietnam
Best food-food we made in our cooking class with Blue Dragon
Best attraction- Hoi An; Hmong mountain people in Sapa ( we know the people aren't an attraction, this was a highlight); CatBa Island
Biggest challenge- dodging motorcycles in Saigon;staying clean in Sapa

Laos
Best food- chicken laap;night market eating in Luang Prabang
Best attraction- Muang Ngoi Nue; rope swing at the waterfall near LP
Biggest Challenge- pushing a bus one inch at a time through mud...11 hours and 120 kms later we arrived

Nepal
Best food-apple momos from Woodland; savory pumpkin pie at KC's
Best attraction- climbing to 4780m to the top of Kaijing Ri and looking at the glaciers and snow covered peaks surrounding us
Highlight : Nepali people are amazing
Biggest challenge- seeing the rivers in Kathmandu, they are an environmental disaster; breathing while playing with local kids at 3500m!

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty

2011-03-31T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hi a lot of jealous people,
Four days ago we went to pat tigers at a place called The Tiger Kingdom. My sister and I could only pat the smallest size (3 or 4 months) because otherwise we would get eaten alive by tigers (interesting experience it would be).When Mima and I patted the small size we realised the fur is like a cheetahs and the black fur is softer than the orange fur.

"Can I get one of these?"

Mom and Dad patted the biggest type as well as the smallest one. When they patted the biggest size tiger, we sat outside and watched a tiger that was in a napping cage. Her name was Summer flower. She was a year and a half old and she kept jumping at the fence trying to eat us. Even a 3 month old was eyeing Mima. Summer Flower was watching a chubby guy in a blue shirt who was crouching down and watching her. When he got up to leave, Summer Flower was jumping at the fence with her claws out.

"Always watching"

The Tigers have a trick that they do when they hunt. They walk back and forth (pacing) as after a while as you watch them you feel queasy. Summer Flower was doing this to Mima and I and then it walked up to a different napping cage behind us and started to stalk us. CREEPY! When the tigers get to the age of two they get too aggressive and strong so they put them in a different cage and will sell them to zoos. They had one ten year old male tiger which we think they use for mating.

Just yawning - phew!

The tigers were one of my Chiang Mai highlights.

Bye, Mattias

photos coming.....

Two T's (one for Trek and one for Tigers)

2011-03-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
We are in Chiang Mai Thailand (pronounced Chang My.) Yesterday we came back from a three day trek. The activities we did are visiting a longneck tribe, elephant riding, white water rafting, hiking in the mountains and alongside a river, and bamboo rafting!!! My favorite part was white water rafting because you get splashed a lot and it's really fun when you go down gigantic rapids!!!!!! Me and Tias didn't paddle though, we just HELD ON for our lives!!!!!!!!!! We couldn't bring our camera white water rafting or bamboo rafting so we have no photos of that.

About 14 years of 'stretching' to go

Time for a swim

Tiger part now.
Before we left for our trek we went to the Tiger Kingdom. It is where visitors/tourists can pat tigers. Me and Mattias, since we are kids, were only allowed to pat the smallest tigers. Not the small ones, not the medium ones, not the largest but only the smallest. It was very cool. We figured out that the tigers' black fur, like cheetas, is softer than the tawny fur around the stripes.

On the prowl

Being in Chiang Mai has been really awesomely cool.

From,
Emilia

Chiang Mai

2011-03-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today we are in Chiang Mai, Thailand, it is our 2nd full day here and I love it. Tomorrow we will go to pat tigers, I am very excited! 2 days ago we flew in from Luang Prabang, Laos and got a Tuk Tuk to the M.D. House which is where we are staying. The M.D.House is very fun it has a swimming pool, wifi, a gym and a computer room! We met another family from Canada staying here. They have two boys and one girl. The youngest boy is 6 and his name is Alex. The older boy is 8 and his name is Mathias (cool name!). Alex seems 8 and Mathias seems 10. The girl is 9 and her name is Mayelle. They are from Quebec and are also traveling around the world for a year. Last night we all went to McDonalds for ice cream and I realised it was my first time ever in a McDonalds and it was on the other side of the world. We got to go to get some calcium! It is really fun to have some kids that are our age to throw balls at and to have balls thrown at by. We'll have two more days of ball throwing and fun with them.

In two days we will go on a three day trek to the jungle and the hill tribes. I am looking forward to it and can't wait to see the longneck hill tribes. My favourite part that I am most looking forward to is the bamboo rafting.

See I told you I'd write another blog soon. Bye,

Mattias

SNOW!!!

2011-03-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. We just arrived in Laos the day before yesterday. While we were coming over the pass to get to Dien Bien Phu it snowed!

About the snow - we were right on time to see the snow because the day it snowed was the day we left. Oh, I forgot to tell you it snowed in Vietnam in a town called Sapa. Everyone was outside taking photos of the snow. All of the locals were really excited because it was only the second time in TEN YEARS that it had snowed!!!!!!!!!

We barely made it over the snowy, slippery pass because no one had winter tires so Dad and some other men had to get out of the bus to push. When we started to go down the pass we all yelled at the driver to go into first gear and not use the brakes. It was really funny.

The snow day wasn’t anything compared to the next day when we crossed into Laos on the way to Muang Khua. On that day it was MUDDY! Everyone on the bus except for me, Mattias, and a British woman had to get off to push and pull the bus. Once we even had to get a four wheel drive to pull us out. We crossed a few rivers but not on a bridge. We drove straight through the rushing waters and once it came to the top of the wheels. It was scary. We all made it with all our luggage and everyone was happy but pretty muddy.

Hmmmm???

Saved!

Daddy's feet!

Tug - o - war with a bus

From Muang Kha we took a boat to where we are right now. We are in Muang Ngoi Neua.

A village by the river

2011-03-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Today we are in Muang Ngoi Neua. It is a riverside village in Laos and has about 300 people. Most of the kids do not go to school they work in the fields and play games. They mostly play soccer and a game with flip flops and money. The town is only accessed by boat so there are no cars or motorbikes. The town has an elementary school, a soccer pitch it has lots of hotels and restaurants.

Muang Ngoi Neua

We are staying in a bungalow called Phetdavanh, they have no hot water and very little electricity but they are made completely out of bamboo and are clean.

Chillin'

It is really fun to play around here and watch the fish jump and look around the only problem is you can't go off any of the paths because of the land mines left from the war. Even some of the restaurants have bomb shells and missile points for decoration. This afternoon we are going to see a cave where people lived for 9 years during the war. We might not go in because you can't see much and they charge you to go in.

Left over from the war

We met four other travelers on our way here and we have been with them for four days. We might split up tomorrow as we will go to different places. There names are Celia from Norway, Mennow from the Netherlands, Dennie and Ben from Germany. It has been really fun traveling with other people because it is nice to talk to and get to know other people besides my family.

...2 days later- 2 days ago I played a soccer our team lost 6-1! It was laos people V.S. Foreign people. Now I am in Luang Prabang ( still laos) Mennow stayed a day longer and ended up in the same place in luang prabang he said they played again the foreign people won 5-3.

Football!!

Bye for now I might do another one soon!

Hue

2011-03-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

Hi! We're in Hue. Here is how to pronounce it; hway. Anyway, yesterday we went to the Citadel, which is an old palace. It was stopped being used in 1945 and is very intriguing to go to. It is definitely a must do if you come here! Yesterday was our arrival day but we arrived in the morning so we had lots of time for the Citadel. It was a very traditional palace for Vietnam.

Much of the palace is in ruins after the damage of war.

Today was a very relaxing day. First we did math which was really fun because Dad and I did a math game. Then we got a little peckish for lunch so we went out and got Vietnamese lunch. Mine was really good and was something I hadn't had for a long time - cauliflower! From lunch we had a taxi take us to a natural hot spring. The pool wasn't too natural because they had made the pool but it was still geothermal (heated by the earth). Mattias and I also paid to go into the swimming pool, but was fun but it was really silly that we couldn't dive because it was 2.2 m deep. Shivering, Tias and I got into the taxi with mom and dad to go back to the hotel.

Chillin' in the hotspring

Tomorrow we are going to see tombs and pagodas and then fly to Hanoi in northern Vietman.

Khai Dinh Tomb - a mix of Vietnamese and European influence

Bye, Emilia

From Point A to Point B

2011-02-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

One thing is for certain. When you travel around the world, you're going to see a lot of how the world gets around.

It amazes me on a daily basis the diverse and innovative ways that people use to get from point A to point B. Of course there are all of the usual means of transportation, but even they are not so usual when you see and experience them first hand. Many of these adaptations are subtle - like the taxi meter that runs just a little bit faster than it should, or more obvious - the bus seats that recline further than they should (I've never slept pinned at the knees before).

Note the message on the top of the window... hmmm?

The fun part is all of the transportation that is so different from what you see at home. From incredibly user friendly, high tech and efficient bus systems in Paris to cattle and horse drawn wagons sharing the busy road with every other vehicle. Whole neighbourhoods pile into and onto the truck, van, wagon/ tractor. Everywhere is a seat, or bed for those longer hauls. Livestock is welcome. Seatbelts have long been removed and used for roadside repairs. The horn is a tool for communication and not just a way to tell someone off. Bicycles are still the best way to travel in some regions and in Africa people walk.

Count them - there are six!

The best seats.

The smile tops it all.

Gone is the notion that motorbikes are for the the lone easy rider. Forget doubling. Without alteration 100 cc skooters have seats for six, can be mounted to a comfortable side car for four, pull trailers for people or whatever, carry 60 chickens or four pigs to market or be loaded with any household item you could possibly imagine. Best if the rider has a passenger that can hang onto the said item, though that is not a requirement. We've seen motorbikes hauling everything from artwork to beds to 20 foot ladders on the busiest of streets in Saigon. Surprisingly, (not really) they can also serve as the mobile kitchen/playpen/family wagon. Oh yeah, they can be offered as taxis to families of four traveling around the world with their backpacks. Granted not on one motorbike (silly) but two... The price was good, but we declined.

Definitely a message here.

Not as common as it used to be.

We've also needed to swallow any notion we have of western safety standards or we would never have left the airport terminal. I can't wait when we get back to Canada and Mima has to sit in a booster seat... that is going to go over well I'm sure. Seatbelts are rare, as are simple notions like passing lanes, driver certification, directions of travel, stopping at red lights (if they exist) or structural integrity (wow, that rust is really strong when reinforced with twine and cowshit). However, we aren't quite ready yet to completely ignore safety. We research bus company reputations, avoid boats retired as worthy fishing vessels just to be used for tourists, actually look to see where the life jackets are and have avoided renting the one motorbike for four.

As we marvel at all of these ways of getting around, we also use them. A quick inventory of modes we have enjoyed/ endured so far include (in no particular order):

planes (10 so far)
trains
automobiles (driven on the left side, right side, from the right side on the right side ...)
sailboat (thanks GBs, John and Tinushi)
cable cars
escalators and elevators (What? ... we don't have them in Rossland)
tuktuks in Bangkok, Ao Nang, and Siem Reap (no they aren't the same)
metros above and below ground
London Eye ferris wheel (does this count? Thanks Granny Bird)
luxury buses (Turkey - attendants with drinks, snacks, blankies; individual TVs; wifi enroute)
buses from hell (Egypt - love the videos; Tanzania - 12 hours, one stop, no WC; Cambodia - the above mentioned reclining seats)
skooters (ridden and rented)
ATVs
ferries (Greece - large luxurious; Thailand - not so large nor luxurious)
fishing boats (large and small)
bicycles
kayaks
camels
elephants
back of pick-ups
safari Land Cruiser
horses (thanks Auntie Chris, Geronomo, and Marina)
taxis (from London taxis to
our legs and feet (the best!!)

Seven months or so into our trip and we think we have seen a lot, but are looking for even more ways the world can show us their transportation ingenuity.

The easy way to get around.

Ramblings of Cambodia

2011-02-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

Cambodia is a fascinating country. We have only been here three days and will only be here for two more, for various reasons our visit here is short...mainly time, but here are a few impressions and things I have found noteworthy so far.

Cambodia is a poor country - on the scale of the poorest we have seen to date, perhaps on a level equal to Tanzania. Having said this, the people are happy and their smiles are contagious. They all smile! And the country is safe for travelers.

Siem Reap is far more developed and clean than I would have ever expected; they get over 2 million visitors a year. Tourism is rampant here; however, it is easy to get beyond the facade and see beyond this to the real Cambodia.

Many hostels and restaurants are affiliated with orphanages, NGO's and street kid organisations. In other words, it seems as though much of the tourist development is connected to community development. It is easy to stay and eat where you feel you are making some (ever so slight) positive impact rather than just stay or eat anywhere.

Our kids are learning quickly about the devastating history of Cambodia. Missing limbs and other landmine atrocities are up front and centre. Helping people who are helping themselves by selling goods, entertainment or knowledge is a focus, rather than helping those looking for handouts. It is easy to make a real connection to the saying "Get a Life". In fact many working locals and volunteers promote this saying with the street kids and then actually help to train them in some way.

Landmines are a fact of life - don't stray off the beaten track - even to pee by a tree!

The US$ is the main currency. They have Riel but it is so tied to the $ that you can use the currencies interchangeably. ATM's give US$, if you want Riel you have to go into a bank, get out US$ and then convert it. You can pay with a combination of the currencies and it is not unusual to pay in one and get change back in the other.

Corruption is part of life:

-At the land border crossing (the one we went through from Thailand is known as the most commonly used and most disfunctional) it has become a business to have people pay extra (double the visa cost) and presto you get your visa - or you can take your chances and see who your visa officer is and see if you will a) get your visa without delay (not a likely event) b) pay extra because it is demanded (and get your visa in up to 3 hours) c) pay a lot extra and either get it quickly or in up to 4 hours. We opted to support the local "business man". Probably the wrong thing to do, but at least a Cambodian got paid for a service rather than a paid official getting pocket money. At least that is how we reasoned it to ourselves.

-If you get robbed - expect to pay the local police to fill in a report about the robbery!

The local Tuk Tuk drivers are great - you pay a driver and he is yours for the day and will take you around to any of the sights. Ours, Lee, is funny and friendly. He has been at our beck and call for our whole time here. The key is to get one from the beginning who doesn't try to suck you into an unrealistic price for the day.

Locals are paid small wages... a silk weaver is paid $85 per month. Cost of living is cheap - but gasoline isn't! So the low wages are probably ok ( at some level) if you are content to live very locally. We could all learn a little from this (says she who is traveling far and wide).

One day when we have more time - a year is simply not enough- and are less concerned about sitting on boats or buses for hours, I would like to return to this beautiful country and see more of it. Angkor Wat (and all of the surrounding amazing temples ) are worth a visit by all. I am sure Cambodia has lots more to offer - we will just have to be patient and see it another time.

Elee-phants!

2011-02-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Three days ago it was my birthday. I'm 8. For my birthday we went elephant riding at an elephant rehabilitation centre. First, we helped bathe the elephants. We were on top of the elephant bareback scrubbing it down with brushes. I love the feel of their thick leathery, rubbery, bumpy skin. But I don't like their thin wirey hair.

Then we rode the elephant. My elephant was named Sri Nuan. Most of the ride we had to ride on the benches on our two elephants, but for a bit near the end Tias and I got to ride on the neck. Then we fed the elephants. We fed them bananas and I patted their trunks many times. Then we went back to the hotel and to my surprise, there was chocolate cake and flowers waiting for me, Mom, Dad and Tias. It was an awesome birthday.

Emilia

GALOOMP GALOOMP SPLISH SPLASH

2011-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody,
On my sister's b-day we went elephant ridding! My elephant's name was Kalamae, she was 14 and very naughty. Dad and I rode on Kalamae. I got to ride on the bench and on her neck! When we were walking with the elephants, my elephant kept stopping and wandering away to find all the food she could.

After we did the walk we fed the elephants bananas as a treat. They were so greedy that when you gave them the banana, they would rip it right out of your hands. Did you know that the elephant has two nostrils like you and I do? Also when were feeding them, Kalamae sneezed on my leg (That's a once in a lifetime experience!). When we were feeding them you could get really close and hug their trunk and look in their mouth. The two things that I did that were really fun when we were feeding them were touching their smooth ivory tusk and kissing the elephant.

Before we rode and fed the elephants, we helped bath them. You took a brush, went in the water with the elephant, and scratched them all over. Since the elephant is so big, they would make the elephant sit in the water and every now and then they would make the elephant lie right down under the water. They would say, "Elephant diving elephant diving".

Bye for now
Mattias

ps. the place we went was an elephant rehabilitation centre.

Memories of days / years gone by

2011-02-11T02:10:00.000-08:00

I really wasn't sure what to expect coming to Thailand. I had my 20 year old memories of hating the heat, smog and hustle of Bangkok and the fond memories of quiet southern Thailand beaches and rural life of the north. Thailand has changed, but what it has to offer hasn't.

Bangkok has been pleasantly surprising. The hostels offer air con and heated showers(not that you need hot water here), the air is clearer, the people friendly, the sites still amazing and a general safe feeling (knowing of course that scamers are everywhere-but that seems true of everywhere anyone travels these days). Major changes in Bangkok- Khoa San Rd, the alternative and ultimate hippie hang out and hostel area has grown up/gentrified - For better or worse....it has a Starbucks. I think that says it all! Not quite so alternative anymore. Taxis are metered (good if you can get the driver to turn it on). There is a sky train. Road signs are in English and Thai (making finding your way around a lot easier). Travellers Cheques are passé. Travelers and tourists of all types are everywhere. Getting around is easy. Long distance buses are on time, comfy(relatively speaking) and easy to figure out.

In the south, the beaches are still amazing. The difference, they are far more built up. In fact the bungalows of days gone by were mostly wiped out by the tsunami and replaced with cottages out of our budget range. We, however, were able to find one beach not quite resort only and with a five minute walk one is able to leave the crowds behind. Tomorrow we head for a new area, the latest upcoming area, Koh Chang in the Gulf of Thailand, and we hope to get to it before it has really exploded. Fingers crossed.

The North will have to wait a few weeks, until we have been through Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Well, we hope Cambodia....we will wait to see what happens on the borders there. A bit volatile to say the least, but seems to be pretty local.

South Africa - Dogs and Turtles

2011-02-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

We are currently in Thailand but I am writing my blog about things we saw in South Africa.

In South Africa we saw a leatherback turtle in Sodwana Bay. She was very very big and was about 60 years old. They lay eggs from age 20-60. In one year one turtle will lay 100-120 eggs 10-12 times and will be lucky if 3 survive in one season. She was so big and strong that if she wanted to she could push you with her fin and you would fall over. We got to touch her shell and feel her eggs. The shell felt leathery and the egg felt hard but if you pushed it, it felt sort of like a big, heavy, soft ping pong ball. After she lays all of her eggs, she lays what are called spacer eggs. They are the unfertilized eggs so they are smaller.

In Kruger National Park we saw the big five. One time we saw the big five ALL IN ONE DAY! Also on that day we saw wild dogs. Wild dogs are very beautiful, they have white tipped tails, very round ears that can turn in all sorts of directions and their fur is white, black and orange. They have long skinny legs and very muscly bodies. They hunt in packs from 2-40 dogs. The dogs are nomadic. One day they will be in the north of Kruger and the next they will be in the south. We saw two packs of wild dogs. One pack of five and one of three. The pack of five we saw first. There was one male and four females. We followed them along the road for about 1 km. Then they went off hunting. It was cool to see what they did. It looked like they surrounded their prey because two went left, two went right and one stayed on the road. Two minutes after they were in the bush an impala came charging across the street and a dog went after it then stopped. It went back into the bush to hunt and that is where we left them.

The pack of three we saw all lying down with blood all over their faces. I couldn't catch the gender because they were lying down. They had blood all over them probably because of a kill they had eaten. We think there were more dogs in the bush eating because a pack of three is very small. They are very much like wolves.

I enjoyed seeing the two new animals in South Africa and hope I will see them again.

Bye everybuddy
Mattias

B Power

2011-02-02T01:38:00.000-08:00

Hello!
We are in Bangkok, Thailand at the moment. We flew in yesterday on an eleven hour flight, repeat, eleven hour flight. It was an overnight plane on Thai Airways. Thai Airways is a really nice airway.

First B part - Bangkok
Today since I was so tired from our flight, I slept until 11:30am. Then we had breakfast and headed out. We took a tuk tuk to the river pier to take the ferry across. Across the river, we went to see the Temple of Dawn. At the Temple of Dawn we went up the outside of the tower. We went up the biggest one. The Temple of Dawn is a series of temples. The steps were really really steep so I had to climb them like a ladder. Each step was about one foot high. After that we took the ferry back to the other side and walked to see the Reclining Buddah. The reclining buddah is very, very, very, very big. It's huge, Ginourmous! The pupil was about the size of my head and the nose was as big as my body stretched out with my arms above my head and on tip toes. It was pretty beautiful. Then we explored a bit and took a tuk tuk back.

Photo by Emilia

Tuk tuks are little taxi things that have three wheels. They're crazy. They are crazy because they take so sharp corners they almost tip right over. They are meant to take three people, driver and two passengers that are in the back but we managed to fit 5. The four of us squished in the back and the driver in the front.

The proof is in the side mirrors

Second B part - Birthday
My birthday is coming up in 2 weeks! I'll be turning 8 while we are still in Thailand. We will be on an island in Thailand called Koh Chang and will probably go elephant riding NEAR the beach. I am very excited.

Bye,
From Emilia

Half Way - Already!

2011-01-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the quarterly review - we thought it was time to update to the half way mark! There is more than one thing on some entries as we have differing opinions.

Turkey -
Best Food - Soups
Best Attraction - Cappadocia, fire breathing rocks, Turkish Dance night
Biggest Challenge - getting dropped at Kavashek as the sun was setting ( hwy junction)

Egypt
Best Food - Koshari
Best Attraction -Dahab Snorkeling, Pyramids of Giza, big market in Cairo
Biggest Challenge - the horrendous 8 hour ferry wait in the smoke filled cattle hold with wooden benches, crossing streets in Cairo

Jordan
Best Food - Bedouin breakfast and Bedouin whiskey (aka tea)
Best Attraction - Bedouin camp, camel riding, Petra Treasury
Biggest Challenge - finding a decent backpackers in Petra

Tanzania
Best Food - Damien's safari food, African fried bananas, fresh fruit
Best Attraction - Swimming with the dolphins, Lion kill
Biggest Challenge - always being on guard in populated areas ( safety first.)

And South Africa is not done yet - though this one will be hard!

On Being Wild

2011-01-21T00:26:00.000-08:00

First of all, my apologies if the title is misleading... sorry to disappoint. (Also sorry for the lack images below. Slow internet connectivity is a bit of an obstacle here in Africa.)

One of the things that we as a family gravitate toward is wild places and so it was no surprise that the safari we did in Tanzania was one of the highlights of our trip so far. For me it solidified the importance of wild places for wild things to be wild in. Equally vital, as with so many things, is the need for me to experience the wildness first hand; observing nature unfold as it has for tens of thousands of years.

I love wild places and sometimes when you are traveling around the world it’s hard to get what we often take for granted in Canada. Namely, some open space without much in the form of human interference dramatically altering a place. In many cases the wild places in other parts of the world just do not exist. Population density and generations of human activity have all but annihilated or tamed whatever natural balance had existed. Iceland has wild places owing to the harshness of much of the land that simply is not conducive to a lot of people living there. Tanzania also has it, though it has had humans as part of the mix for as long as we as a species have existed. Humans, for most of that time, lived as part of the balance. Recent history has necessitated large tracts being left for conservation. It is in one such place - the unfenced Serengeti/ Ngorongoro, that we juiced our wild batteries.

Of course, here enters that age old debate as to whether the presence of “unwild” (namely people, trucks and roads) negates the wildness. I don’t think it is simply a case of yes or no, but a matter of degree that depends on each place. If the presence of those factors changes the essential balance of place, then it begins to no longer be wild. The Serengeti, despite the scale of tourism, seems to keep the wildness intact. The animals go about their business as usual. Likely a result of generations of humans observing, only some of the elephants would likely recall a time when humans meant something else. We were no more (and likely less) of a presence than flies.

And so we were able to watch the drama of nature unfold before us. Elephants browsing and wandering at will, millions of Wildebeest and Zebra migrating to the calving grounds, Lions and Cheetah hunting... The list goes on for at every moment some story is being told and we were always reading to learn.

Yes, there is the risk of loving a place to death and so the need for management of these sacred places is important. The Tanzanians seem to have figured that out for most of the parks that we saw which is no small task when considering the level of development in their country as a whole. Certainly there will always be room to improve no matter where you are, but the effort needs to be made

The being there is the critical piece for the continuation and creation of wild places. When we have these deeper experiences we are far more able to learn, relate, and fight for their preservation. I feel it in myself and I see it in Mattias and Emilia. Long live the wild places!

Poaching

2011-01-05T06:12:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone
Remember in my last blog, I told you I would write a blog about poaching? Well, here it is. Poaching usually happens to the animals considered the big 5. Rhino, elephant, leopard, cape buffalo, and lion. They are hunted for trophies. The rhino for its horn, elephant for its ivory tusk, leopard for its skin, cape buffalo for its head, and lion for its claws and teeth. They are also hunted because they are big and the most dangerous to hunt.

Rhinos and elephants are the most hunted/poached nowadays. The rhino horn is used for aphrodisiac. Since it gets turned into dust, it is easy to sneak out of the country. A few weeks ago 5 rhinos were given to Tanzania from South Africa. This was a gift and while we were on safari, one of the gifted rhinos was poached in the Serengeti. Since it is such a large area, it's almost impossible to keep it patrolled.

In 2007, there were three men in the Ngorongoro who poached three elephants. Eight rangers found the camp of the poachers so the poachers shot at the rangers killing 2 and injuring one of them. The rangers shot back and killed 2 of the poachers and injured one. They interviewed the one who was injured, and found out that he was from Somalia. The three poachers had disguised themselves as Masaai so that no one would suspect them.

Poaching doesn't happen very often any more, but it still happens. Some of the international laws forbidding the export of ivory has helped decrease elephant poaching. I hope everyone who wants to will do their share to help stop poaching. There is a good kids book on this topic called Akimbo and the Elephants. Emilia and I both liked it.

Good bye for now.....

Sunny Christmastime

2010-12-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Merry belated Christmas. We were on Zanzibar, which is an island off the coast of Tanzania, for Christmas. For Christmas day we were on the beach. We started the day by waking up and looking at all our presents. I got a jingle dress, an Eqyptian bookmark, a ruler with heiroglyphics on it, some turkish delight, a Croation doll, a Greek doll and a Turkish doll, a blue eye bracelet, one special african hair braiding, and Santa signed us up for swimming with the dolphins in the wild.

My favorite was swimming with the dolphins. The closest I got to one was probably about one metre. I felt like diving down and touching it, but something told me “no”. The way you see them is to look under water with your mask and you see them. To get into the water near them you have to jump off your moving boat while there are other moving boats around. You can’t hesitate. We also saw one baby dolphin with its mom, it was really cute.

After we opened our presents we went for a big buffet breakfast. There were even cream puffs and brownies... I especially liked when daddy thought the cream puffs were plain and he put chocolate sauce on his. He bit in to it and went “ wow!” After breakfast we went to the beach for the day. About lunch time, Mattias and I got hungry (of course) so we got some food from the beach bbq and cokes. After that, Me and Daddy built a sand man, (not a snow man) it was big but had to be lying down so he wouldn’t collapse. Later, me, mom, daddy and Thias all went for a long swim. The Indian Ocean is so warm, you actually feel like you are in a bath tub!

At dinner time, we went to a beach buffet dinner. It was a really really yummy dinner, and for dessert there was Christmas cake and fruit tarts.

For presents from the family, since there were no shops around, we decided to make gift certificates. Daddy is getting a new coffee press mug since his old one got left behind... Mattias is getting a soccer ball, Mommy is getting a new swimsuit, and I am getting a long skirt.

On Christmas we also picked a fresh coconut that was very yummy. My favourite part of Christmas day was present opening from under the drawn Christmas tree.

Bye for now, Emilia

No bears, no chickens....but the big 5!

2010-12-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

We went on a 9 day safari from Dec’ 13 to Dec’ 21 the first day we went to Arusha National Park, it was a great starting place ‘cause you could see lots of variety of different animals and lots of them.There were lots of giraffes and we got lucky and saw a black and white Colobus monkey. They are rare to see because of how well they hide. We drove to a little view point and saw them in a tree and then when we were going back from the view point they were gone. The second day we woke up and drove to Lake Manyara National Park. Lake Manyara is famous for its tree climbing lions. The lions adapt to different habitats so this is why they climb trees in this park only. Although we didn’t see any, we saw lots and lots of elephants. The first elephant we saw was way in the bushes and you could only just see him. Looking contently at it, James (our amazing driver/guide) said lets skip this elephant because we will see many more up close. We drove about 2 minutes and guess what? We saw another elephant. Not necessarily closer, but a lot easier to see. Actually, he was very hard to see at fir... let me skip the details and give you the highlights and main thoughts!

Day 3 -we came about a metre away from a big bull elephant - he came so close we could have touched him, but instead we all jumped back. We thought we would drive away, but James just sat there while we freaked out! We asked him how do you know when an elephant is mad, he said since he is happily eating you don’t have to worry. Phew!

Day 4 - Serengeti - James pointed out a Leopard in a tree but all we could see was its tail. He suddenly stopped, backed up and we were looking all over wondering what he saw and then he pointed in the tree about 30m away. None of us could see it, then he gave us more detail about where in the tree and we found him!
Day 4 - When we were driving in to the Serengeti, practically the first thing we saw was a cheetah lying down in the shade of a bush. Then after a few more minutes driving, we saw a lion lying down. He was hard to see unless you looked backwards and then all you could see was her paws sticking up in the air! (lions are lazy). We got a good view of the lion then as you know we saw the leopard I mentioned above.
Day 5 - We woke up early in the morning and went for a game drive before breakfast. Luck must follow us because we saw a pride of lions. There were 8 females, 3 cubs and one male. He was the dominant male ( there can be 2 or 3 males per pride). James said the pride probably had more dominant males because sometimes the males will leave the pride for a bit. We watched them for so long that we saw them move from the long grass all the way to the rock outcroppings. We watched them for a long long time and we saw something very interesting that they do to protect their cubs. They leave their cubs on a smaller rock nearby all hidden and all the other full grown ones on the big main rock. Then we went back for breakfast.
Day 6 - on Day 6 we went and saw a bunch of wildebeast and zebra on their great migration. James said there were half a million Zebra and 2 million wildebeast. Zebra and wildebeast go together because wildebeast can smell well and zebras can see very well. We drove right into the middle of the wildebeast and zebra. you could hear the zebra making their weird almost trumpeting noise. We were surrounded by them and could not see the road but James knew by heart the way to go and the wildebeast and zebra would move out of the way.
Day 7 - Day 7 was very lucky for all of our leopard sightings. We went out in the morning looking for some good game. We saw a bunch of cars parked around bad luck rock (we don’t usually see anything there, but James was determined we would so we kept going back, and that day we saw a leopard and two cubs. James said there were three cubs, but we only saw two. Later that day, after lunch, we went for another game drive and came really close to a Leopard. You pretty much looked up and she was there sleeping in the tree. I am not joking that she was 3 metres away. After we looked at the leopard for a while I wondered, “hmmm, why doesn’t it have a kill in the tree?” then James said “ look right behind her.” and there it was, it was a grand gazelle pretty much eaten and would last maybe for that day. She had wedged it in between two branches and stuck its horns into a branch. The Leopard’s put their prey in a tree so hyenas (scavengers) and other cats cannot steal it. They also put it in a tree to rot for a day or two so it is more tender for eating. Their teeth aren’t strong enough for fresh kill. If it over rots they leave their kill for the vultures.

Day 8 - Day 8 was our luckiest day. We actually saw two kills. The first was a cheetah walking around in the grass. James said he is looking for rabbits, and the next thing we knew she had a rabbit in her mouth! It wasn’t hard for the cheetah. She just had to walk and pick it up. The second kill was the most amazing. It was five lions, one was male, attacking a heard of cape buffalo for a newborn young one. In a fight like this one, either one of the cape buffalo or one of the lions will die. After a while, some of the herd left. Only the mother and one other was left to help the calf. The lions got the calf and the mother buffalo made one last try to save her young and realised it was already gone. wah!: (

Day 9 - On our final day we saw a mother black rhino and her young. They were very far away and very scared of vehicles. There are still poachers but not in the Ngorongoro Crater where we were. There are only 27 rhinos left in this area. We also saw lots of Hyenas here, there are over 400 in the crater!

The safari was so amazing. I think we got really lucky on it! Everyone we meet says that Mima and I are the luckiest because of our age already doing crazy things like this.

Bye everybody, I will do another blog shortly about poaching.

This is Africa

2010-12-29T08:31:00.001-08:00

Tanzania has been a wild and amazing ride! We came here with a lot planned, unlike most of our travels to date. All we had to do was make sure we got busses and ferries to get to and from our various points of interest. Dar Es Salaam is not the city of dreams, rather, a city to avoid. Even the TI office was stumped when we asked if there was anything worthwhile to do! Having said that, we knew it would be a point of departure and arrival - so today, we have a full day to get ourselves caught up while sitting in a muggy, humid 35 + degrees before flying to S Africa tomorrow. The power is off for now, so the AC is not on either. This is Africa!

Our travels began with the fun bus to Arusha, 9 hours turned 12 - but best slow than option b, the driver who gets you there in 9, but you are so shell shocked when arriving you aren’t sure how you are still alive - luck of the draw. Arusha is the starting point for most safaris in Tanzania.

What a 10 days - too hard to describe - phenomenal. Mattias is giving a day by day highlight so I will leave that for him. Seeing the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Arusha National Park was a once in a lifetime experience - and we will never forget it. Bernie is working on getting the photos up - but the power here is on again off again and it is slow going - This is Africa.

From Safari we made the trek back to Dar to make our way to Zanzibar by ferry. Most tourists travel between places by air - now we know why- chaos is endemic in public transport here ( reminder to self -this is Africa). Emilia’s blog tells most of the story of Zanzibar - beautiful beaches, warm waters, lovely hotel for Christmas and lots of fun. We met lots of people, and the kids even found a good buddy to play with, Sonny from Germany was a great kid and they spent lots of time together.

Jambiani Beach allowed us some freedoms not seen to us in the rest of Tanzania. Feeling quite segregated from the locals in Dar and Arusha, we finally were at ease to mingle freely and not have the same security concerns. A breath of fresh air, and some fun getting to chat with the Africans. Mattias is a great barrier breaker as he wears a footie jersey daily and it always brings comments his way. It even started some footie games on the beach.

Tanzania has been a country of highlights for us, our only regret being that we often felt cooped up and unable to really get out and to mingle with the locals. We are reminded daily by ourselves and others - This Is Africa.

Happy New Year everyone - we long to hear your holiday stories too.

Toot is common

2010-12-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

We went to the cairo museum and saw a tooting mask (king Tut's). It was mostly gold with beautiful rock that was green and dark and light blue. Tut's beard was long, wow! It had two serpents on the head that represent upper and lower Egypt. He was so full of himself that he decided to make a coffin around him, another around that and another around that and then a sarcophagus around that. And around the sarcophagus was a pyramid (I think I'll make a pyramid here... hmm, not big enough- make a new one!)

Animals were so important to the Egyptians they even mummified their animals. We saw a baby alligator, this big-{ }
And an adult alligator about 50 times that length. There were monkeys and Cobras. There were even the bones of a hippo! There were sarcophagi for shrews (interesting).

We saw a mummified common person which I think is crazy because everyone needed to go to the after life, well didn't need to. Some of them had real sarcophagi and some just had baskets. As you might know the king's had their brain taken out through their noses during mummification, but I don't think the common people did.

That museum was great! Sorry photos with this one, no cameras were allowed inside.

Heading for the longest day...

2010-12-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

And so a few days of amazingness in Jordan. We saw only a little of it as we had to decide between south along the Nile or Jordan in 5 days, and in the end we are glad to have escaped the mayhem of Egypt for a more leisurely pace. Two nights in a Bedouin camp is something not to be missed....if you ever get the opportunity, take it. Then three days in Petra wandering the ruins of the ancient sandstone city, the high points and the canyons while singing Indiana Jones Theme songs was pretty fabulous too.

In the midst of all this, Knecht Ruprecht came with St Nicklaus and the kids fears that Santa may not find us were alleviated as they learned that they are worthy of a visit from him in a few weeks.

But alas, all the fun has come to an end for a few days as we head to Arusha, Tanzania. A full day of chaos getting from bus to ferry to bus via border crossings, a nine hours bus to Cairo ( guaranteed to be frightening and dirty), a night flight in to Tanzania and then who knows what is in store on the the 14 hour trek from Dar to Arusha... What we all know is that at the end of the next few days of travel, we have a 10 day safari awaiting us. Now there is a carrot! So, the longest day may be about epic travel stories, but truly our longest day will be on Dec 21 in the southern hemisphere while on Safari!

Our Egypt and Jordan photos should be up in the next few days, it has taken a while to get them uploaded on slow connections and we still have to sort them.

We are not sure of our ability to be online once in Tanzania, there are varying degrees of reports about power and connectivity..so this may be good bye for a while.

Merry Christmas to everyone...sorry no individual cards this year, but know we are thinking of each one of you and wish you the best for a fun holiday with family and friends.

Best wishes
Karen and family

The Challenges of Travelling

2010-12-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't believe it has been almost five months since we left home and four and a half since we left Canada. Time in one hand seems to be flying by, but when we stop to think about where we have gone and the things we have done and seen, five months doesn't seem to fit.

Daily we count ourselves as being fortunate and the kids hear all the time from other travelers how lucky they are. Yet, there have been challenges and it wouldn't be traveling if it was all smooth sailing. Below is a list (in no particular order) of some of the "best" moments that come to mind:

Being scrubbed down by another man in a Turkish bath - a large hairy man at that.
Playing hopscotch down the back stairs of the Citadel in Cairo attesting to the serious lack of nearby public latrines.
Stepping out of the car in France, in the dark, looking for a place to pitch the tent, only to realize too late I was standing in a good thick patch of stinging nettle - in shorts and sandals of course.
Having breakfast to the sound of the hostel staff snoring on the bench, couch, or where ever... in the common area. I guess their work includes room and board, but when the rooms are booked...
Getting dropped off in "Kafacek" (as we instructed the bus driver to do) as the sun was going down, hoping to catch a minibus ("there are many, many buses") to our destination. No mini buses and the town of "Kafecek" we learned afterward means junction. As we walked along the highway in the middle of nowhere, Mima said "I thought this is what we were going to do all the time". I guess we could have prepped her better ... : )
Subjecting ourselves and our kids to a secure and enclosed waiting area for the ferry from Egypt to Jordan with hundreds of people, of which most are men and almost all smoke. We felt like bad parents - compounded by the fact the ferry kept getting delayed (by six hours). Hack!!
Enduring the night bus to the Red Sea trying to manage some sort of sleep in between police check points while being bombarded by bad Egyptian movies cranked at full volume (regardless of the language barrier, I'm sure there is no plot).
Trying to get the proper coffee buzz off Nescafe.

I'm sure there will be more challenges and we will do our best to take face them with a positive attitude. As Mattias said when we got dropped at the junction, "we're really in our traveler's groove now" and he looked for a spot to pitch the tent.

Snorkeling in the great Red Sea

2010-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

We are in Dahab on the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt. We went snorkeling in the best snorkeling area I have ever done. The first day we just went outside the Penquin Hotel, where we are staying. We discovered that day that my snorkel had too big of a hole and we had to dump it. It was still pretty cool but I didn't see many fish at all. Yesterday, we shared snorkels at the Lighthouse snorkel area. It was the coolest snorkel area I've ever seen. I went out for the first time, saw a few fish and then my mask started leaking. So we went in to the beach area. For the second time I went snorkeling in the lighthouse, we fixed my mask and then I could go snorkeling with my Mom. I went out on her back to where it got really pretty. We saw a few fish, I got too excited and breathed with my nose a bit so my mask started leaking again and we had to go in. Darn it!

The third day, today, we bought a new snorkel for me and then the snorkel started filling up because the waves were so big. We were at the area called the Islands, which were only amazing if you went really far out. After the Islands, we met a friend, Nathan, who we had met in Olympos, Turkey and went for milkshakes. I had a pineapple vanilla thick shake, that had a lot of really yummy ice cream in it, which is probably rare here. This afternoon the water got calmer and I really wanted to try snorkeling again because I was getting anxious to see some of the cool fish. I went out on Dad's back and then I didn't panic, I was totally calm and guess what? I saw Indian lion fish, pencil fish, a puffer fish puffed out, a really cool blue fish with purple spots and a purple tail and a yellow face, and I saw two bright yellow fish with colorful stripes on their tail. I finally did it. Yahoo, yippee kayaye!

I can't wait until tomorrow to check out another really famous site named the eel garden. It is supposed to be really cool.

That's it for now, bye,
Emilia

ps. there is a really nice waterfront walk path that I like to walk barefoot on.

Puffies

2010-11-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
I know that puffies sounds like Puffins again, but guess what? It means puffer fish! We are in Dahab on the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt. We are staying at a place called the Penquin ( even though there are no penguins). The whole reason we came to Dahab is for the snorkeling (pretty amazing)! We have snorkeled for three whole days and have seen maybe a hundred different kinds of very colorful fish. I wanted to rent an underwater camera so everyone can see how amazing the fish are but it was too expensive. I went snorkeling about one hour ago and knew what the puffer fish looked like, so I found one, then scared it and made it puff! I also saw an eel that was green and black and scary. I was wondering what it was until it looked at me. It looked me for quite a while, I looked at it, then it opened its mouth and showed me its sharp teeth. This usually means " don't come near me or I will eat you up" so I didn't, I swam away (scary).

There are three different places we have snorkeled in the three days and every place has been amazing mostly for the fish. But the coral reef is super colorful and fun to look at. There is a type of clam that every now and then you see in the coral. It is very beautiful and very sensitive. If you swim down near it, wave your hand in front of it, the blue and purple sucks into the clam and if you scare it a lot the clam completely closes- interesting.

We'll go snorkeling again tomorrow to hopefully see even more types of fish and maybe even a different type of clam.

Bye for now, Mattias

Ps I'll try to put on some pics later.

Tombs

2010-11-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

Hello again every single person,

We are in Cairo with a population of 20 million plus across the Nile there are another 12 million and 4 million come into Cairo to work every day. Who can imagine how crazy it is with as many people in Canada as there are in two cities that are more like one?

Anyhow, today we went on a private tour to all the pyramids in the area and saw the Sphynx (it looks smaller in pictures than it actually is). We went in to a pyramid that everybody except for my little darn sister had to duck for. There was a sarcophagus in the pyramid bigger than the entrance. See if you can figure out how they got it in there (answer in the comment box).

We saw a statue of Ramses II and his nose was the size of my head, so you can imagine how ginourmously huge it was!

In Cairo you need to be really cautious when you cross the road because there are about three painted lanes and 12 lanes of cars. So you have to cross one car at a time and stand in the middle of the road with cars going in front of you and behind you. One nutty guy that helped us cross the street (he was a human shield) said to us "a tip to cross the street is to close your eyes and open your heart" (silly).

Bye for now, Mattias

ps... vegetarian tip - eat Koshary - it is a pasta with lots of sauces, chick peas, lentils and some other good stuff. There are fried onions. We went to a restaurant that this was their only food.

TD and P of C

2010-11-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, sorry I haven't blogged for a while. While we were in Istanbul, we went to a TURKISH DANCE. At the dance there were belly dancers and men dancers and there were traditional dancers. There was a bit of Turkish jazz. My favorite was in second part. It was a solo belly dance and she had little jingle things on her dress so when she moved she jingled. The dance was in an 500 year old Hamam (Turkish bath) that was converted in 1986 to a theatre. There wasn't a big stage. You sat in regular chairs that went in a semi circle and the stage didn't go up high. At the intermission they were giving away Turkish Delight and drinks.

In Egypt, where we are now, it is very hot and we are in Cairo. Today we went to see the PYRAMIDS OF CAIRO. The ones still standing and full, in total there were 10. When we went into a pyramid that was very small, Mom, Mattias and Dad had to duck, but I didn't- hee hee hee hee heee ha ha ha. We saw the Sphynx and the day we are flying out in 2 weeks we are going to see Pharaoh Tutankhamen's famous mask at the museum of Egypt.

Get on the bus

2010-11-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

If you have kids, you may have heard of this song by the Doodlebops, well, it has become a regular hit with our family in Turkey given the number of buses we have taken in the last month.

Our first bus was spectacular and I can see why people rave about the Turkish bus system. We started with a bus that was pretty average, only to realize this bus was just the shuttle to take us to the otogar (main bus station) that are all a few km out of the centre of town. A huge coach arrived, seats were assigned, there are two drivers and ticket taker, and then, another guy appears and he is in the in-house flight attendant - no kidding -service similar to that on and Air Canada Jazz regional flight, only better because we also had wifi for the entire trip. Did I mention personalized tv's and direct trip door to door too? So our first experience- pretty good.

Our next trip baffled us as we couldn't quite figure out how a 220 km trip was to take us 5 hours. We started off on the shuttle and found out it wasn't the shuttle, it was the bus and it took 5 hours because it went through every little village en route. We still had drink service, but no wifi on this bus. This bus was direct too...sort of... we had to change twice and the last bus wasn't included in our ticket, we had to pay more.....

The third trip confused us further as we were on an overnight journey and we knew we'd be on a big coach again. But 9 hours for the 450 km still seemed long. Well, a mini bus, another minibus, a few hour wait at a main city to get the 9 hour bus and finally we were on our way. Hmmmm... No flight attendant service, no wifi, Turkish movies played out loud on the one tv screen and a stop every two hours for half an hour with announcements and lights on... Pretty poor sleep quality and when it was time to get off, we were the only ones getting off and we were pretty much tossed off at 6am with not much more than a look of disgust that the attendant had to get off to get our luggage out from underneath... Pretty much direct though.

Bus 4 direct to the north...pretty good and met our definition of direct...no minibuses and it did include inflight service, but no wifi and no tv's. Emilia was getting a little too much attention too, so she had to move to a window seat just to be left alone for a while. Not much meeting up to that first bus standard.

Bus 5 was the classic. This bus was old. It didn't even stop at the otogar ; we had some bus helping guy show us where to and how to flag down the bus on the road as it drove by. Our seats were taken and the rest were dirty or broken. This bus had no service or tv or wifi, in fact it was more like what we expected before the first bus ride in Turkey. The best part of this trip was that we were to get off at some named town we couldn't find on our map and then just wait on the side of the road for one of the many minibuses to go by to get to our actual destination. Apparently there are lots of minibuses from our drop off point. We got dropped off at the junction of two highways as the sun was going down. No town, no minibusses going by. After some deliberation we walked up the road a ways to find help. Glad we did.... The traffic policeman who was the only guy around for miles...lucky moment.... helped us by waving down the most decrepit vehicle and putting us in it with instructions to the driver to take us to the next town. We were way over charged but happy to be on our way along the 10km hike we would have taken with our packs in the dark on a hwy....to the next minibus and then the final minibus.

We are not sure we actually want to get on another bus since they seem to be getting a little worse each time. The best part was that the kids attitudes were great. Emilia told us that the hiking we were doing along the highway was what she had envisioned when we talked about going around the world so it wasn't so bad. Mattias reminded us if all else failed we had the tent with us and we could pitch it and deal with getting to our destination in the morning. I am not sure at 7 or 9years old I would have had the same attitude! Oh, and once we had got our wits about us, we looked at our dictionary for the name of the town we were supposed to be dropped off at, and it wasn't a town, the word meant junction/crossroads. The joke was on us but we laughed pretty hard especially when it made us think back to the bus driver's look when we showed him where we wanted to be dropped off. He needed to know "where".... So we just told him our final destination and all seemed to be okay. We had assumed he just knew as a result of our trip direction. What did we know?!

So, we have learned that the bus company does matter, sometimes you are shuttled and sometimes the shuttle is the bus, and the meaning of direct changes dramatically depending on who is selling the ticket and how desperate they are for a ticket sale. Our 300km journey to Istanbul tomorrow is 6.5 hours and direct on a large coach.... we will have to see what that actually means.

Hamam (Turkish Bath)

2010-11-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

We are in Amasya, Turkey. We arrived two days ago and at about 5:30 in the morning we realized I had a terrible flu. I threw up quite a few times and the full morning was boooorinnnng because I had to stay in bed. Mom said that all the energy needed to go to getting my flu to go away. Luckily the flu only lasted the day. Today was much better. When I woke up we realised I was fine. So for the day, I will say these in order, first thing we went straight to a mosque (mom and I wore head scarves). The mosque was very cool. There were men going in and out praying on their knees facing east because they are Muslim. After that we went up a hill to a castle that was built-in the bronze age. It was very fixed up and looked like a building from only 1000 years ago. After that we went to the most exciting part of the day.

We went in the hamam ( I like to call them hamammis). First we got really sweaty and hot in the steam room. Then we doused ourselves in water and then finally we went in to a room and had a real scrub down. All of the dead skin came off and it was disgusting. After that we went for, yay, the massage. It felt so nice. When he did the choppy thing on my back I was making noises which made it seem like a bumpy truck. Then we got wrapped up in so fuzzy towels and had tea (only mom and dad had tea, we weren't allowed for some odd reason). I want to go for another one, it was great! Mom said we probably will go for another one in Istanbul.

Bye, Emilia

Amasya

2010-11-10T09:34:00.000-08:00

Most o....I forgot to mention Hello everybody.
Most of the towns and places we go to are set up for tourists from the west region, but Amasya is set up so that mostly Muslims come to visit!! I think because of Ataturk's influence here many Turks come to visit (Ataturk was a Turkish leader who helped the Turks win independence- 80 years ago). Actually we are the only non Muslims that we have seen besides some loud American laughing about touching an old woman's head. Everyone else seems to be from the middle east. Don't forget to practice your Turkish charades before coming here.

There is not much to do in Amasya but we found four really interesting things to do:
- hike around in the tombs built in the side of the cliffs
- go to the castle at the top of the mountain
- go to a hamam ( a traditional Turkish bath)
- walk around the town (look at the awesome water wheel in the river)

The place we are staying is very traditional. It is an old Ottoman Empire house hanging over the river. There are lots of very Turkish things( besides the bathroom). The bathroom is definitely a WC (water closet). It is literally a closet with a shower, toilet and sink. Disturbing photo to follow, and some other pics of the place we are staying.

Fairy Chimney Hike

2010-11-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

I am in Cappadocia, Turkey.

We went for hikes through fairy chimneys. The fairy chimneys are rock formations that stick up like big cones. In the fairy chimneys there used to be people living in them. The first day we went for a hike we went through two valleys. The two valleys are called Rose Valley and Red Valley. They are called that because they have the colour pink on the mountains. See...!

The second day in Cappadocia we went for a tour of the underground city. In the underground city 20,000 people used to live there too.

People lived in the sturdy chimneys and the underground city because they were early Christians and Christianity was not always accepted. They even built churches into the rocks. One of the churches built into the rock in the open air museum was really neat with a cool design on the ceiling.

The third day we went for a 12 km hike. We went through tons and tons of fairy chimneys. Here are some more pictures...

Saban!

2010-11-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

Merhaba (Turkish for hi),
I thought I should catch you up on one of the places I'm staying. My favourite is the place I'm in. It is called the Saban. The reasons I like it are that breakfast and dinner are included (great food) and there are two, two week old puppies (we only see one most times). The mother was kicked out for killing 2 chickens (bad thing not roosters because they wake you up at 5:00am). They are eating a lot better than when we arrived. The Saban has hammocks, a campfire each night, comfy turkish sitting areas outside, and ping pong. It is near the beach. The next thing is we can eat oranges off the trees. And the last thing is that Mima and I get a tree house to ourselves while mom and dad are in a bungalow next door.

We all like it here so much, we stayed here two days longer than we had planned.

What is this picture of? (above) Answer in the comment box please!

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well the festive candy haul was a little different here on the coast of Turkey at Olympos.

The scariest part was likely the feet in this photo - luckily you can't smell them when viewing over the internet (at least not yet). The "Smelly Feet" song sure comes up often during our travels. You'd be happy to know that this particular pair did get a good soak in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea right after this photo.

Of course we couldn't find any Jack-o-Lanterns here either so we decided instead to eat chocolate around the "fire breathing rocks" of Chimerae. No kidding, these fires have been burning for thousands of years and though the photo might look like we're just huddled around the campfire, there is no wood burning here, just natural methane seeping out from somewhere deep in the earth. Legend (Homer) has it that it comes from the fire breathing beast (Chimerae) that was beaten and driven deep into the earth. In celebration of this the Lycian people would light torches and hold sporting events with these lit torches. Many believe that this is the origin of the Olympic flame.

After watching the fire burn into nightfall we hiked back to Olympos in the dark making sure to include going past tombs of the ancient necropolis for an added spooky effect. Not the same as the North American event, but we figured it was a pretty good alternative.

Pamukkale Paradigm

2010-10-28T03:24:00.000-07:00

As soon as we arrived in Pamukkale, I knew I would have difficulty with the travertines from an experiential point of view. From a distance the travertines look a lot like an early season ski hill or a small glacier- the ice falling over edges, the colour of the dirt and algae on the surface, the look of the slippery slope. We have had windy and cool weather while we have been here, adding to the difficulty of thinking about swimming in the warm pools made out of calcium carbonate rather than skiing down the relatively short slope. Even at night, looking up at the hill made me think of Red Mtn with night skiing. Added to this were the emails from Big Red Cats showing photos of the early season skiing back home.

It wasn't until we were walking amidst the travertines shoeless and geothermal water running over our bare feet that I really could get a grip of the fact that this was a very different formation and not ice or snow. It was a fantastic experience and today we are all back into the preset mind state as we slip on our words and say ice rather than salt to describe our experiences. It really speaks to the strength of our experiences as we try to change our paradigm of what really could be.

See photos in Emilia 's blog below.

Pamukkale

2010-10-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

We went to a small town called Pamukkale. There is also a site named Pamukkale. The site has little cup things that hold water. They do not hold water all year long. We got lucky in that it rained so that they would be filled with geothermal water.

We also went to an ancient pool in Pamukkale. The ancient pool was more geothermal than the cup-thing-a-ma-bobbers. We swam in the ancient pool. In the ancient pool we would play on daddy's back and daddy would smash his shins on the ancient pillars and the ancient rocks. The ancient pillars and the ancient rocks came from the Roman empire. The Romans built a beautiful pool for the emperor and the ancient rocks and the pillars are from that pool.

All the water at the site was geothermal (geothermal means heated by the earth). Most of the geothermal was warm, but some of it was bit cool. The geothermal reminded me of Iceland.

Bye,

Emilia

Ephesus

2010-10-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

The day before yesterday we went to an archeological site called Ephesus!! It is the most preserved Roman site in the world! Everybody knows that Kelowna has 100 000 people, but this ancient city Ephesus had just over 200 000 people in it. Wow, that must have been big! Actually, the site was over a whole kilometre long.

We also went to the temple of Artemis. It is one of the seven great ancient wonders of the world. We have also visited two other of the great ancient wonders on the trip. The Parthenon and the site at Rhodes where the giant statue of Colossus once stood.

Yesterday we went to a beach!!!!!! I built a tunnel so I could go through it. It was very hard to go through one way, but easy to go the other way.

In Turkey there is this thing called the blue eye. When you have one and someone gives you the evil eye, it bounces back at them. I really wish I had one so my mother and father would stop looking at me in funny ways.

Bye for now, I hope your school year is going well.

Mattias

The Search for the Ever Elusive Pita

2010-10-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

There are certain things I associate with a country and for the most part, these associations have rung true. Like Crepes in France, fresh Pretzls in Germany, Strudl in Austria... So you'd think that Greece would not let me down when I tried to find Pita. In a way she didn't let me down, there was pita available at most restaurants and certainly at every Gyro stand. But whenever I tried to find fresh pita in the grocery store, there was none to be found.

Lunches are generally picnic affairs and we try to vary things a bit and often try to inject as much of the local staples as possible, so I thought pita at lunch would be a nice change up when in Greece. At first we found NO pita in the grocery stores we went to. Bakery's too. None, zilch, nada, nichts, kanenas... Now these were not always little stores - even the large ones where they had everything else - Greek and otherwise. "Where are the Pita?"we would ask. We usually got a shrug and the best we got was a 10 pack in the frozen section. Now the frozen 10'r was an improvement, but it still wasn't the same.

Often with will and determination there is a happy resolve to these kinds of quests, but alas, I must admit defeat. We never did find a source of the fresh pita. Perhaps all of the Gyro stands have the market cornered? Maybe Greeks don't eat it? Maybe you can only get frozen imported from... Canada? Whatever the case, we never did track fresh pita down and will have to make this a priority should we ever find ourselves in Greece again. I hate to think we were simply missing something obvious - though that is a possibility as well. I will have to resign myself to the fact that the frozen 10 pita were pretty good (once they thawed) and the ones from the Gyro stands and restaurants were great.

Fresh Pita - Where are you?

Quarterly update

2010-10-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Amazingly we are, to the day, three months out! This is one quarter of the way through our trip so we decided it was time to reflect on the many adventures we have had so far. We are doing this as a family, so some of the comments may include more than one response if we have differing thoughts.

Iceland
Best attraction: Minke whale, geyser, natural hotsprings
Best food: homemade soup
Biggest challenge: staying awake the first day; sleeping during daylight

England
Best attraction: salcombe sailing, Oliver, crabbing
Best food: Salcombe ice cream
Biggest challenge: Saying goodbye to the car

France
Best attraction: classic hike in Pyranees, Eiffel tower, Puy du Fou, Chateau Breze , Lascaux caves (so many...)
Best food: pan au chocolat, Camembert, mussels
Biggest challenge: finding camping in the middle of the night in Moisac(they lock the gates); kids biggest challenge was talking the parents into letting them have a pan au chocolat
every day

Spain
Best attractions: FC Barcelona museum; hiking in Picos de Europa, aqueduct in Segovia
Best food:we camped and cooked our own food mostly so we are not sure what we missed...
Biggest challenge: parking (anywhere in Spain), getting away from the cigarette smoke

Portugal
Best attractions: uncle Paddy and playing in the waves, archaeological site Citinia de Briteiros
Best food: BBQ fish, rice bowl with egg, vegetarian platter
Biggest challenge: getting info from Tourist info about anything other than the specific town we were in.

Germany
Best attraction: FC Koln game, riding Marina and Geronimo (auntie Chris' horses), hiking the steepest vineyard in Europe
Best food: pretzels, Daddy's birthday cake, Chris' pumpkin soup
Biggest challenge: beating Michy at footie (Mattias), none for the rest of us

Austria
Best attraction: Crown jewels in Vienna, meeting all the family, hike on the Hohewand with the petting zoo and zip line
Best food: sacher torte, heurigan food
Biggest challenges: getting cold milk, finding a happy Austrian in Vienna

Slovenia
Best attraction: Skojan caves, Vintgar gorge
Best food:Slovenian pub fare in Bled
Biggest Challenge: staying dry

Croatia
Best attraction: Plitvice Lakes, old city Dubrovnik
Best food: seafood risotto, ice cream/ gelato in Croatia
Biggest challenge: finding an easy route to Greece

Greece
Best attraction: black sand beach, Santorini; quads, old streets of Rhodes, Zeus' temple
Best food: halva, olives
Biggest challenge: finding fresh pita in the stores, not stepping in land mines (dog poo), finding legit TI offices

And there you have it....some of the best, not really much to complain about, and lots of yummy food.

Zoom Zoom

2010-10-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today and yesterday.... well, yesterday we rented a quad for yesterday and today. (I forgot to say we are on Santorini, Greece). The fastest speed we hit was 52km/hr. I was with the crazy driver Dad. Dad and Mom also let me drive by myself for 5 minutes or so. We zoomed to a town called Oia (Eeya) and watched a sunset. Today we zoomed to a red sand beach and a black sand beach.

At the red sand beach, we tried to snorkel but the water wasn't clear enough and there wasn't much to see. Also, I tried to balance a thin rock on a thin rock, but it wasn't working for me so I put them together like a T for sitting on and then it all collapsed.

At the black sand beach we found some beach beds under umbrellas for free, that felt very tropical. I went snorkeling and saw and eel at this beach. He glared at me so I swam back and told Mima to get out of the water.

I think the place we are staying, is the best place we have stayed so far. It is good because it is comfy, they clean our room each day, there is a swimming pool and cake every day so I think Life Is Good!

I think that is it for this blog entry, I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Mattias

ps - don't forget to write comments.

Quad - ruple

2010-10-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

We are on Santorini Island. We rented some quads. On them today, Daddy let me drive for a bit. Frightening, hey!? He totally took his hands off the steering and accelerator and let me drive. We went to three beaches. One was rocks and we didn't stay long. Another was a red sand beach and the other was a black sand beach. We stayed at the black sand beach the longest. At the black sand beach, me and Mattias would swim in the water and snorkel with Daddy. We also would lie in the sand and bury ourselves. Yesterday we drove on the quads to Oia ( EEH-ah) and watched the sunset. Tonight we are going on a night ferry that will arrive at 7am. I am looking forward to Rhodes Island.

Groovy Greeks

2010-10-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

Classic Greek vs our version
Corrupt police sounds like carped police - Emiliaism
Socrates sounds like great soccertes - Mattiasism ( disappointment at learning he wasn't a soccer player)
Typical Greek corner today - looking one way you see riot police and civil protesters (every other day event right now) less than a block in the other direction a ceremony marking the end of the German occupation, more police, but his time dressed in their best....hmmm. The irony not lost on too many on that one.

So here we are, in the heart of the city of Athens. Athens wasn't even on the original itinerary, but Greece, well it is so enticing! Getting from Croatia to Greece is an interesting dilemma and a long way given the options, we opted to take a ferry to Italy, wrong direction - we know, and then the 17 hour haul to Greece. The first ferry time flew by as we met some really fun Brits doing a year trip too- we hardly saw our kids, they were having a blast with their new friends Charlie and Billy, while we were being taught a new card game that Bernie, well, I'll leave that unsaid.

Surprisingly - in Greece, everything so far has been just that....surprising.

For me, Athens is nothing like the city I remember from 24 years ago( to be honest I was dreading coming) - it is cleaner, more welcoming, the hostels are great and the site-seeing really is amazing. The sights haven't changed much I suppose, but my outlook likely has!

For Bernie, the history has been fascinating (bit of a history buff he is) and the photography is fantastic. Mostly the later as a result of the man we met who cleaned his camera. For about 6 weeks, Bernie has been disgruntled at a dust speck you can see on most of his photos. He tried cleaning it himself, but ... When we arrived in Athens he did some internet searching and found Picopoulous cameras. Off we went - and discovered a man who had been in business -with his father- since 1935. His father was the only Greek to ever produce cameras - named Picca ( pic from the last name, ca for camera) . And he was totally up to date with his knowledge of digital cameras. Bernie got a scolding for trying to clean it himself ( apparently it was obvious once opened). The kids got a glimpse of his camera collections - wow! and the best part, the man was brilliant - a doctorate from Cambridge in Philosophy. He was friendly, fun and obviously loved his work. It really helped that his English was good too - it meant for some great conversation. What better Greek to meet!?

The kids have enjoyed learning the Greek history (nice and gruesome) and seeing some for themselves, but today, they found the best thing yet - at Hadrian's Library ( yes, a Roman in Greek territory) they scouted out 9 tortoises, one a wee baby. They were in heaven.

Sorry for the lack of photos on the side bar - we are having trouble finding a connection fast enough to upload them... wait for Croatia tho, they are pretty great!

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are Canadian.... we know we have lots to be thankful for....

Till next time,
Karen

Walls (images here too...!!!)

2010-10-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

We walked on a Roman wall. It was so cool! You could see all of Dubrovnik. I forgot to say we are in Dubrovnik. We also went to an Island called Lokrum. On Lokrum we went swimming on a rocky beach. We had to wear sandals because there are sea urchins on the coast of Croatia. Lokrum is on the coast of Croatia.

While me and dad were swimming, we saw a black sea urchin eating a clam. It was really awesome. We also went tortoise hunting - no tortoises, but we did see peacocks. And we saw a baby peacock. The length including the tail was about a half foot and it was about half a foot tall. It was by its mama peacock. We also saw lots of males but they did not spread their beautiful feathers (I guess that is for mating season).

Daddy is reading to us about the Groovy Greeks. They got in a different wall by playing tricks and because Cheradimus knew the password. Tomorrow we are heading to Italy and the next day to Greece on an overnight ferry. I hope the Greeks don’t play any tricks on us!

"Piratee mantises" (with images)

2010-10-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Dubrovnik and went straight for a hike. We saw three Preying Mantis’ (cool - two adults and one baby). The evil baby bit me !!(He was green and one of the big ones was green and the other was brown.)

We also came across a pirate dude with parrots that sat on our shoulders ;)))The parrots were well trained. I thought the guy was psycho because he dressed me up as as a pirate (look down for more information).

There was a white parrot that ran away and the pirate brought him back from a cafe with a package of sugar that the parrot was eating. Just to tell you, the parrot stole it! Good thing parrots don’t get cavities.

My How Travelling Has Changed

2010-10-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Karen and I were lucky enough to have traveled for extended periods in Europe and Asia in our younger years, before we knew each other, but roughly around the same time - 20 years ago. Now I know some of you math whizzes are saying "That can't be. That would have been when they were 9 and 12". But alas, too be truthful, we are a little older than that ...

Well traveling 20 years ago seems in many ways to be similar. No we didn't have kids with us then, but the jist of it is the same - travel within a budget, eat where the locals eat, sponge where you can, plan as you go and be ready to be spontaneous. Though we haven't stayed in a lot of hostels, we have hit a few and they are good to make us feel a little bit younger again as we chat with the other travelers about whatever - usually good places and bad, how long we've been on the road, countries visited ... Just like 20 years ago. Granted it does get weird when we share some anecdote from our travels 20 years ago and the looks around the room tell you that the other travelers weren't even a twinkle in their mothers eye back then, let alone been born (Talking about shooting digital versus film usually has the same effect). Mattias and Emilia are closer to their ages than we are... by about double.

Where it starts to get different is when you factor in the technology that just didn't exist when we traveled 20 years ago. Almost all the travelers we meet travel with technology, usually some sort of netbook or laptop and that is where a bulk of their planning is done. Mattias and Mima use the gadgets we have for everything from music to math. Even most of their books are electronic. Where we used to have a guidebook or two as a starting point, people now use the web (though you still will see the guidebooks around but even the guidebooks themselves are available electronically).

Internet and wireless are key selling points for places to stay and merchants rely on the internet to get the word out. Ratings on TripAdvisor and similar sites can make or break an establishment. Travelers check these and base a lot of decisions on that information. More and more people book in advance, or at least they do in the places we've traveled so far. We used to just get to a place and start asking around of other travelers or maybe start with some of the guidebook recommendations. It usually took a little while but I must admit I'm glad the kids don't have to be part of big searches for a place to stay as I seem to recall doing.

Even places when you do book with will send you a google map link to give directions to their place, have panoramic views of their rooms, and even have computers on hand to use. I also talking hostels here - not fancy pants hotels and so far it seems more common than not.

It changes things in terms of planning and perhaps lessens the sense of surprise when you get to a place (that can be good or bad). Maybe some spontaneity is lost and certainly there are those who don't use it for this reason. For us we have used it and more since we are no longer camping (though campgrounds featured the technology as well). Spontaneity is often there with kids and traveling, but the kind that we were accustomed to in our 20's is not necessarily the kind that Mattias and Emilia would enjoy.

We'll see how true this difference of traveling with technology will hold as we venture beyond Europe, but so far - it's working for us.

Great place

2010-10-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

In Croatia, I think you all know, everything is great. We are staying in a great apartment, hostel, don't know what you'd call it. Just across the street is a great swimming area, not too many sea urchins and lots of minnows (a few crabs too). We went crabbing on the first full day we were here. We watched a little one eat and then we caught him and we also caught a fairly big one that I almost stepped on:( First one we saw was way too hard to catch, scurrying along on the rocks, hiding completely under them-so, we gave up.

Today we went to Korcula. We saw two humungous ships, the tall mast was about 40 meters high. They were about 40 m long. We just went out for dinner, we were going to have cake, but they didn't have any. The only desserts they had were ice cream and crepes, that we had for breakfast. So we decided we will save the cake for when find a good one ( speaking of which, it is mommy's birthday).

Sorry can't add a picture as they aren' t loaded yet, I will once they are up.

Bye for now everybodiezzzzzzzz

Mattias

Hvala, Croatia

2010-10-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Croatia has been everything and more than we could have expected. Even on the
back end of some bad flooding - read: rainy weather- it really has been fascinating. We started at Plitvice lakes, a spectacle of nature unlike you can see anywhere else, as far as I know anyway...and we were lucky enough to be there while all the colours were turning on the trees. 12 lakes, one above the next, with a veil of water cascading down from each to the next, the cascades in various heights. The only negative was the massive number of tours going through. Very few people travel on their own at this time of year, but there are lots of groups around and they don't move very quickly.

From Plitvice we went to Split via the only public transport possible, six hours on a bus to get 220 km. Can you say milk run..... And we weren't
even convinced we wanted to got to Split after various reports from people about there not being much there. What we found was a real living city where you could get a glimpse into Croatian life. We thoroughly enjoyed our two days there, with nothing to "must see" and lots of time to wander and observe. The old city is intriguing and we did see a lot, but to the kids dismay no turtles. Mima's eye, if you are wondering, is looking pretty good and the swelling has gone down a lot- should be back to normal in a day or two. Thanks to everyone who sent her a note!

Now we are enjoying island life as we kick back for four days on the island of Korcula. The low season allows for some great accommodation deals and we are happy for four nights in one spot with a terrace on the Adriatic. We have seen dolphins twice and so the kids are on the lookout.

That's all for now....Croatian pics not loaded yet, but when they are I'll attach a couple...

Miss everyone at home,
Karen

The Green Market

2010-10-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

We went to the Green Market. It is a market where people sell food and clothes and other things like tablecloths. We bought some fruits and vegetables. It was near the water line, and since it was a sunny Saturday everywhere you looked there was a person. Even if you looked down the street you would see a person. Oh, I forgot to mention where we are - on the coast of Croatia in a town called Split.

Back to the markets part. There were also a whole whack of bees. Mattias didn't get stung, Dad didn't get stung, Mom didn't get stung....but I got stung! In a very bad place to be stung. It wasn't my fault because, when the bee flew by my eye I blinked and it got tangled in my hair and then it stung me right on the very edge of my bottom eye lid. I screamed! Almost everyone came and circled around to see what happened. A doctor and a nurse asked if we wanted help. Mom showed them we had an epipen and they realized we were good. I was crying so hard I could hardly hear Mom talking to me. That darn bee. Luckily the stinger didn't get stuck there and it didn't die. My eye got all puffy. Dad went into a random restaurant and got ice. We wrapped it in a head scarf and held it against my eye. The bee sting was in the morning when we just left the hostel. It still hurts now and it is 10 pm.

Tomorrow in the morning we are going to some islands to find some good snorkeling. We will stay there for four nights. Today we walked around the town and looked in a place for turtles, unluckily we didn't find any. Here on the coast of Croatia, when you go to the waterline, there is a rocky edge. Mattias and I went to clamber down the edge, we were careful and it was okay. We tried to catch crabs, but no luck. But on the rocks we found some crystals. Mattias chipped some off with a different rock. At a different part it was a straight down drop with slippery concrete. You couldn't go on it it was too slippery. It wasn't too long, only about 5 feet. We could see all sorts of colorful fish in the clear water. Some were long and scaly like a rainbow trout but looked like a baby shark, but we knew they weren't because sharks wouldn't come that close to the surface.

At night we thought it was beautiful because the palm trees were lit up and the buildings reflected on the water. We thought that was very, very pretty.

Mattias and I decided we want a hamster and a turtle. By the end of the day we were pretty tired so Mattias and I got ice cream. I got lemon with chocolate sauce. Mattias got vanilla with chocolate sauce. That's what we did today. Get back to you soon.
Goodbye, Mima

I FEEL sLOVEnia

2010-09-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Cheesy slogan I know, but it's not mine - really! It's the national slogan all over travel stuff here. Sort of like BC's "You Gotta Be Here" or "Best Place on Earth" or Alberta's ...??? (hmmm, can't seem to recall that one...) Anyway, I liked the Slovenia cheesy one 'cause it played on the words like our Four - eign blog title (get it? Four-eign, Four IN, Foreign) ... yeah, I know... anyway...

I think I am starting to feel Slovenia even though we have only been here a few days though I'm not sure all my feelings are what the PR guys had in mind. Sure I have felt amazing hospitality and friendliness (contrast to the stoic - read grumpy - Austrians especially in Wien) and taste buds rejoicing (similar to Austria), but I have also felt some other feelings.

I feel sore muscles from the 6 hour hike we did up into Triglev Park. Great hike into the alpine of some fantastic mountain country and culture. Something we are realizing more and more that we gravitate to. I suppose it doesn't have to be be alpine per se, but anywhere where it is clear people are more in touch with their surroundings. I love it. I feel it. I feel Slovenia... hmmm they may be onto something.

Today I felt wet. From the rain. Soaking through my tried and true (but not so effective anymore) MEC rain coat. Luckily, we never really had this feeling much at all over the past 2 and a half months. Actually not at all. We've been lucky and so it was with surprise and and fair degree of discomfort that I recalled all the other times I felt this feeling in the mountains and, to be honest, I can't say I felt the sLOVEnia in that. No Love, just wet. Too bad.

So tomorrow we are off to feel some love in Ljubljana. In a prison cell turned into a hostel- or so they tell us. It's called the Hostel Celica so I hope it is better than my impression of the car by the same name. I think the kids are excited. We'll see if they feel the sLOVEnia.

Bernie

Going to London

2010-09-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

A few days ago we were in London. The first day we were there we went on the London Eye! Does anyone know what that is? Its like a big ferris wheel except you stand in a big ball thing that is glass and it takes half an hour to go all the way around. You can see not even close to all of London, but sure enough you can see quite a bit. You can see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben(which sadly we couldn't go on a tour of because the pope was coming and it was closed for safety reasons). You could also see the big cathedral (cathedral is a big big church). After the London Eye we went to a London Theatre. That is very special to go to. There we saw a play called Oliver. It was about a boy named Oliver who is an orphan. When he asked for more food he got sold. The time this story took place in was 1830 and the place it took place in was London. Oliver went through a few people, first a guy that sold coffins and then he went stayed with a man who taught him how to Pick Pockets. There was also a mean man who worked with him. A rich nice man who Oliver pick pocketed, took him in to his grand home and looked after him until, yikes, he was stolen back by the pick pocket man. la di la di la. The bad man hurt the pick pockets girlfriend who was trying to help Oliver. But the mean man was very sly and good. Oliver was very scared on Saturday night because the mean man was trying to kill him. And then, good news alert, the nice man saved Oliver's life and took him in to live with him.

My Granny Bird and Grandpa B took me. It was fun.

Bye for now.
Emilia

A Day's Hike

2010-09-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

We went on a hike and we saw a huge spider at the beginning. On our way back, I walked right through a different big spider's web and the big spider ended up on my leg.

The spider was about the size you see in this picture.

After the hike we drove to an animal feeding farm. We fed llamas, mountain sheep, and elk. Elk are very very soft. The llamas and mountain sheep are very messy eaters. One llama didn't want the another llama to get any oats so it spat some of its oats out at the other one. We weren't allowed to get oats for the elk, so we fed it grass instead.

Where we were feeding the animals, there was an awesome playground. There was an outstanding, super fast zip line thingy-ma-bob that you sat down on. Loney, the crazy dog, got off its leash and chased us while we were on the zip line. It almost ripped Mima's pants!

Today was fun. Hopefully tomorrow will be too. That's all for now. Hope you read everything that is new. email me if possible!
Bye , Mattias

Aufwiedersehen!

2010-09-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

And so it is, the end of the summer and the end of the easing in to our trip. We have had a fabulous two months of what I would call pretty easy travels with some fabulous meeting, reuniting, and seeing so much family and a few friends. Bruce and Mona were more than generous with their box full of maps and camping guides as we found our way through France, Spain and Portugal. Everyone else, as mentioned in Bernie's post, sooooooo (as Emilia would say) generous with their homes and the dolling out of ice cream to the kids! I think we will all go into some withdrawl as we head out on our own tomorrow. We will learn to carry our own packs, find our way through various public transportation hubs, and likely slow our pace and eating habits. Hopefully we will not become so desperate that we have to "pick a pocket or two" .... Or as Oliver would sing - "food, glorious food"....could I please just have a little more..... (Thanks Grandpa B and Granny Bird for the great evening out on Drury Lane, London and the Theatre Royal, the kids are constantly singing these songs.)

We will head south through the Balkans as Indian summer has arrived back in Europe and start by trying to squeak out a few more warm days in the Slovenian Alps before Autumn truly arrives. The tent will be folded away for emergencies and then probably not for use again until Africa. Hostelling, pensions and whatever else we can find will be our new homes en route.

We are looking forward to a new start to the next part of our trip - and as always, hope to hear from many of you via your great comments or email!

I Survived the Mona Lisa Mosh Pit

2010-09-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

This post could also be titled "When in Paris Do As The Non-Parisians Do".

Either one would work and if printed on a T-shirt would sell like Eifel Tower souvenirs in this fine French city - crazy.

I think I know what Mona Lisa is smiling at after I witnessed (and admittedly was part of) the nutty spectacle of amateur paparazzi going after the easy target. She must be amused because it was pretty funny and actually pretty fun. Now I know that going to one of the world's most famous museums and viewing serious and priceless art is not normally "fun" in a ha ha funny way, but there definitely was an air or giddiness as we joined the scrum to get a view of Leonardo da Vinci's work. Yes it felt more like a rock concert than an art museum, but this was an centuries old icon we were seeing, one we had seen thousands of times over and in countless ways (including bad candy bar commercials), but never in real life. We were all already familiar with her, yet suddenly here she was, in the open with only a thick piece of glass, and wooden barrier, a rope, 3 meters of space filled with throngs of other adoring and curious fans. Replacing the lighter over the head from rock concerts of the past were cell phone cameras, digital SLRs and mini camcorders of people from around the world. If Coke is the most internationally recognizable product and logo, then Mona Lisa has to be a close second.

The Louvre has many amazing pieces of art to view and to see with the time and weight that one wishes. The Mona Lisa isn't one of them, but if you put the right hat on, going to see her sure is fun.

Paris and Germany

2010-09-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hi,
I'm in Paris while you are at school...burn- I am learning about the history of all of the art and the history of Paris. We saw the famous Mona Lisa by DaVinci, Justin you I'll be interested in this, it was the original. Ahhh man, Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh is in New York, too bad we can't change our plans to go and see it. On the other hand we did see a piece by Matisse that was very amazing. We also saw Vincent Van Gogh's most famous self portrait. I wonder why Van Gogh, when he was sick, would paint a picture a day and they would not make sense and the light in them was all funky and weird. Did you know he committed suicide?

We are leaving to go back to Germany tomorrow and on Saturday are going to a football game. I can't wait till the football game, we get to see my favourite German players, number 10 and Oiizy (spelling) And on Monday it is my Dad's 45th birthday. Wow, he is getting old!

Goodbye, hopefully I will not take too long before I write another blog....oh man, I think just heard my mom say it is time for math......

Bye!

Trips on a train

2010-09-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
A few days ago we took a train to Parie (Paris). Today we went to the Eiffel tower and we went up it to the top. It was so high-up although you cannot see all of Paris because Paris is so huge! I took the pictures below. We are staying in a hotel next to a neat and pretty building. Tonight we went out for dinner to a Tibetan restaurant.

A few days a go I met a friend named Phoebe. She was a nice English speaking Australian girl. We made great friends and in the morning we got to play long. She is also traveling around the world but she is at the end of her trip.

I hope everyone has a good year at school and enjoys having their teacher, no matter who their teacher is.

Miss you all, bye
Emilia

Family - Far and Wide

2010-08-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ahhh - there is something to be said for family in far away places that meet you with open arms and where the hugs are held just a little bit longer.

We have been lucky since leaving Iceland to first spend time with Grandpa B and Granny Bird, a great dinner with Bruce and Mona (Grandpa B's cousin),

soon followed by Michael, Jackie and Josh in France (some connection Karen has tried to explain but I really need the family tree for reference), sister Chris (no - not a nun) and HW from Germany who drove days and many kilometers to meet us in Portugal, and Paddy (again need the family tree), Raquel, and Tiego who taught us the finer details about Portuguese cuisine. Our adventures become that much richer when we are able to share it with family directly as we travel (and indirectly through this blog). Looking forward to seeing the nephews in Trier and catching up with the Hofmann and Vaverka clans in Austria. After Austria it will be longer spell before we see friends and family again so we are being thankful for it now. Always great to get emails and comments on the blog for those of you on some other part of the world.

Being with family and friends seems to make events that much more memorable as well. Perhaps it is because we can fill in details for each other when our memory fails us, but I think there is more to it than that. Those extra connections made during the experience seem to heighten our awareness of them. Little tidbits of history or background help make things more solid. Sometimes it is the smiles and the laughter that set the event stronger in our minds. Whatever the case, it is great when we can connect with family and happy we have each other when we just have the four of us.

Sun's Hot

2010-08-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

Today we went into a castle. It was very very neat to see. There were a bunch of different rooms in it. The one I liked the best was the Royal Throne Room and the dining hall. The dining hall had lots of chairs that were covered in red velvet. In the throne room the part you sat on had a cushion that was red velvet and for the back rest it was red velvet too. In the Throne Room there were only two chairs and at the top that you didn't touch there were spikes (I don't know why). There were rooms with armour in it. I liked the one with the royal horsie in it. The Royal Horsie wore a red velvet cape. At the edges of the cape were golden tassles. We think the royal horsie was fed juicy apples every day ( not the ones that went to war). The horsie's that went to war wore lots of armour to protect them because the soldiers cared for them. I also like the ball room because the floor was shiny with polished stone and the roof was gold with a beautiful design on it.

The sun today was soo sosooo sososososo hot! After the castle we went to the campground pool. It was so nice ( my hair is still wet).

Pictures coming soon....

Adios Amigo (bye friend)
Emilia

Real Madrid

2010-08-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Too bad that Real Madrid are in the south of Spain, while we are close enough to go to a game! Serious disappointment for Mattias, but.... hard to complain after three nights in a Hotel and one in a bungalow while we got in a great visit with Auntie Chris and Uncle Hans 'banana'. The Good times with them were fun while learning more about the pilgrimages, St James, and the significance of the scallop shell to Santiago de Compostela, visiting Nat'l parks in northern Portugal while the forest fires are burning, but it is raining hard out.... Getting to see an amazing archaeological site that is partially 3000 years old... And the best part, drinking port wine at the Sandman Port Wine Lodge in Porto.

Then we got in a great beach day with Paddy and Tiago in some wicked waves. Apparently the first day in awhile with sun and a green flag for swimming. Paddy treated us to a Portuguese feast of squid and sardines and then a surprise visit the next day for yet another feast out. I am not sure if he is trying to out do the French cuisine, but if he is...well, it was really good and so was the French food - but far too different to compare.

Picos de Europa

2010-08-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

As I sit in the early morning at the European style campground (big, pools, games, restautaraunts....) and look up at the vast and rugged peaks of the Picos, I reflect on how much we have already done in our few weeks so far. The two weeks in Iceland with the dramatic scenes and geology, connecintg with family and relaxing while the kids crabbed and played at the beach in England, meeting long lost family and discovering castles, pastries, medieval villages, churches and excellent wines in France and now in Spain discovering the less crowded beaches with their fascinating flycss rock formations and into the Picos for some hiking.

We struggle daily with how much time to spend in one place, with where to find soccer fields for Mattias, swimming for Emilia and considering dates and what we really want to get in before heading back to Londond mid Sept.

So far the traveling has been easy - but we have had our own car. We go and do what we want when we want. Very much ke a fabulous summer vacation. For now we will take it, come Mid Sept our travel will change. It will be interesting to see what is to come.

For now, the stunning peaks of the Picos await.

Happy rest of the summer to those of you at home.

Lots of stuff...

2010-08-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

1. Puy Du Fou: We went to a theme park called Puy Du Fou. We saw 5 shows. One of them was called birds of Prey. They trained birds to catch food out of the air. they brought birds very very high up in a hot air balloon and then the birds came down and landed on some trainers arms. There were two bald eagles and one Golden Eagle that were in the balloon. They even had vultures and four types of owls.
There was another one called Gladiators.The Gladiators were very nasty people. They were like soldiers from the queen, except in the olden days there were emperors not kings and queens. The gladiators were nasty to the people they had captured. The gladiators captured random people. They made them fight against stronger and better at fighting people. They made huge stadiums just for show and they made some so big they battled ships in them. The gladiators fed the people they captured just enough to survive. They would have parades come through the stadium with other captured people from different countries all chained up. The gladiators would also put the people in cages and then stick their swords in the holes.
We watched the newest show about the French conquest over Spain.they were doing really crazy tricks on horses. They would make the horse gallop at top speed and then the rider would hang upside down and pick up a scarf. One person rode standing up on two horses hike they were galloping at top speed. They even did jousting and it looked like they hit the other rider. On one they were going top speed and the rider threw a spear that hit exactly the centre of a target.

2. Fishes and Dishes - a day in Spain.
We went on a hike to a beach. Some of the rocks and shells looked like dishes. Speaking of dishes, we had a huge lunch, and a yummy one too. We went to a restaurant in village from medieval times. On the lunch we saw lots and lots of crabbies. Back to the beach...at the beach we saw a dead jelly fish and we checked out some huge caves we saw from a telescope on the highway. Daddy almost got trapped because the tide came in so fast. We caught a fish that was about two inches long. It would suck on the ground so it was hard to pick up off the rock. It was very very colorful with brown spots on it and red fins. We were hiking back up to our campsite....it was very muddy and we were attacked by some goats. They were actually coming just to check us out, they were shy.lol. Once we were back at the campsite, we had some crazy weather, first it tinkled, then it got sunny and then it poured. We ran for shelter, so did mom and dad.

Written by everyone's friends- Mattias and Emilia

On Eating France

2010-08-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

We are in Spain now and the French must be happy about that. Like many before us, we soon were determined to devour France and even had the appetite to do it. Our objectives were innocent enough to begin with - enjoy the scenery, visit the odd church, try some French language.., but we soon followed the lead of Michael, Jackie, and Josh and when in France do as the French do (in this case do as the Brits living in France do).

Mattias and Emila were to corner and conquer the Pan au Chocolat market while Karen and I focused on the sea food, particularly the mussels. Who can say "non" to all of the good food? Gallettes and crepes became part of regular take even when back into camping mode. Great cheeses and nice wine were staple food items and sooo easy on the budget.

One often hears that the French take their food very seriously and we would have to concur. The dent we made into the food supply should have them worried and though they may be happy about us leaving, we will be back soon as we swing back through France on our way to the Weisskircher enclave near Trier. We will be back and we will be bringing our appetites with us again. The Spanish are trying their best to fix that, but when it comes to food - my money is on the French. Of course, we have only been in Spain a couple of days, and are happy to prove ourselves wrong.

A great night's sleep

2010-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday all the campsites were full and we couldn't find anywhere to sleep. Finally we decided to stay in a cheap hostel and stay in a room with all the other people who were staying at it. There were three-deckered bunks and me and Mattias each slept on the top of one. The beds were so warm and comfy I couldn't stand it - compared to my therm-a-rest.

Today we went to the beach and had a great time. Me and Mattias would get wet and then roll in the sand and after that we would wash off by playing in the waves and Daddy threw us into the salt water. Me and Mattias also dug holes and would be covered in sand. We pretended were dead heads lying on the beach.

While we were driving to the campsite we are now at - non hostel- Mattias thought that there would be an interesting view point -so we pulled off and it was a beautiful view and we saw two caves that were formed into the rock at the bottom of the cliffs.

We are in Spain now, and guess what is really, really funny? Dad couldn't find rice in the store - so he bought tiny pasta balls that Mattias and I loved with an egg cooked into it when we were babies.

Through the year I am going to learn a new language - it will be a surprise when I get back - I am not telling until then!

Lots To Do!

2010-08-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Better (okay) news for the monkey club: good climbing trees in France and England but no time to climb!!! We were at the beach today and we found lug worms - we had to dig for them. Then my dad and Michael caught a whopper of a Wrasse (ugly fish) at a different beach, Trestel beach. That type of fish is a female for the first eight years and some of them turn male WEIRD.

We made two booby traps and don't know if anyone fell into them.

We are staying with my third cousin, Joshua and he is a lot of fun. We bounce on his trampoline a lot and play footie together.

Sails up!

2010-08-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

In England we went out for dinner and "it feels like Hawaii in England"! See photo below.

A few days ago we went sailing on the ocean. It was rocky and Mattias got sea sick! Some of the waves were from the floor to the roof. I was attached to the boat with a rope and a clip. It was windy..

We are in France now and today we went to the beach. I walked around all day in bare foot. I liked that. At the first beach we found some crabs and made a very sturdy sand castle. It looked more like a hump of sand. The second beach we dug a huge hole that could hold a bobcat in it. In it we made a bed, two chairs, a counter and stairs.

We are staying with some people (relatives of Mom's) but we are camping in their yard. A few minutes ago we watched a really good movie called Honey I Shrunk The Kids.

Salcombe - childhood memories!

2010-08-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

Here we are, day 3 in Salcombe, a beautiful town that in southern England that I came to every summer as a young child. It is so fun to do the things that we used to do as kids with our own kids - eat jelly donuts, devonshire icecreams each day,and now as adults to drink yummy beer and real cider (you can guess this is not the place to lose weight) and to spend real quality time with family. The kids have loved the crabbing off the quay, hiking the cliffs along the Devon coast and today we had a spectacular morning of sailing in some high winds and 4m swells. For those of you who are Rosslanders reading this, I equate Salcombe to the summer version of Rossland - quaint, hilly, and a great little known spot to hang out a while - in the summer months.

It has been nice to spend time in a home - catching up with family from Canada and Germany on the phone - eating lovely home cooked food, sitting around chatting in the evenings out of the wind, and generally taking over Grandpa B and Granny Bird's home for a few days... not to mention make off with their car to the continent for 6 weeks!

With mixed emotion, sad to leave family and Salcombe yet excited to see France, we leave in the am to head to the ferry for Brittany, France where we embark on the next set of adventures.

Good bye for now!

What Good Luck, What Bad Luck

2010-07-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

I remember a story book I had as a child by the above title. It basically ran through the turn of events of a guy that gets to go on an airplane (good luck), the airplane is going to crash (bad luck), luckily there is a parachute (good), hole in the chute (bad), falling toward a hay stack (good), pitch fork in the hay... anyway, you get the idea.

Well today was the bad luck portion of the trip so far (luckily we have not had it alternating like in my childhood story book). We had left this morning from Talknafjordur on our way to a 3 hour ferry that would take us to Snaefellsnes. "Good Luck" all the way up to and on the ferry - easy peasy... until. Until just as we drove onto the ferry and I was gathering my belongings did I remember my coat. Or should I say remember the coat I forgot ... hanging on the hook in the cookhouse (bad luck), an hour away (bad luck), with my wallet in the pocket (bad luck), and my credit cards in my wallet (bad luck) and cars already loaded in tight behind me (bad).

So luckily the Icelanders operating the vessel know English and I quickly explained the pickle I was in. They found the drivers of the cars behind us and moved those cars out of the way so I could drive off, Karen shoved a credit card at me in case mine were gone while she grabbed a few things she thought she and the kids might need. We loosely arranged plans to meet at the destination about 10 hours later (there is another ferry at 7:00 pm) while the boat pulled away.

A speedy trip back to the campsite and my jacket was right where I left it. After considering myself lucky I am now realizing that bone headed gaps may not be considered bad luck, but my jacket being exactly as I left it likely is considered good luck. So I guess the good luck continues!!

Karen and the kids should be at the destination as I write this and I have been for a run, hotspring bath, and composing this blog entry on some remaining time of internet (from our campsite from last night). As my mother always says, "If this is the worse thing to happen to you, then you are lucky." I guess I am - no pitch fork.

Fire, Ice, Waterfalls, Puffins and ... Moby Dick?

2010-07-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

Amidst the adventure of traveling there is always the quirkiness that is mixed in and Iceland is no exception. We popped into a remote farm restaurant on our way back from the bird viewing cliffs on the far western fjord. We were cold and wind weary and looking forward to something hot but more importantly something Icelandic. Alas, the only things on the menu were sandwiches or burgers and "France" fries. Even in the campgrounds we have been staying where it has been mostly Icelanders there is the unmistakable smell of weiners and burgers around dinner time. Am I the only one who likes pickled herring here? Well, at least I can find that.

Speaking of quirky, hope this doesn't get a rise out of too many of you, but here is a museum we passed in Husavik - the whale watching capital of Europe. No - I wasn't to keen on going in, Karen seemed uninterested, Mattias laughed and Mima ran in the other direction.

9th Day In Iceland

2010-07-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Hello peoplezzzz, I'm back! 9th day in Iceland and we've had a great time. Four days ago we went on a whale watching tour and saw about a dozen dolphins and a Minke Whale - Mr Minke. This afternoon we went to the cliffs on the far west coast of Iceland and I came about 6 inches away from a puffin ( puffy). The puffins are SO COLOURFUL!!!!!!!

On the second day we say a geysir, that is a thingy that shoots burning hot water out of the ground. The water went about 40 meters high.

Bad news for the monkey club, no trees around here. The ones that there are, are too flimsy to climb. Bye,

Mattias.

Whales and Birds - Iceland

2010-07-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, we went whale watching. We saw about half a dozen dolphins, we saw a gazillion jellyfish, but most of all we saw a Minke Whale. We got really close up!!!!

Yesterday I went seal watching - it was cool. I counted over 45 seals!!!

Today we went bird watching. We got some really close up pics of puffins and seagulls and this type of bird that I have no idea what it is. I called it a thingymabobber. The puffins were very cute and fat. We say a little baby seagull and its mama. It was a fun day!!!!

Iceland-half way

2010-07-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Iceland is a land of wonders. From stunning waterfalls, even though we all don't want to see another one for a while, whales and dolphins, moonscapes, gorges, hot springs that you cannot plunge into- they are not hottubs- lava fields, massive cliffs with holes and arches, cliffs, puffins and on goes the list! The kids are fairing well and fit well into the life of being on the road. The occasional horse slober on Mima or races to the top of a volcano crater for Mattias has kept things in check. Already it is nice to be able to spend time away from regular life with the family. Once we are in a place with faster wifi, then we'll upload photos for all to see! Bye from the natural pools at Myvatn lake!

The Bay and in Salmon Arm.

2010-07-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were in Salmon Arm. We were going to go to the bay in Shuswap Lake. But the lake was way too wavy and it would take too long. This pic is so cooooooool!

Leaving

2010-07-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

In 13 days we will be in Iceland. When we are in Iceland I will be looking forward to seeing an erupting volcano. In about one year and 10 days we will be on the Cook Islands. That is the last place we will be! I can't wait until we go to Africa. I am excited about Africa because I want to see all of the cool animals that you can't see in the wild anywhere else in the world.

Emilia travels!!!

2010-06-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

I am sooooo excited about going to Iceland. I want to see the volcano in action! I can't wait until we leave! yah hoo hurray! from Emilia.

Pre Trip Ramble

2010-06-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

As we get closer to our departure date everyone asks " how many days?" and yet, we are so focused on work, finishing the house and planning the trip, I don't think any of us really knows - we are not counting down - just getting very excited.

I spend more and more time as the planning subsides and the list of things to get done diminishes thinking about the real part of the trip. Not the details, not the where are we going, not the what do we need to take - but the why are we going, what are my goals and my family's goals, what can we expect from this, and how will we be changed as a result of our time away together? The last of these questions is likely the most difficult to measure as we will never know what we would be like if we hadn't had some of the unknown adventures ahead for us.

Though the practical part of the trip will expose us to so many geographical, cultural and life changing experiences, it is the family time of being together, bonding, sharing and living life without the fast pace of always needing to be somewhere or doing something that excites me the most.

When Did It All Begin?

2010-04-05T21:40:00.001-07:00

Well, that is a good question isn't it? Perhaps the urge to venture out and explore the world came from our parents - historically and on both sides there is the vagabond spirit. It certainly existed for us individually in our 20 somethings as we traveled and lived in other parts of the world. And our first few months together put our travel skills to the test when Karen agreed to go North with me and six of my buddies to hike the Chilkoot Trail. Karen and I stayed longer and hiked 10 days in the Kluane as well as paddling rivers in the Yukon. The Spirit of Adventure has guided us all along.

Mattias and Emilia are already used to this spirit and they too embrace it. Multiday wilderness canoe trips have been the general theme, still they also have had great experiences in Europe and other parts of N. America. They are excited, though we all wonder out loud at times if we really know what we are getting into? As we busily hammer away at our jobs and other commitments, there seems little (and getting less!!) time to actually plan this thing. It could be one of the greatest exercises in winging it.

So what is there to plan anyway? Well, we won't leave it all to chance and definitely don't care to subject ourselves to gross misadventure. We've been busily getting vaccinations, committing to flights and our general itinerary, purchasing equipment... I suppose each of these may be topics of further posts - we'll see.