My last holiday blog

Here are a few of my last pictures. Here are wind generators, they have them all over Europe. On my way from England to France I went through the Euro tunnel and on the way back we took the ferry over the English Channel. The last picture is of the coast of England. See you at school Monday, I am flying back to North America today. I will be somewhere over the ocean when you read this!

Mona Lisa

We woke up in Africa this morning 25 degrees and then traveled to Paris this afternoon 9 degrees. We were late, so the plane just about left without us. We we're shopping and didn't hear them say our plane number. When we got on the plane we had to wait a little bit. After we took off they served breakfast we had a crêpe, a pancake and a bread cookie thing, orange juice, cheese and yogurt. It was really good. As soon as we were in Paris we quickly went to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. The room was filled with people wanting to see her. She was in a bullet proof glass with guards everywhere. Did you know that in the Louvre if you looked at each picture for 1 minute it would take you 4 months to see everything. If you walked down every hall in the Louvre its 16 km's.

More Marrakech

Olives anyone?? Olives here are freshly picked off of local trees. They have red ones stuffed with peppers, black ones, green ones and yellow ones. Before we came here my dad was the only person in my family who liked them, and now that they are freshly picked my mom and my brother like the red ones. My dad still likes the green ones. The most green olives he ate in a day was 375! You can buy 2 kg's for 5 dirhams about 65 cents Canadian.
Before we went to the Sahara desert I got some henna done,it goes up past my wrist. My mom and I have matching henna. It tickled when the lady put it on. We went and she was beside the orange juice stands so my Dad and my brother had orange juice while I got henna.

Sahara desert

Today we went to the Sahara desert. We rode on camels to get out there, and slept in Bedoin tents. I thought riding the camels was pretty scary because you are up really high. The camels made funny grunting noises and pooped a lot! My Dads camel foamed at the mouth and then walked over and rubbed on my Mom, gave her a big stinky camel kiss! We all laughed, she thought it was gross. After we got down from our camels, and put our bags into the tents, we went out and played in the sand. It was fun, the sand was piled up in dunes and when you stepped on it after a few minutes your footprint were gone. The wind moved the sand around like blowing snow. We were playing in the sand when dinner came. We ate a Bedoin meal of couscous, meat and vegetables (pumpkin, cucumber, potato and ocra) all cooked together in a tajine. Its a ceramic pot that you can bake with. We had mint tea and soup to start, and then they gave us fresh oranges for dessert. After dinner drummers came and sang songs. I named my camel Ginger because of her color, my mom named her camel Doris so she could sing Doris the camel has 1 hump, and my dad named his Melmin. In the morning we had a traditional breakfast of juice, tea and bread. After breakfast we loaded back onto our camels and went to meet our bus to take us back through the mountains to Marrakech.

Africa

Here's some random shots of Morocco. The Atlas mountains, look like the Pine pass and have snow all year long! Many of the peaks are half as tall as mount Everest.
These are Berber houses, this one is called a Kasbah. They are made from grass, mud and camel dung. The toilets are holes in the ground! The Berber people are a nomadic tribe that travel at night, much the same as Bedoin and Tworig.
Africa was nothing like I imagined.... It was better, so many sounds, smells and people. Oh ya and CRAZY drivers.

To Essaouria

This is the beach in Essaouria. The town is separated into two parts, the old part, called medina which is surrounded by a castle wall and the new part, that has been built up around the beach. If you want to go from the old part of town, to the new part of town there are only three exits. How we got to Essaouria was by a taxi, it took two and a half hours. The taxi driver had to stop for around 20 mins so he could pray. We also went to see what could be made from Argon oil. It comes from a tree, first they pick the seed pods off, and then they have ladies that crack open the pods to get the seeds then they put the seed into a rock and spin it to crush the seed, the oils are then separated from the meat and finally you can make food or cosmetics. It was really interesting. After we got to Essaouria and found a Riad we went and explored the town. We found how to get out to the beach, it has 3km of sand! It was really fun to play at the beach!

This and that

Today we are traveling from Marrakech to Essouria which is on the ocean. Here are a few things I haven't posted yet. I am holding a bread stick and feeding the birds in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral. There was man doing it and asked if I wanted to do it, I said "yes." Another picture is of some snake charmers that my mom got busted taking the picture of and had to pay 100 Durham. She was trying to get another picture up closer and they caught her! Here is a picture of the orange juice stands, they also make lime juice and grapefruit juice. Its so delicious we drink around 10 a day! At the market you can see the Mosque, which is an Islam church, there are cactuses all over the place, they are huge. Every hour there is a chant that comes over speakers throughout the country for people to pray to Allah. They must face Mecca (the holy city) when they doing it, and there are pictures all around showing the direction. We also have been to the Saadium tombs, this is were the royal family is buried as well as people who have worked for them and close friends. Some of the tombs are long and skinny and others are wide, this is because they do not cremate people. Their faces must face Mecca, so they might be buried on their sides or there backs. There are three special rooms, one was for the kings mom, another one was for children and the last one was for the king. They have beautiful carvings in the walls which were made out of sand, cement and a plaster. We went on a walk and found a Bedoin spice store, in there they have so many spices and they showed us how to use different things for medicine. An example is if you put black cumin in a small cloth and rub it on your hand it smells like Vicks rub. I will show you when I get home.

Morocco

Today we caught a plane in Paris and flew to Morocco. We had to wake up at 3:30am to catch a taxi to the airport. When we got to the airport we had 2 hours to waste so we decided to have breakfast, we had croissants. When we were finished eating, we went through security. Our plane ride was three hours long, we were tired! We got off the plane, got our bags and went to look for a taxi to go to the center of town. We were standing there looking which direction to go to find a hotel when a man came up to us who wanted to practice his English. He asked us if he could help us find a hotel. We said sure! After we found one, we walked around and toured a tannery where they make leather, they do it in different stages, it smelled so bad, you should google the stages it was super interesting. Then we went to the market, it's huge it has over 5000 stalls, there were so many people. In the center square right by our hotel we saw snake charmers, they play a recorder and the king cobras sway with the music, it's pretty amazing to see, but the charmers scam you, they really only want money and if you look too long or raise your camera they send out somebody to collect. You will have to wait to see the pictures we took on the down low! Some of them even want to put a real cobra around your neck, WHO IS CRAZY ENOUGH TO DO THAT??? We didn't, thats for sure. We kept going and a monkey jumped on my mom and ripped her shirt she was mad, especially when the monkey man wanted her to pay him for holding his monkey! A lady grabbed my hand and put Henna on me, my Mom kept saying "we are not paying" so she put a small sample on my hand. The ladies use Henna here to show they are beautiful. I had to keep it on for half an hour and then wash it off. The second picture is after I washed the dye off. After that we went and got some freshly squeezed orange juice, it cost 4 dh which is about 50 cents, its so good!

French food

These are traditional french dishes, the first one is called escargot. This is snails with garlic butter. They tasted really good, but the texture was like eating an eraser! Super chewy. When the snails are served they come in the shell, with a special kind of pliers to hold onto them. They also come with a small fork to reach into their shell to get them out. We all had to try one, and then I ate chicken (the 2nd picture). I didn't want a whole plate of snails!! Another meal we had was called foix gras (it is in the back of the third picture) which is duck liver pâté mixed with some spices and rolled in a pastry. It is served cold with a kind of apple sauce. My Dad ordered that. We have also had crepes. A man made them on the street, and we had our choice of lemon and sugar, Nutella and bananas, chicken and cheese, or any other thing you could think of putting on them, we chose the ones I named, they were really good. One of the things I convinced my parents not to order for us to try was frogs legs..... I didn't think I would be able to eat them!

Arc De Triomphe

The Arc De Triomphe is in the middle of what looks like a 5 lane traffic circle, there are no lanes and people are driving everywhere. In the middle there are names engraved on the inside walls, and there is a memorial for the unknown soldiers that have died in battle during world war 1 & 2. There are flowers all around and a small fire burning in the center to show respect. There is many statues on the sides of the monument. Napolean commissioned the Arc De Triomphe. It was built in 1806. If you want to go to the middle of it you access it from under ground tunnels.

Subway

We just got the London tube (subway) figured out and now we have to learn the Paris metro (subway). What do you think does it look easy??? Try to figure out the way to the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

Today we rushed to the Eiffel Tower to try to miss all the lines and people, we thought if we got there early we would miss all the big line ups..... Didn't happen, after a 4 hour wait we finally got to climb up the Eiffel tower. We took the elevator to the middle floor, it was a great view, we could see the whole city. We had to take another elevator to the very top. From there we
could see everything. That's where my other 2 pictures were taken from. The Eiffel Tower was finished being built March 31st 1889. It was built to be a part of the world fair. When the world fair was done many French people wanted the Eiffel Tower torn down. They thought that it was ugly and they didn't want to look at it anymore. Who knew it was one day going to be a wonder of the world?? From the top of it we could see the Arc De Triumph, Notre Dame, and the castle where the French royal family lives. Did you know they paint the Eiffel Tower every 7 years, and it takes 60 thousand tons of paint? The Eiffel Tower has 2.5 million rivets and 16,000 different pieces of steel in it. It was an amazing thing to see in real life!

The view from my hotel room

The view of Big Ben and the London eye are from our hotel room. It's so amazing, you don't even have to use a watch to see what time it is! Although the room is a little small, the view makes up for it. The London Eye is above Big Ben. I thought when I saw it the first time I would only see it once. Who knew I would be able to see it from the hotel window?! The hotel we stayed at was awesome, there were paintings of places all around the world, like New York. It's kind of funny we come here to see new European things and we see pictures of New York. To get to our room we had to climb 52 stairs. Our bathroom wasn't in our room, we had to climb another 8 stairs to get to it. It was fun.

Day of Royalty

Today we went to Buckingham palace, it was huge, and had gold statues everywhere. It was busy, there were a lot of people, and the crowds were huge. We left after a little bit and went to St James Park to see the changing of the guard. We watched the guards ride in on their horses and then they just sat there, it was interesting to see. We then went to the tube (subway) and rode it to tower hill to see The London Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. We bought tickets to see the inside of the Tower. The Tower of London has been in the royal family since the 12 hundreds. It is also the place that traitors were beheaded for treason. I had a lot of fun it was sure a Royally fun day today!!!

Big Ben

I have always wanted to see Big Ben, it has been my dream. The design on it looks like a picture out of a book. There's gold around the clock and on the top around the point. The way I first saw it was I walked out from the tube (subway) and it was right in front of me. This is the biggest clock in the world, and it is attached to the parliament buildings where they pass laws. I went on the london eye where I could see the whole city, that is where I took the 2nd picture from. Today I also saw the London bridge, which I thought didn't look like anything special. The Tower bridge is way more impressive. I walked past the Westminster Abby where Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and Prince William and Kate were married, it was beautiful.