Photos from France

Minerve, France

A cold day in Carcassonne

Like my torch?

Paris metro.

More From UK

 I have decided to update you all about how I have been doing with my leg and life in general.  I am now walking without crutches.  I can bend my knee well past 90.  My knee doesn't hurt so I think that's pretty good. Christmas was really fun and it is almost the new year  ( Yay, more parties) though that means that mom and Sam will be leaving soon (wahhh).
I would also like to inform you that the time when people went to my blog the most was September ( I geuss school has slowed blog reading down) My blog was visited 450 times in one month. (crazy!).

UK

I am writing this from a couch which is quite very nice.  The only setback is that my leg is in a brace and I have a pair of crutches beside me.  Our last week in France was nice, other than the last few days, which I suppose you know about already. 
Since we have arrived in England things have calmed down a bit.  It is still Christmas time so there is that excitement to contradict the calm. 
I just beat my dad at Gin Rummy.  I was winning by almost 300 points.  Yeah!  In the end I won 7 hands and he won two.  I won with around 200 points.  He got better and I got worse as we played.

Queribus

Today we went to Queribus (Q)  and Peyrepertuse (P) castles.

Queribus  was the smaller castle but also the more important one historically; it was the very last castle where Cathars (Bons hommes) could roam, at all. The first known documentation of Q was in 1020. From 1162 it was the north gate of Aragon! I didn’t know Aragon really existed! In 1255, the French crusaders took the castle in their hunt of the Cathars. I think that Queribus fell because Cathars ran out of water, but I’m not sure about that.

Queribus and Peyrepertuse are both on rocky/cliffy mountaintops. 

The drive up to Q was on a small switch back road with amazing views.

It was a short walk to get to the castle from the parking lot. The walk and the castle had great views of the surrounding area. From the castle we could see the Pyrenees (with lots of nice snow on top). The castle sits at 728 meters in altitude.

Queribus Castle was in better condition than Peyrepertuse. We walked up a few stairs onto a viewing platform where we could see for hundreds of miles! Not that you couldn’t see for hundreds of miles from Peyrepertuse too, but you could not climb up stairs inside a building to get to the special viewing because the hole of the upper stories were in ruins.

We found a staircase in Q that led down to a dark passageway that went to a little room down the mountain. From there you could fire arrows and such at enemies that were still out of reach of the castle.

 

When we went to Peyrepertuse the road was even better than the Q one in terms of very sharp switchback roads. We had been warned by guidebooks that the walk from the parking lot to the castle was very very windy but there was actually no wind at all. Unlike the walk to Q it was sheltered most of the time and the views were short and sweet.

I will put stuff about Peyrepertuse later.

Hopefully.

Ma semaine en Auvergne

Pour quelques jours on fait des feux le soir, dans la cheminée de la gite.  Un sac de bois coûte 6 Euros.  On a brulé 3 sacs en tout. 

Hier, on a fait une randonnée de 16 kms.  Par-ce que pendant les premiers kilomètres on a monté, les dernières 10 kilomètres étaient faciles car on descendait.

La pâtisserie préférée de Sam est un Paris-Brest, mais après avoir gouté un pain au raisin, il ne peut plus décider.  Moi je pensais que je n’aimais pas les pâtisseries comme les croissants mais après avoir essayé un Saint Christain qui ressemble un croissant, sucré avec des noix , j’ai fait un exception.

THE PARIS METRO

The Metro…

Well, almost every time we went into the Paris Metro we saw someone jump the barriers. Every station had an info/ticket-buying place at one of the entrances with a staff who, though it wasn’t his/her main job, looked over the gates when not busy to ensure people didn’t jump the barriers.  But most Metro stations had two or more entrances so people that jumped the gates didn’t have to be that determined. This was very different from London Tube stations which had one entrance to each station and not only an info/ticket-buying staff but another staff standing right beside the barriers whose job was to watch the gates and to help people like me whose ticket got soaked and ripped in half.

One Metro ride was very very crowded…

When we got to a station where most of the people got off we listened/ watched an older woman yell at a young guy for trying to snatch her purse. Later, on the same metro ride, we might have transferred a guy with a dog got on the bus and said

“I’m not going to give you a normal speech because if I did that I would only get enough money to feed me and my dog, but I also want money for alcohol and drugs to not only feed our bodies but our spirits too.”

Or something like that, that is what I understood.  Then he walked down the car and someone gave him a cigarette and he got off.

One evening, we split up.  Mom and I went back to the hostel, while Sam and dad stayed out.  On the way back, we had the choice of taking line 6 or line 4.  The 6 was a shorter distance to line 13 (our way home) but both the lines would have got us there.  After about two stations on the line 6 train, we were stopped at another station where both lines 4 and 6 stopped.  We were told that there was smoke seen at Montparnasse-Bienvenue station where we were going to make our transfer.  There was to be a delay on line 6 while they checked it out.

2 minutes later, they told us that line 6 would be temporarily closed and that we all had to get off the train! THANKFULLY the line 4 stopped at that same station so we walked to the line 4, got on and rode the train to Montparnasse-Bienvenue and walked the longer distance across the whole M-B station to line 13.  We had a few other options planned out in case we stopped again.  I was disappointed it was so easy.

We had lots of other fun times on the Metro and Sam and dad had a –not so fun- time as Sam explains it.

Paris was really fun but there is too much to write about so I will leave that up to Sam and my parents – they are a little more determined then me with this blogging thing.

Hello from Brittany.

Hi, I know I haven't posted for a little while; I have just been too busy/lazy. We have done a lot. Yesterday we went for a 10 km walk. Well, it was 5 km, then half an hour sitting on a rock, on the beach, by the bridge, then a 5km walk back UP THE HILL!! I was also just informed that we have done ten km everyday, sometimes more over the 3 days. Today, we are hoping to go to the Jacques Cartier museum, but with the protesting French, we are only hoping.

We did go to the Jacques Cartier museum, which was his house, but I am not going to write about that now.   Now, I am going to paste a story that I wrote in french. When I was told to write a French story, I really didn't want to. What I did want to do, was play cards. It was somewhat hard to write my story because I had a pack of cards to my right and 2 packs on my left.  In the end, because of my unwantingness, I had a topic which I otherwise would have not. I often spend a lot of time trying to come up with an idea.
Here it my story!

Il y a une fille.  Cette fille a besoin d’écrire une histoire pour son Français.  Mais cette fille ne veut pas écrire une histoire.  Elle veut jouer aux cartes.  Aces; pour être précise.  Alors cette fille écrit une histoire à propos d’elle même. 

La fille s’assoit sur son lit et commence à écrire mais il y a un paquet de cartes juste à la droite d’elle et deux paquets de cartes à sa gauche.  Les cartes sont partout!  Elle voit des cartes sur le papier, des cartes sur le mur.  Elle est vexée.  La porte est une grande carte, la fenêtre est une carte aussi.  Elle est dans un monde de cartes.  Un score parfait apparait devant elle. 

-Cartes içi, cartes là,

Les quatres aces sont devant elle.

-C’est trop!

-C’est trop! Elle crie

Mais elle n’ a pas vraiment crié.  Elle a imaginé crier.

Eventuellement, tout est retourné à normale. 

La fille c’est assise et elle a écit une belle histoire.

My last blog continued…  In the end I did buy some chocolate in Tournai.

The day after we went to Tournai was the day we left our gite.  The night before we left, I set my alarm clock for 7:00 am but while setting the alarm I accidentally put the clock an hour ahead.  In the morning my alarm went off, I woke Sam and went to organize my stuff.  When Sam went downstairs, mom looked at her watch and let us all know it was only 6:00 am.  The sun was not yet up.  The stars were bright.  That morning we were ready to go a little bit sooner than planned.

That day we went to Caen and walked around looking for the hotel we wanted to stay at.  The streets were full of young people (it was a Friday night) the people had odd hairdos and stuff.  Once we found the hotel we got our room and went out again for a walk to the castle.  The Castle was nice but we couldn’t see much because it was late and the museum parts were closed.  On the way back there were lots of groups of between five to ten University age students standing around chatting. The streets were literally littered with them.

At the marina.

The next day…

We got up and sent mom and Sam to get us bread and milk - Sam the bread (baguette) and mom the milk. Then time for fooooooooooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That day we went to Bayeux and saw the Bayeux Tapestry, it was amazing, it was a lot bigger than I expected, I knew it was going to be big but not That big!

We went to Juno beach that day as well. It was good but they made you pay for the tour, while at vimy it was free and a slightly better tour as well.  I learned that around 400 Canadians lost their lives on D-Day at Juno Beach. But hundreds more died throughout the weeks to follow.  They came at low tide to be able to see the obstacles put on the beach by the Germans to prevent an invasion.  But this meant they had to run a long way with big and heavy packs.  They were about 80 lbs.  I learned that the French call D-Day – Jour-J – makes sense.  We were told the Germans had put up a sea wall along the whole of Europe called the Atlantic Wall.  Along that wall they had lots and lots of defenses.  They had bunkers and machine guns and canons and obstacles at important places.  There were mines by the bunkers to prevent parachute attack.  They did not have much of a memorial until more recently.  All they had was a canon.  But now they have a museum with tour guides and a gift shop and a coffee machine.  The have a statue, an Innukshuk, and plaques with information.  It was all done with help and money from Canadian Veterans, friends and families.

Juno beach.

Ferry to France. And much more.

The ferry to France was almost empty. Us, some truck drivers and pensioners. Even so, they stuffed the car decks full and I guess, didn’t use all the space.

We spent a little while in Arras trying to find the youth hostel that no longer exists. In the end, we went to a different square and found a hotel, not too expensive.  It was not a typical prairie type motel, just two beds and a bathroom and a very very small table, no kettle or mini fridge.

The next day, Tuesday, we went to Vimy, and took a tour down in the tunnels. The guide turned off the lights, except the emergency lights, to show us how it would have been; you couldn’t even see your hand in the dark. She turned the lights back on when everyone had their hands up (apparently they always do that and try to catch people with their hands in front of their faces).

Some of the sheep at Vimy. 

Today, we did math! Boooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At about 13:00, we left our gîte and drove to Belgium. We didn’t even know when we crossed the border. The first thing we did was walk around Tournai and admired the boulangeries and chocolateries. Than Sam and I went to the top of a tower and mom and dad had a treat from one of the boulangeries (which was beside an expensive chocolaterie).

Cat on car!

 bye for now!!!

Friday the First of October

If you are reading my blog and only my blog I feel sorry for you because I will be posting what I feel and when I feel like no warning at all. I will go from Toronto airport to the Lake District like I did earlier.

Three days ago we went into a tearoom and restaurant and got tea, clotted cream, scones and strawberry jam. We sat eating our scones and drinking our tea listening to car ads, Lady Gaga and jingles. It was a moment to remember.


Yesterday we went to London. We drove to zone three of the underground parked our car in the station's parking lot and took the the tube train in. I must say that the best part of this trip was eating. For supper we went to the Wong Kei a Chinese restaurant famous for its rude waiters and fast service. The waiters were not that rude, they just were not that friendly, but the food was really good.

Today we are going to Hastings and then from there we move on to France!!!!!!!!!

  

Narrow Boating.

Last weekend, we went on a narrow boat with our cousins. The narrow boat was 69 feet long.  It was an eight berth. The first day we got there at 3:30 p.m.ish and did all the boring stuff like signing the papers. Then, at about 5:00, my cousins came from school, and off we went!

Adam, in Sam's and my room.

The route we took had a tunnel that was fairly long.  When we first came to the tunnel there was a boat coming out from the other direction, the man driving the boat told us to watch out for bats. We didn’t believe there were bats in there, but we did look up a lot, just to make sure there were not. That was a bad plan because the tunnel was wet and some of us got water drops on our faces. When one boat went by we started singing Tunak Tunak Tun... an Indian pop song. It was really funny. ( follow the link)

When the person driving the boat (Nick) called up it sounded like when someone calls out at Pan Am during a swim meet, you could only just make out what he was saying, or not at all.

A funny pic of the dog on the boat that went through some locks with us.

Us kids were constantly running around or walking along the roof.  Sam and Adam were always going from one end of the boat to the other on the lip of the boat. My dad thought I was going to be badly hurt, (me, being the one prone to falling and tripping) in fact, he was certain I would, but nobody fell in and no one was badly hurt.  I was the closest in both things, my foot slipped in the canal, just a bit, I squished my thumb in a door, and when opening a lock, the safety latch was not on so when I took the lock key out, it spun back down.  If you let go of the lock key when opening or closing the locks, it spins down and the lock key can fly off and injure you (the lock key is a big chunk of metal called a windlass).

My bruised thumb 4 days later

The weekend was very fun and I think I laughed more in that weekend than I would in two weeks!

The gang of lock workers.

Bath Project

On Tuesday we went to see the Roman baths in Bath with my Uncle Peter and Aunt Angie. In Roman times the baths were a social part of life. Rich men would work in the morning and go to the baths in the evenings. I don’t have when the women went on the top of my head but, I think they went in the afternoon as well. I don’t know when the poorer men went, maybe they went in the afternoon, it seems to be the fashion.

These particular baths were a very sacred place because the water for the baths came from a spring. The Romans had no explanation for the spring water other than that it was a gift from the Gods.
There was a temple for Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom and healing, in the bath grounds. The Romans believed that Minerva had provided the spring for them for healing. Thousands of pilgrims came from afar and slept overnight in a certain room where the steam from the spring was circulated. They would tell the priest their dreams and the priest would interpret them and tell or give them the treatment they needed.

The reason that the baths were so well preserved is because after the Romans left the baths, the roof fell in. The next people to settle there didn’t ruin the actual baths. 

Later inhabitants didn’t know that the baths were underneath. They were only found a hundred years or so ago, when the houses on top were slowly and mysteriously filling with warm water. When the British did start to unveil the baths, it only took them three years. They then built the museum around them and replaced the pieces of wall that had been on the ground to where they should have been. 

These rings on the photo are not towel racks, they were used when the water flowed and was kept higher. The water filled to the height of the rings. This bath was called a kings bath. If you didn’t hold on to the rings, you would have been swept away with the rising water! Just above the rings we the stone turns a paler color is where the Victorians built up. One of the staff said that she had led a tour for a person older than the statues, which are now only 117 years old.

The Romans built the Baths and temple in between 65 and 75 AD. They rammed oak logs into the mud to direct the water into a stone reservoir which then fed into the baths. The reservoir was a holy place in the temple courtyard that no one swam in.

Fun Facts

This hot spring is the only one in Britain.

The Celts said this spring was a gift from their god of the springs Sulis. When the Romans came they thought she sounded like their Goddess, Minerva so they combined the two and worshipped Sulis Minerva.

The excavators found a hundred curses written on sheets of pewter and lead. These curses were sometimes rolled before they were thrown into the spring.

Lake District

I would like to inform you all that even though I didn’t go near Italy; yesterday I did see the ruins of a Roman bathhouse in the Lake District, in England. There wasn’t much left, though some parts were surprisingly well preserved.  I thought there would be signs telling you to stay off the ruins, but all there was was a sign saying not to climb on them because you could get badly hurt. Sadly, Sam did not get to see the ruins because he went off on a hike with my parents, while I spent the day seeing things with my grandparents.  We went to a very small town called Ravenglass, which used to be an important Roman port. It was near the farm where we are staying. The baths were outside the Glannavantra fort located on the cliffs outside the town.  I found the fact that the baths were out of the fort quite interesting because there were, no other buildings outside the fort. The bathhouse ruins were a half-mile walk from the town.

Today, we went to the Sunkenkirk Stone Circle from the Neolithic period, which my dad tells me, is Stone Age type time. The stone circle was in a field of cows, bulls and tourists. It is also known as Swinside Stone Circle.

We are communicating.

Later, we went to Ulverston and walked around aimlessly.
For dinner, we had pasta salad and leftovers. We all agree that the small trailer we are staying in needs a bigger pot but, I must say that 6 people, 4 of them adults, are a large group, not the usual number of people for a place of this size. For dessert, we had blackberry crumble with custard and Cadbury roses. The roses we picked up at Cadbury world, which I recommend you visit if you are in England. The blackberries we picked at the park in Broughton-in-Furness.

P.S. Cadbury World is in Birmingham, look it up on the Internet. J!!J!!J!!J!!J!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.P.S.I must tell you that we were just having supper and my dad asked me to get him the hot sauce he had bought. The sauce had a flip lid but he twisted the big cap and when he started shaking it so it would drip out faster but instead it poured out onto his potato a lot. He called them patatas bravas and ate them any way.  Bye.

P.P.S. don’t Mind my bad spelling.
P.P.P.S. I will have some pictures of the ruins but they are on my grandparent's camera and I will have to wait a few day's before postable.

From the Toronto Airport!!!!

We are in the Toronto airport with 2 and a half hours till our next flight which was delayed, which means we may miss our flight to Reykjavik. Other than that everything seems to be going well. My dad's plan to take the bus to the airport was fun.

My ears didn't hurt like crazy taking of and landing in the plane, in fact they didn't hurt much at all.

Less than 4 weeks!

Three weeks and six days till we leave.   "No... that's wrong."
THREE WEEKS AND SIX DAYS TILL WE LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh Ya!!!!     "Much better."

3 Months

Only 3 months and 21 day till we leave!
And our house is now almost rented so that's out of the way.
But we still have nowhere to put our cats, except our backup plan, my grandparents.

The Big List

Here is the list of country's we will go to Iceland, England, France, Spain, India, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Georgia, Syria, Jordan, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

P.S. It's not in order I don't think,

Cleaning...

I am so excited  for our trip but ooh the cleaning, I'm not known for neatness.someone is coming to look at our house and possibly rent it tomorrow my room... not done yet.

Hello

Hi. I finally have a way to show my excitement without driving my family crazy! YAY!