[Kate] A Chronicle in Pictures and Few Words

*

In New Zealand
we bungee jumped.



In Australia
snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef.



In Singapore
we went into an indoor cloud forest.



In Thailand
we swam and kayaked in the island inlets and lagoons.



In Laos
we hiked in the jungle with elephants.



In Cambodia
we climbed up an ancient temple in the jungle.



In Vietnam
we biked through the rice fields.



In Nepal
we hiked to Everest Base Camp.



In United Arab Emirates
we rode water slides.



In South Africa
we went on safari.



In Egypt
we went on a camel ride in sight of the Great Pyramids.



In Morocco
we traveled the ancient markets.



In Spain
we visited the Al Hambra Palace.



In France
we saw many famous works of art.



In Norway
we went on a fjord cruise.



In Denmark
we went to the amusement park Tivoli Gardens.



In Germany
we saw the Berlin Wall.



In Estonia
we visited the old town of Tallinn.



In Russia
we visited the Hermitage.



In Finland
we visited an old island fortress.



In Sweden
we visited the Vasa boat and museum.



In the Netherlands
we drove through the country.

In Belgium
we went to historic WWII sites.



In Luxemborg
we drove through the country.

In Switzerland
we hiked in the alps.



In Italy
we took a boat tour around Lake Como.



*To qualify for this list, activities need to be things that the majority of the family did, even if everyone did not.

[George/Cannon] Last post???

Hiiiiii.  This is my last post on this blog.  And the reason for this is that we finished our trip!!  We are currently in Park City, Utah (this by the way is the reason we've stopped writing for a while, we've been being lazy) and we are so happy to be back in America, but we're also sad that our trip has ended.  But for this final post I decided to make an ordered list of my favorite countries, and that list is below.

1. South Africa  -  South Africa is #1 because of the Safari and seeing our Grandparents.  Also got to love warthogs!

Cheetah!

2. Switzerland  -  In my family we all love Switzerland.  We went on hikes and still had ample time to rest.  And eat chocolate of course.
3. Nepal  -  We hiked to Everest Base Camp, and thankfully both me and my cake batter chapstick survived!  How cool is that?!

4. Thailand  -  Gotta love beaches
5. New Zealand  -  Just an amazing place.  Also I went Bungee Jumping.

Proper ninja mode

6. Australia  -  Rainforests are scary

7. Spain

8. Italy  -  GELATO

9. France

10. Norway

11. Russia  -  one of the reasons that I loved Russia is because I really liked the Hermitage.  I normally don't like museums but this is an exception.

I love baroque style

12. Laos  -  Elephants are just like Rugby (our dog)

Like I said just like Rugby

13. Estonia

14. Sweden  -  Never eat the black liquorish in the shape of a skull

15. Finland

16. United Arab Emirates

17. Denmark

18. Netherlands

19. Morocco

20. Belgium  -  Swiss Chocolate is better

21. Germany

22. Vietnam

23. Cambodia

24. Singapore  -  Remember pumpkins are exotic and Durian are smelly

NEVER EVER SMELL A DURIAN, or even be near
it for that matter.

25. Luxembourg  -  Luxembourg is so low on the list because we only drove through it.  We didn't do anything there.

26. Egypt  -

I have really enjoyed writing for this blog and this trip has been so fun.  I hope you enjoyed all of my posts and thank you for reading them.

P.S.  In this post I added as many references to other posts as I could so some things might sound a bit off.

[Grace] i felt the love tonight

I haven't been in Africa for a long while. I was at a creative roadblock and then, when I finally got back into the swing of things, my perfectionist tendencies took over. In my early drafts of this video, I experimented a lot with music, which I believe is the foundation of every video I create. While I always wanted to use "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" there were so many different versions I tried to use before finally deciding. Also, I had to edit around the footage. Most of the videos I took were out of a Land Rover with my big zoomy lens that emphasises camera shake. While that was less than ideal, my subjects (aka the animals) are more than enough to steal the show.



Viola.

[Kate] Extremes On Our Trip

As we're nearing the end of our big trip, we have time reflect on everywhere we've been.  And boy is it a list!  Twenty seven countries (counting America)!  So I'm taking the time (as I sit on a balcony in Italy) to list out three polar opposites that have been squished into these six months of traveling.

Coldest vs Hottest

These were pretty easy to find, as they were generally accompanied by a feeling of great discomfort.  Taking the crown at Coldest is ...

Day 9 of Trekking (Kala Pattar).  It was freezing that day.  It was when we reached our highest day elevation wise, and was therefore very cold.  It didn't help that we woke up at four thirty, when the sun had not yet started to rise.  For an account of that day, click here.

This is us trekking in the early morning of the coldest day of our trip.

The hottest day was ...

Abu Simbel Sightseeing (Egypt).  The ruins at Abu Simbel were gorgeous, one of the best ruins we've seen on this entire trip.  But it sure was sweltering, and there was only a little shade.  Even for Egypt, were it was boiling on a daily basis, it was hot that day.  For an account of our time at Abu Simbel, click here.

This is the outside of the Abu Simbel ruins
(the ancient temple continues into the cliff).

Furthest North vs Furthest South

The place when went that is the furthest to the North is ...

Bergen (Norway).   We stayed for two nights in Bergen, which is a fairly small town in Norway.  Since it was so far north, it stayed light almost the night long, kind of creating, as Grace called it (our family photographer and videographer) "eternal golden hour".

A panoramic view of Bergen from above, taken from a viewing platform above the town.

The place furthest to the South that traveled was ...

Milford Sound (New Zealand).  We took a plane ride in a small plane from Queenstown (our first stop on the entire trip) to Milford Sound.  This was one of the great days of the trip.  For an account of that day, click here.

This is a collage of pictures of Milford Sound, courteous of Grace.

Biggest Cities vs Smallest Towns

For the purposes of these rankings, I'm not including all the towns we visited on our Nepal trek, because they're often more like a cluster of buildings than a real town.  I am counting the larger ones, however.  The biggest city we went to was ...

Cairo (Egypt).  The weird things about Cairo is that it didn't feel that big.  But it has a population of about 19.5 million people, which makes it the largest city that we spend time in on this trip.

This is Cairo.

The smallest town was ...

Namche Bazar (Nepal).  While this is a place we visited during our Nepal trek, it was big enough that we deemed it was technically a town.  We spent three nights here (two nights heading up, and one on the way down).  For an account of our journey to Namche Bazar, click here. 

A view of Namche Bazar.

We've gone a lot of places on this trip, and gone a lot of places that I said "yeah, right" about when first hearing about it (case in point: Everest Base Camp).  Even though we've about to head home, we still have four more days of travel.  Who knows what we'll do next?

[George/Cannon] The Musee D'Orsay

In this post I'm going to talk about what could be my favorite museum in the world, the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, France.  There are a couple reasons I love this museum, for one it used to be a highly decorated train station, so I think it looks great.  Also I just love the artwork.  Down below there are some of my favorite paintings, statues, and artists in the Musee D'Orsay.

The Polar Bear, by Pompon  This statue is amazing.  It is probably my favorite statue in the museum, if not the world.  It was made by François Pompon and it looks, in my opinion just like a polar bear.

I love this

Monet  The Musee D'Orsay has a whole section of impressionism.  Its mainly dominated by Monet.  I don't love Monet but still, he deserves a spot on this list.

The Floor Scrapers,  by Caillebotte  What a painting.  The first time I saw it I thought it was a photo.  This painting doesn't really show anything exiting, but it is just so realistic it is amazing.

Wow

Van Gogh  I LOVE VAN GOGH!  Even though he was a bit crazy, I love his paintings.  He is probably my favorite artist in the world.  In the Musee D'Orsay Van Gogh basically takes up a room by himself.  It might be my favorite room in the museum.

Why did he cut off his ear?

The Church At Auvers

And now my Mom is making me write a conclusion (doesn't this sound familiar).  Those are my favorite things at the Musee D'Orsay.

[George/Cannon] Candy!!

One this trip we have had some amazing candy, some weird candy, and some candy so bad that we all immediately started screaming when we tasted it (not an exaggeration).  This post is a list of the most memorable candies we've had on this trip.

1. BAMS!!  Bams are one of my families favorite candy treats.  My dad first found them in France without us and then when we went with him years later he showed them to us.  A bam is a banana flavored candy, shaped like a banana with sugar on the outside.  The inside is a marshmallow/gummy substance that is amazing.  Bams are some of the best candy ever.  Sadly they are very hard to find anywhere but Europe, and even there finding them can be a pain.

While really called bananas my family calls them bams.

2. Chocolate Koalas.  My Mom found this is a store and had to get them.  Upon finding out that they were chocolate covered marshmallows I was even more exited (I love chocolate covered marshmallows and gummy bears).  However these candies weren't very good.  But they were still fun!

KOALAS!!

3.  Charmallows.  I've talked about these before.  These are the amazing Haribou marshallows that I ate all through-out Spain.  They are marshmallows covered in sugar and they are great.

I LOVE MARSHMALLOWS!

4. Swedish black licorice.  These were the candies that made us all scream upon tasting them.  On the cruise that we did we stopped in Stockholm, Sweden.  I was put in charge of this day so I decided to visit a Swedish candy store.  I asked one of my uncles (who has spent some time in Sweden) what candy to get.  His response is below.

He warned us

Naturally we got the skulls and tried them.  They were nothing short of terrible.  My Uncle was right.  I didn't finish it.

Never again

[Kate] Homeschooling vs. Traditional Schooling

On this trip, my parents have been doubling as my teachers. I had an online math class, but aside from that my studies are determined by my parents. Naturally, a lot of it has revolved around the places we have visited. For example, we each had an overarching project about one topic we pick (sports, politics, or food for instance) in the countries that we visit.

Homeschooling has a very different feel and structure than sitting in a classroom.  For example:

• I get more of a say in what I do. Of course, I don’t control it, but I do get to pick some things. Like my big project topic (see above), for example. 
• My time is more my own. I’m not forced to sit in a classroom for six hours. Or course, I need to get my work done, but if I finish early then I can stop, not sit in the same place aimlessly. 
• No group work! (At last! Ok, I know teamwork is a very important skill, but school group work can be really, really, annoying. I and up being the person that does a lot of the work sometimes, and that’s not a great experience.) 
• No PE. I know they’ll be a lot of being active on this trip (Everest, for instance) but it won’t be PE. PE I have never really liked. People either get insanely competitive or they don’t care at all, and I often find myself to the weird in between. 
• We don't have a classroom setting.  I've done homework on road trips, in airports, on airplanes, in the Himalayas...let's just say its an extensive list.
• I’m trying to learn and keep up on top of all the traveling and adventures. That has been a little crazy to me, keeping the right ratio between the two. 
• My parents are my teachers, which is obviously a change.  But I did have some experience learning from them in the past, since they would sometimes help me with my homework.

This is a homework session in the airport in Cairo, Egypt.

Do I like homeschooling?  In some ways, yes.  As I mentioned above, I feel like my time is better utilized when I can transition so seamlessly from working on homework to relaxing or eating.  (And I really do like he short break from group work, as crucial as skill as it is.)  But sometimes the lack of structure and constant change is less helpful, especially in the confined spaces we spend most of our time in.  Sitting on a bed in an uncomfortably warm room, without a desk while everyone is talking around you, is not ideal for obvious reasons.

I think our system of homeschooling on this trip has worked quite well (for more information on our system, see this early blog post, Beal Academy).  All the same, some part of me is excited for normal school again in the fall.