Hey Theis family! This is Mary Clare! I hope that you have a really fun trip and learn a lot while visiting the other part of the world! My family and I are really looking forward to having a new baby in the family! Keep me updated while you are on the trip :) Our family will keep your family and the baby in our prayers! Love you guys!!! MC (Matthew's favorite cousin)
Hi guys! Our trip started out with a grand adventure and if this is for shadowing anything, we are in for a wild ride. Because our Detroit to Boston flight was over-booked, we got bumped and instead took another flight south to charlotton, NC. After a quick bite to eat we flew back north to boston first class (one of the perks we recived with the $250+ as compensation). We are now heading out of the country and will arive in Iceland early tomorrow morning!
Wow, I thought you were leaving in March and was going to call you before that. Oops!! Have a terrific time seeing the world. What an experience it will be!! Can't wait to hear about it and see our newest niece:))) God be with you. Aunt Jan
Greetings From Iceland! Even though it should be really called 'Rock, dead grass, and lichen- Land' it holds a lot of cool things to see. An amazing thing we saw yesterday was a place called the Blue Lagoon. It is a giant natural hot tub carved out of organic rock that is the color of blue Gatorade. It also contains white silica mud and blue-green algae, nboth of which have healing properties. It is constantly at 104 degrees and man... it sure felt good on our poor muscles still cramped from the five hour plane ride. Will write more later.
Yesterday, we had an amazing time in Iceland. We took a shuttle tour around an area called the Golden Circle. This area contains the majority of Icelands natural and man made wonders wonders. The first stop was Icelands geothermal power and hot water plant. In this amazing facility, the Icelanders use natural hot water to warm spring water to pipe into homes as a clean and renewable hot water source. This plant also captures the steam created by the water cycle to turn turbines and so they produce almost a third of Icelands electricity too. Next stop, the Golden waterfall. It is a beutiful double tiered waterfall that is the biggest in Iceland. After that we traveled to was the hot springs. What was interesting to us was that therre was a gyser named gyeser and it turns out that we were looking at the hot spring that gave the name to all of the other geysers in the world! Our last stop, and the one that I thought was the coolest was the Iceland National Park. In it there is the meeting of two techtonic plates, the North American and the Eurasian continental plates. That was the highlight of the day, being able to stradle the 'gap' between 'North America' and 'Europe'. Definately awsome!
Hello from Seattle, sorry, I meant London. So far (only being here a couple of hours) the most prominent thing I have noticed is the incessant drizzle eminating from the sky which I immediatly linked with my mom's home town, Seattle, WA. Because we set today aside as travel day, we had a chance to catch up on schoolwork and were able to watch some of the Olympics. Now I think it is time to catch up on some sleep.
Hi guys! We had our first good look at London today! I really enjoyed it and I thing I think I could live here, except for the absence of grass (except for the royal residences) and you guys as great friends/neighbors/family nearby. We are making our plan of attack tonight and are thinking that we could have spent another week here in London. There is so much to see! On our over view tour we saw Trafalgar Square, Piccdilly Circus, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London (our first castle of the trip), St. Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, received ashes at St. Martin in the Fields Church, London Bridge, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, and the House of Parliment. Tomorrow we will see many more stops including the Greenwich Observatory, the London Library, the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, and the National Gallery. Now I have to sleep so I can enjoy tomorrow. Will talk to you later!
Hey Guys! This is kind of a test email to see if it all worked out correctly. Either way, how is the trip going? You're in London, right? I have to go, but I hope you're having a wonderful time, and I'll be sure to keep in touch. Owen
Wow! Today was incredible. I must admit, we made a major mistake when we decided to see London in 4 days. For example, we spent the entire day today exploring the Tower of London. A fabulous castle to say the least, but only one of London's many famous sites to see. The tower was originaly built as a simble of power and strength that was meant to 'tower' over the people and keep the rowdy Saxons in check. The tower has a long and bloody history, it still bears messages of condemed prisoners on it's walls and was the site to over 300 brutal executions. These included many of various kings' wives, traitors, and random enemies of the royalty. On a lighter note, because it is the most secure building in London, still serving as a functional castle, the Tower is the home to the Crown Jewels. The Crown Jewels are a collection of the largest on earth. This collection also contains the coronation robes that are used by all of the royalty. Just to give you an example of the majesty of these garments, one of the gowns is made of gold thread and weighs approximately 20 lbs.! Another incredible aspect was the stones in the crowns and scepters of the kings and queens. The collection contains the larges and second largest cut clear diamonds in the world and boast some spectacular rubies, pearls and emeralds. It nocked our socks off when the display boasted that one to the crowns held contained more than 3,000 diamonds of various sizes. Also belonging to the collection is the impressive solid gold and elaborate altar set for the coranation mass and the Royal Dining Set, which contains a punch bowl that is capable of holding 144 bottles of wine! This was all way over our heads and out of our league. Another event that made our visit more down to earth was when Michael and Benjamin were knighted by the 'King of England'(they managed to cramm in their 13 required years of training and preperation into an hour's worth of classes). To wrap up this very interesting and exiting day, we traveled to St. Pauls Cathedral for an evening prayer service and to be wowed by the splendor there also. It was fantastic! Now we are hitting the sack with bellies full of paties and visions of Crown Jewles dancing in our heads!
p.s. If any of our loyal followers could tell me how to spell-check this bog, it would be greatly appreciated by me (and probably you), because you should have noticed by now that my spelling is atrocious.
Sounds like you’re having a wonderful time. We love keeping up with you vicariously. Are you getting good at looking the other way when you cross the street? Keep up the posting! It’s lots of fun to read. (and we don’t mind the spelling errors!)
Hi and hugs to each of you. WOW! We just managed to sign in and this is fun -- reading all about your travels and adventures so far....starting with your beginning flight! First class -- how fun is that? Uncle Tom wants to know how you liked Westminster Abby;he saw it when he was in London. And the GLOBE THEATRE...how cool! Were there any plays being rehearsed while you were there...did YOU get on stage? OK, so how is the food so far? You had some interesting morsels in Iceland. What about England -- any tea and crumpets or scones?How are you doing with picking up the local accents and words...riding a lift?hitting the loo?Keep exploring and of course, keeping up with the schoolwork!We'll check in later.Bundles of love, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom ps...we don't know how to spell check and don't stay awake nights about any mistakes.LOVE YOU!
Wow! What a full day! The first thing we saw this morning (2/19/10)was the British Library. We saw some really cool things thereincluding the Magna Carta, the document written in the mideval tims tokeep tyrant kings in check, and even one of Leonardo da Vinci'snotebooks, explaining many complicated ideas way ahead of his time. Inthe John Ritblat Gallery, we also saw one of the Gutenburg Bibles, thefirst book to roll of the newly invented printing press. Historicaldocuments like Captin Scott's diary of his journey to the South Pole.The Lindsfarne Gospels,illuminated manuscripts that are consideredsome of the most magnificent books on earth. Orriginal literature andmusic includingLewis Carrol manuscript of Alice's Adventures UnderGround,the original score of Handel's Messiah, and handwritten lyricsby the Beatles scribbled on napkins and the backs of greeting cards.We thought it was really interesting to see an early map of New Yorkand riddles that Davinci scibbled in the margins of his notebook.To be cont. -- Matthew Theis
Blog continued The next thing we saw today was the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. We were amazed at all of the pomp, circumstance, and ceremony that surround this daily event! The Beefeaters marched and strutted and yelled and shouted and got yelled and shouted at. There were bands and cavalry and a lot of other tourists, even though this wasn’t one of the highlights of the trip, we felt we had to see it while we in London and felt it was a very touristy thing to do. Next on the agenda was the royal observatory, the spot that boasts the prime meridian of the world. A little known fact about the observatory is that the original building was built a few feet off from the celestial meridian, so that it was useless for actual navigation, instead, telescopes were set up in a nearby garden shed. This move was so secret that no one even told the king. We had fun here and spent some time with a foot in both hemispheres. After that we ‘tubed’ to Shakespeare’s Globe to explore the theater where the famous playwright preformed some of his incredible masterpieces. Having seen everything from the thatched roof to the floor where the peasants stood, we moved on to the British Museum. The highlights of this visit were the Rosetta Stone and Elgin Marble. The Rosetta Stone is known as the key to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs because this stone contains the same decree written in three languages, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian dialect, and Greek. The Elgin Marble was name after the man who discovered it and took the marble of the Parthenon where it was used for decoration. At the end of this long day it was very welcome to see an old face away from home. We visited Todd Ludwig, a good friend of ours who is a Study Abroad Student from Notre Dame. After seeing all of this and a full week sightseeing, believe it or not we are still caught up on our Saxon Math, spelling, writing, and other school work. Another part of our cultural education was our meal choices; we ate pasties, fish and chips, porridge for breakfast, and drank tea with every meal. We also ate from the local grocery store a lot and after this experience, we all felt like real ‘Brits’.
Hey ya'll! This is Julie Taylor (now McCourt!) from Corpus Christi! I ran into your Dad at church and he told me about your FABULOUS trip! I'm so excited for you and I can't WAIT to hear more!
Hey guys! Glad you landed safely on the other side! Can't wait to hear of all of your adventures to come. We thought of you last weekend when we had dinner at The Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord! We had a great time skiing but would have been better with you. Diana
Just a note for all of you faithful followers of our blog: We are sorry for falling behind in our posts, our apartment in Normandy, France did not have internet like we hoped. You will find multiple posts a day until we are caught back up.
2-20-10 The first thing we visited today was Westminster Abby. It was interesting because it was like a cemetery for famous, important people and a place of worship all in one. It was really cool to see all the famous people buried there or that have a commemorative plaque there. My favorite tomb to see was that of Sir Isaac Newton, which was right beside Charles Darwin’s. Another interesting place was the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abby; here, there are many memorials and tombs of famous poets, authors, and composers. These include Rudyard Kipling, George Handel, and Charles Dickens. One of the stops on the audio guide tour also pointed out a grapefruit sized hole that was the only damage that the entire Abby sustain throughout the entire Blitz of London, which was when the Germans tried to bomb London into submission during WWII. We believe that this is incredible because the Abby escaped any major damage, unlike a lot of other buildings in London during WWII. What a shame that would have been to lose all of that history if it had been bombed during the war. Next we went to the Winston Churchill Cabinet rooms and they were so cool. The museum is set in the actual underground concrete and steel reinforced complex where Churchill and his Cabinet met during the Blitz of London. It was amazing to be able to see everything how it was during the war because after peace was declared, the employees where so sick of the long hours they had spent there, that they tidied their desks, left, and locked the doors for a while. While touring this huge complex situated directly under Churchill’s house, we saw a secret scrambler telephone that only Churchill knew about and used to try to talk President Roosevelt into joining the war. One fact I never knew before: one display in the Churchill Museum said that Churchill had actually received intelligence reports suggesting that Japan was planning an attack on the U.S., but he did not share this with the U.S. because he knew he’d have a greater chance of the U.S. joining the war if they were attacked. He was right; the U.S. did join the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There were many other cool things to see, my favorite being the Map Room where there was a blackboard where tallies were kept on the number of airplane casualties in the battle for the skies above London. One of the cool gadgets that was installed in the Map Room by royal engineers to cater to one of Winston’s unhealthy habits, was a cigarette lighter built from a light bulb socket, a doorbell, and a coil of wire. You operated it by pressing the button and waiting for the coil of wire to glow red before using it. The walls of the map room were completely covered in maps and you could still see the wide swath of pinholes that marked each individual transport, ship, or submarine that was crossing the Atlantic. It was from here that Britain conducted WWII.
2-21-10 Today it was time to say goodbye to London and travel to France. The first thing we did was tube to the airport to pick up the car that we will own for twenty days and then sell again through a special program. Here we had the exiting experience of driving on the ‘wrong’/left side of the road. It was really interesting to try to figure out how to make turns and do roundabouts and all of that stuff that comes naturally to most drivers. To cross the English Channel to France, we got to take the Chunnel/Channel Tunnel, an engineering feat that is a giant tunnel running under the English Channel from Folkstone, England to Calais, France. Because you cannot drive through the Chunnel, to do this we drove our car onto the upper level of a double- decker train, and rode the train in our car for the 35 minute ride. Once in France we used the rest of the day for homework catch- up. Believe it or not, by the end of week one, I was pretty much up to date with my Saxon Math, writing, and memory drill work!
2-22-10 Today we began our exploration of the Normandy Beaches. To get an overview of the area we went to the Caen (pronounced: Kahn) Memorial Museum. It was a great overview of events leading up to WWII and the events immediately following it, but we were surprised that the museum didn’t have a larger focus on D- Day. After exploring many tour options we realized that many of them require participants to be over twelve years old, and because Michael and Benjamin did not fit those criteria, we decided to try to do it on our own. We did receive very helpful information and booklets and brochures from the Caen Memorial Museum, and with those in hand, we set off. We saw Omaha Beach and followed a number of sign posts marking points of interest along the length of the beach. At this point, even our GPS Matilda surprised us, we were aware of a German Battery called Grand- Camp Maisy that you could look at. Little did we know that many D- Day museums in the town of Grand- Camp Maisy bear the same name. Our faithful Matilda located the nearest one and led us to it. It ended up being off the beaten path surrounded by farmland on a rutted, muddy, dirt road. A cluster of four or five rusted artillery guns and a sign saying that it was one of the Grand- Camp Maisy batteries greeted us. By this time, our daylight was waning, so to wrap up the day, we went grocery shopping. It was quite an adventure, especially because we were relying on our main French speakers, Michael and Benjamin. (When we returned to our apartment that night, Benjamin reported feeling under quite a bit of stress and pressure as one of our two main interpreters for our shopping excursion!) Normandy is known for its apple orchards and camembert cheese, so our main staples were therefore, baguettes, Camembert cheese, and apples. One of the funniest moments of the day came when we unloaded our groceries and choosing what to eat for dinner. Mom went to open what we had thought was yogurt, and ended up with sour cream. After this we were curious to see what the ‘cottage cheese’ actually was. Well, to tell you the truth, we didn’t ever really figure it out. All the information we have is that it is a dairy product that looked like cottage cheese, but tasted like sour cream.
2-23-10 We started the day off with some schoolwork. After that we drove to the Abbey of Mont Saint Michel, an ancient abbey built on top of a hill that is accessible by a small cobble walkway that is sometimes overtaken by the tide. It is a small quaint community that is built on a rising spiral situated around a monastery on top. As the story goes, the Abbey was started when Saint Michael the Arc Angel instructed the bishop of the area to build a place to worship the Lord. Initially, the unfortunate bishop refused, and as a result, Saint Michael burned a hole in the bishop’s head with his finger. The abbey is a beautiful combination Gothic and Neo- Romanesque architecture that was even used to hold prisoners during the French revolution before being converted back into an abbey as it is still used today. It is a remarkable sight as you approach it on the small, back country roads because it dominates the sky- line much like a solitary spire protruding from the middle of the ocean. Also, the view from the top was spectacular; you had a great view of the Channel, and of the nearby towns and villages. You could see the Normandy Beaches, which we visited more next. To be continued.
Again....WOW!We are thrilled that you are including us in your exploration adventures.Uncle Tom commented on how wonderfully you write, Matthew -- including so many details and observations.Keep 'em coming!We are equally impressed with the family's efforts to explore the foods where you are.We look forward to sharing a "travel" meal with you when you return.Auntie Lynn will buy your list of "travel morsels", you can serve the food!Keep exploring and keeping up with the homework. BRAVO!HUGS to you all!
The coolest thing about the Normandy beaches was just being there. It was incredible knowing all about what went on there and being able to see it in real life. The feeling you get is overwhelming and indescribable. One of my favorite sites, because of the remains of the casemates and gun placements and barracks and fortifications, was Point Du Hoc. That was where the US Army Rangers had the nearly impossible task of scaling massive cliffs under fire, and to disable the guns firing down on the other beaches. Aside from this we also saw bits and pieces of all of the other beaches including many memorials and other monuments. Normandy is beyond words. The serene French landscape is still pockmarked with bomb craters, pieces of abandoned equipment litter the country side, and great concrete fortifications are a common occurrence. If you are even the slightest bit into history of any kind, never turn down an opportunity to visit Normandy.
2-24-10 We laid low today because Benjamin wasn’t feeling well. It was a great opportunity, though, to catch up on school work. I was able to watch my online biology class, start my next writing assignment, and do my daily math.
2-25-10 For our last day in Normandy, we used the American cemetery as a capstone to our Normandy days. It was the single most incredible thing I saw in Normandy. We learned from our amazing guide that the American Normandy Memorial Cemetery is the one and only interpretive museum in the entire country. Our guide said that on average, French museums have to be entertaining, interactive, and enthralling to be successful. She said that because the site is American, the style of exhibit was modeled after the American national Parks museums, and was built to me more educational versus entertaining, which it certainly was. Our guide said that most people from France do not enjoy the museum because it lacks that typical French feel to it. I must say though, if we had left Normandy without seeing the American Cemetery, I would have left feeling incomplete. It ranks as one of the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and everything you learn there, see there, or feel there is incredibly overwhelming. There are 9,387 soldiers buried there, along with a Wall of the Missing that contains 1,557 names. Because the immediate family of the casualty was permitted to decide to transfer the body from a temporary cemetery in Normandy back to the United States, or to have the body place in the Cemetery here, these numbers only account for only 40% of all of the graves. I was very encouraged to see the Cemetery after the unmarked monuments throughout the rest of France. All due respect and then some are still being given to those who gave their lives for our freedom. The tombstones, which are made of white marble, are either a Star of David, or a Cross, and are arranged to appear in rows no matter how you look at them, and the grounds are immaculate. My favorite quote from the Museum sums up all of feelings as well as anyone could, it is, “Beneath every one of those grave markers lies not a dead soldier, but a little piece of freedom.”
2-26-10 Greetings from the City of Lights! After spending the night in the city, we explored yet another subway system, this time in Paris, but it was not our main form of transportation. Because of the fact that the Seine River runs right through the center of the city, we took a hop on, hop off boat called the Batobus to reach nearly all of our destinations. The first site we tried to see was the Shrine of the Miraculous Medal, but it was closed for lunch. Our next stop was the Ile De La Cite, where we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral. We all thought that it was very interesting to see all of the carvings and figures all played a hand in teaching the highly illiterate population virtues, bible stories, and consequences of sins. Our funniest fictional caption for the scene of the Last Judgment was from Rick Steve’s, a humorous travel guide who described the fate of those people who had been condemned after the judgment as sorry souls chained up and about to be taken on a six hour tour of the Louvre on a hot summer day. The next stop after the Cathedral was the Paris Story, a narration about Paris’ history. We walked to the Louvre next, just to see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, because none of us have enough art appreciation to enjoy looking at much more than that. Honestly, the Mona Lisa was rather anti- climactic. It is a rather small painting, and none of us could figure out what made it special, considering all of the potentially more interesting artworks around us. About the same thing goes for Venus de Milo, even though it amazed us how anyone could make something so beautiful out of stone, to get to it, you had to walk through an entire gallery of statues that appeared to be almost identical to that one. Finally it was time to visit the Eifel Tower. Although it looks big in some pictures, you never really appreciate its full size until you walk all of the way up to its base and stand in its shadow. It is 1,063 feet tall and looks every bit of it. You can take the 1,665 stairs up to the second observation platform during the daytime, but since we arrived at night, we had to use the elevators. The panoramic view was incredible, what was even more fun was to try to spot the places we had visited during the day at night. We had fun pondering all of the insignificant looking pieces of steel, and trying to figure out exactly why that piece was there. After taking lots of pictures, we rode the lift back down and took the edge off of our hunger with a delicious cheese crepe, and a hot cup of tomato soup. Then it was back to the hotel for a long, peaceful night’s rest after a long day on our feet in Paris, the City of lights.
2-27-10 We packed the car and left Paris for Switzerland today. For breakfast we stopped at a local boulangerie, or a bakery, and a fruit stand. With our bellies full of croissants, pomme (apple) pastries, and breakfast buns, we hit the road. Our destination in Switzerland was our Uncle Aaron and Aunt Erin’s new apartment. Driving through the French countryside gave us a sense of déjà-vu because it looked very similar to the landscape that you see in the state of Michagan. There were some small hills, the sides of the road were boardered by towering pines, with farmland peaking through in between. The other thing that we noticed, is how everything about the French countryside is quaint and serene, compared to US farmland which is vast, and powerful, and seems to streach on forever.. It is amazing though, how fast the landscape can change from the quilt- like farmlands to the rugged splendor of the Swiss Alps, which hold the only snow we had seen on our trip (even in Iceland, we didn’t see much snow, because it is in Gulf Stream and recieves temperate weather).
2-28-10 & 3-1-10 We were thrilled to have the opportunity to be able to visit my dad’s cousin Aaron Westrick and his family in Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks to their amazing hospitality, and their willingness to share their three bedroom apartment with spectacular vistas of the surrounding mountains on all sides, our three nights, and two day stay proved to be a rejuvenating, relaxing and a wonderful reprieve from foreign languages and full but fun days of sightseeing. We enjoyed walking and running around and playing in parks with Mackenzie and Zach in Geneva. I would highly recomend to anyone traveling in Europe to at least stop by and say 'hi', but Aaron and Erin also have an extra bedroom specialy set aside for guests too.
3-2-10 We got to drive through the beautiful snowy Swiss and Italian Alps, I could almost picture myself in Colorado except for the extra snow and foreign chalet type structures dotting the mountainsides. Road tripping in Europe has its advantages and disadvantages: milk in Europe is treated in such a way that it does not require refrigeration. We actually bought a package of eight one- liter bottles of milk and have kept them in the trunk of our car for about a week. It has been so handy!
A disadvantage: getting used to Italian drivers. My theory about Italian drivers is that they were the kids who had trouble learning how to color inside the lines. I say this, because now that they are older, they have trouble staying inside the lines, this time with their cars instead of their crayons!
3-3-10 Because the streets of Venice are water, the city does not accept cars, so we took the train into the city tonight via the only causeway. Rick Steves said in one of his tour books that the best way to capture the ambiance of Venice was to allow yourself to wander through the city and to get lost. We tried this at night with a map in hand, but we were too good of navigators to truly succeed. During our wanderings we picked up a yummy snack, a ciabatti (a type of Italian bread) with prosciutto (ham) and gelato (ice cream) for dessert. A gelato day is a good day!
3- 3-10 Bonjourno! Venice’s history is very intriguing. During the renaissance, the city sought refuge from barbarians by building a new city on top of a swamp, because they believed that the barbarians were afraid of water. They accomplished this by driving a whole forest worth of trees down into the swamp to use as pilings and a foundation for their new city. For transportation through the mud, the founders of the city opted to dredge canals and use boats for transportation, also hoping again that the barbarians wouldn’t like water and would leave them in peace. Because of the mud, farming was impossible, and they relied on trading fish and salt, for preserving meat, for their livelihood. As Venetian trading reached more corners of the world, they soon became the go- between for warring and peaceful nations, and held the monopoly of European trade until trade through the Spice Islands opened. During their heyday, Venice was a world power because of her powerful navy and massive income from trade. They had the largest single warehouse of the age. It employed 16,000 workers, and could produce one warship a day. That’s amazing to me and I think that it is still a major accomplishment for modern shipyards. If anyone knows how many ships a shipyard today can produce, it would be amazing to know if Venice is still the record production holder.
Today’s self proclaimed itinerary had us viewing the major sights in Venice by Vapporeto, the slow-moving, aquatic version of a city bus. On our journey we gawked at the public services of Venice because they were so foreign to us. We saw an ambulance boat zoom by, fire boats docked and ready to go, we observed a postal barge unloading as we enjoyed our lunch of pizza in the shadow the Rialto Bridge, one of the four bridges over the grand canal, and even saw a police and security boat and team transporting money and documents from the Mayor’s palace to another location. Mom can be over the top with this cultural emersion thing, for instance, today for lunch, she made us order our pizza in Italian, even though the guy behind the counter spoke English to us. We must have looked very funny to the passerby, standing outside the pizza shop repeating the names of our pizza choices multiple times out loud to Mom. We learned that peperoni is red and green peppers (not pepperoni sausage), diavola is the closest thing to pepperoni sausage, capricciosa is ham, mushrooms, olives, and artichokes, and formaggi is a combination of four different cheeses. Water Closets (public restrooms) are a major enterprise and money maker in some cities. An admission ticket to the restrooms is usually 1.50 euro, about 2 dollars. Luckily, today was the only time that I had to contribute to the ‘European Potty Fund.’
3-4-10 After a full day of roaming Venice streets and hitting the highlights of the city (St. Mark’s, where I’ve never seen more gold in one place in my entire life, and the Doge’s palace) we trained back out of Venice to our car at the end of the causeway and drove down to Pompeii. We had been begging mom all trip long to let us camp in our car (we love our car with all its storage and sleeping compatibility), and because there was a campground right across the entrance to the Popmei archaelological site, she decided to let us sleep in our car last night, just because it looked so inviting and we thought it would be a fun experience. We were so excited. One of the best things about camping was the orange trees all throughout the campground. When we got up in the morning, there were fresh oranges hanging on tees that we got to pick, and man, were they yummy. After this wonderful breakfast, we visited Pompei, the excavated city that was preserved as it perished, underneath a cloud of volcanic ash. It was to interesting to see ancient buildings just how they were centuries ago, they are hardly lacking anything, except sometimes paint and their wooden roofs. It was a great overview/sneak preview of what Roman life must have been like before we actually hit Rome.
3-5-10 Today was our first day in Rome. Because we heard that pickpockets are everywhere in the city, we tried to blend in and look like local. Apparently we did a pretty good job too, because while we were on our way to the metro stop, somebody asked me in Italian for directions! On the first day we explored the art gallery of the Vatican, the Vatican museum. Mom had read a bunch of stuff to us about the Renaissance, and as she was reading, we all picked out things we wanted to look for once we arrived at the museum. It was a fun way to browse through the galleries, deciding where our special items would be based on the style of the art or time period, etc. The major highlights of the museum were Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel with his amazing painted ceiling depicting the story of Genesis and a fresco of the Last Judgment (which he painted about 30 years later and it showed a very different tone or ambience reflecting the decline of the glory of the renaissance period. He even included his own face in a distorted form in his disillusioned state) the Laocoon (which was a great example of the Hellenistic art period, showing movement and emotion), rooms upon rooms with walls filled with murals and tapestries, including the Transfiguration by Raphael (a great Italian renaissance artist). We even saw examples of cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing, and an unfinished painting by Davinci called St. Jerome. After spending about three hours at the Vatican Museum, we encountered a new kind of pizza (potato) and hit the sack.
3-6-10 Today was another full day in Rome. We got an overview of the Forum and Palatine Hill, the ancient city center of Rome and the literal cradle of Rome from a walking tour. The forum contains most of Rome’s ancient sights. Palatine Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome and was the location where a basket washed up containing two babies. They were taken care of by a she- wolf until they were old enough to be adopted by a childless farmer who named them Romulus and Remus. When they grew up and developed a small city, the two brothers felt that they needed more room to expand and grow, so they conquered the surrounding territories. Because of leadership conflicts, Romulus and Remus went to an old medicine man who told them, “I will draw a box in the sky with my finger, and whichever of you has more crows fly through for you will be the Emperor of the growing nation. Romulus won, and that is how Rome got its name. To firmly take control of his nation Romulus built a small wall at both ends of the valley that he controlled and proclaimed, “For anyone to come over this wall, they must first ask permission, and anyone inside this wall will defend it against any invasion.” Mocking his brother, and probably still sore that he was not ruler, Remus laughed and jumped over the little wall, and without batting an eyelash, Romulus killed him. The empire of Rome began with fratricide. This was only the beginning of a nation that believed that loyalty to your country came before loyalty to your nation, and led to a bloody series of slayings within families. The Forum was the center of social and political life in Rome. We explored the Forum via the Via Sacra. This is the original road that Caesar and all of the other great emperors in the history of the Forum walked on. Most people don’t believe that this rolling, uneven road could be one of the fabled Roman roads, but this is only because the archeologist excavating the area thought that the road was too perfect to be from the time of the Romans, they pulled it up and kept digging. When they never found another road underneath it, they realized that the road they pulled up was indeed the original Roman road. They feebly attempted to relay the stones, so now you can still walk on the same stones the Emperors did, but not the road in original condition. The Forum contained, and still contains many ruins of the literal power houses of the Roman Age. Although these buildings look very rundown, insignificant, and bland, they were once clad in marble and porphyry marble. Porphyry marble is a red, but sometimes green stone that was mined to extinction by the Romans in Egypt, because of its beauty. Porphyry and marble was used to cover many buildings in Rome until it was stolen from the buildings to be used elsewhere. We also noticed that it is still visible in other more modern buildings in Rome. The Forum also contains the remains of the Basilica of Constantine, a giant courthouse that the Church named their buildings after. We also saw the many other temples and buildings scattered throughout the Forum including two massive six story arches that commemorate the victories of Rome over Israel and Septimius Severus’ battles in Mesopotamia, also celebrating the fact that he was African born.
(Because this post was going to be over 4,096 charecters, it is in two parts!)
I give you high marks for taking on this adventure and even higher marks for your travel blog. I'm fascinated by your stories and admire your spirit (and management skills). Look forward to your return with a baby sister!
3-6-2010 Continued One of my favorite buildings in the Roman Forum is the Temple of Antonius Pius and Faustina, later converted into a church. It was on the steps of this building that St. Laurence was slowly grilled to death by the current emperor. This transpired because the Emperor was jealous of the Church’s wealth, and forced St. Laurence to turn all of it into him the next morning. Being well versed in the Bible, and being a little bit of a smart- alec, St. Lawrence rounded up all of the city’s poor and delivered them to the emperors doorstep the next morning, because the Bible says that the poor are the treasures of Heaven. In a little flash of rare humor, the Church made St. Lawrence the patron saint of barbeques, cooks, chefs, and the dying. After a great tour of the forum, we visited the Colosseum. This was the major sports arena of the day. It could hold 50,000 blood thirsty fans who came to watch men, and surprisingly enough, woman, fight men and women and animals to the death. It is estimated that close to one million people, and three million animals died in the Colosseum. Also aside from its barbaric nature the stadium itself is a marvel of engineering. The wooden floor that is now missing concealed a labyrinth of tunnels and lifts that were used to hoist gladiators and wild beasts up through trapdoors to the arena floor. This floor was also constructed to be water- proof, and for special occasions, it could be flooded, and the Colosseum would host not so mock, ‘mock’ sea battles. The Colosseum is also the dying place of hundreds of thousands of Christian Martyrs who were gruesomely killed by wild animals in front of the emperor and cohorts, as well as a massive crowd enjoying the brutality of the day’s events. All considered it was a very thought- provoking experience, especially when you compared it to a modern sports event where instead of cheering for competitors; the masses were enjoying the blood and violence in only a slightly more barbaric way than some modern day cultural ideas. For dinner tonight, we went to the grocery store and picked up a loaf of bread, yogurt, a kind of Italian cheese which tasted like a smoked provolone, and Milano Salami.
3-7-10 Today was the first day in my entire life that I had to stand in line to go through security just to attend church! I can see why though, seeing as we were entering St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican, right around the corner from Pope Benedict’s apartment. The inside of the basilica was incredible, but we saw it better later. We expected the entire mass to be in Latin, but were really excited when we heard the Second Reading in English! After hearing snippets of French, German and other languages, we realized that they were saying different parts in different languages. The other inspirational part of mass was the length of the procession in and out. Mom counted eighty- nine servers and dignitaries of the Church. When mass ended we went outside to St. Peter’s Square where we stood and got blessed by Pope Benedict, speaking from his apartment window. What was really cool was how he repeated the blessing in nine different languages, just to make sure he got his message through to everyone. The inside of St. Peter’s Basilica is majestic and humbling. Designed by Michelangelo, the atrium of the massive basilica is larger than most churches. St. Peter’s, amazingly, does not contain any paintings; all of the two- dimensional artworks are mosaics. The basilica contains, the beautiful and moving Pieta. There is much more to this statue than meets the eye. Michelangelo created this mind- boggling work when he was only twenty- three. We learned from our impromptu tour guide, a young man studying in the Seminary at the Vatican from Ann Arbor, whose family was visiting him. He told us that Michelangelo perfected a polishing technique for marble that makes the first layer almost perfectly clear, this is a skill that is unrivaled still today. The faces of Mary and Jesus portray the feelings of each. Mary’s face shows few feelings of sorrow, but mostly acceptance, acceptance that everything will go as the Lord planned, believed to be the same feeling that Mary must have felt at the Immaculate Conception. Jesus’ face does not betray any pain or suffering, but it appears that he is merely asleep, ready to waken in three day’s time. A contrasting appearance is the fact that blood poling is visible in Jesus’ veins, this also points out that the sculptor was very committed to his work, and even spent time studying cadavers. Another wonderful insight of Michelangelo’s is when he knew that the statue would be placed over an altar, be created Jesus to seem to be falling out of Mary’s lap and onto the altar below. This minute characteristic symbolizes the fact that although he died on the cross, Jesus is the Bread of Life, received by us through the Eucharist. I hold Michelangelo’s Pieta as probably the most moving piece of artwork that I have seen our entire trip. I must remind you, though; we would have never noticed any of these details if not for our wonderful tour guide. (This blog will be segmented also)
3-7-10 Cont. The Pieta is only one example of embellishments in the Basilica that are packed with subtle ‘side stories’, for example, there is the story of two popes. They were Pope Gregory XIII and Pope Gregory XIV. Gregory XIII was very well loved by the Italian people, he had all of the qualities looked for in a pope, and really was a pope for the people. On the other hand, Gregory XIV was scandalous and far from liked by just about everyone, he squandered the church’s money, put his own family members in positions of power, and created more problems than he solved. As a result, Pope Gregory XIII is honored with a truly magnificent and awe- inspiring tomb. Guess what Gregory XIV got, a second hand tomb, his burial committee used Gregory XIII’s practice tomb, and added an ‘I’. Thus, Pope Gregory XIV’s tomb is labeled like this, ‘XIIII’, instead of this, ‘XIV’. Another incredible thing to see in St. Peter’s Basilica is the ‘Uncorruptables’. They are called this because after death, these two pope’s bodies did not decay, this is a sort of miracle, and now the two popes are visible in crystal coffins spiritually preserved for as long as anyone can predict. It seems that a whole book of stories could be compiled just about the popes, but I will tell you just one more. In a little alcove overshadowed by the Pieta, is a statue of a pope that looks slightly out of proportion. This is not the fault of the sculptor however, but an accurate depiction to follow along with a story about the pope. As the story goes, the Pope was kind hearted and did everything in his power to help Jews during WWII, he even hid some children in his own bedroom. One day, it is said that the German army heard he was doing this and raided the Vatican, the pope heard the soldiers coming up the stairs, and told all the children to hide. All but two of the children found hiding places, and just as the Germans burst into the room, the pope threw his vestments around the children and none of the kids were discovered that day. That is the reason why it appears as though he has a rather skinny upper body, but widens out at the bottom. Although all of these things that I have mentioned are magnificent, none of these are the centerpiece of the Basilica. As the name suggests, the Basilica of St. Peter is a functional monument in honor of the death of St. Peter. Even though this is not the original church, the centerpiece of this work of art is a seven story bronze and gold monument over the central altar which is over the tomb of Saint Peter, located in the middle of the original floor plan of the church. When we attended mass though, we used the secondary altar, located at the extreme front of the church. The monumental decoration mounted behind the altar is a dazzling, golden starburst whose center is a window portraying a dove, symbolizing Jesus. Another part of the amazing decoration is a giant throne, symbolizing the power and authority of God. When we attended early morning mass, the sunlight streaming through all of the windows created heavenly rays of light reflecting off of the smoke of the incencse and gold. Truly spectacular.
3-6-10 Continued again. My amazement was never ending, walking around we even saw an amazing likeness of Raphael’s transfiguration, which we had seen at the Vatican Museum. One of Michael’s favorite parts of the Basilica was the Jubilee Door. This door was cemented shut when we arrived, and we were told that it is opened only for each estimated fiftieth anniversary of the church, the next one being in 2025. The grandeur is so extensive that even Charlemagne’s coronation was held here. Another interesting part of the city as a whole is that no building is allowed to be taller than that of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome. After we finished ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ at St. Peter’s, we took the bus over to an only slightly less spectacular place, the Pantheon. This is a great example of Roman architecture and building skill and economic might. It is a round structure topped by a legendary dome. The massive awning over the entrance is supported by the largest single piece columns in Europe. To be able to construct the dome, the architects poured different mixes of cement into molds supported by scaffolding. The strongest and heaviest cement was poured at the bottom, while the lightest cement was layered at the top of the dome, around the open skylight. The Pantheon us also the final resting place of the first two Italian Kings, and the famous and very talented artist, Raphael. This building is open to the public and is a popular hangout, especially on rainy days when the people in the square outside seek cover under the umbrella of the dome while avoiding the small circle directly underneath the open skylight. We also decided that the Parthenon would be a great place to hang out, so we enjoyed more gelato in the giant building’s shadow. We enjoyed a combination of Dark Chocolate, Banana, Hazelnut, and an unknown classic Italian flavor. After all that we had seen today, it made our nice hotel room seem like a measly little tool shed.
3-8-10 Entered another county today! We flew into Athens, Greece this afternoon and are in the first country this trip that uses a non-western alphabet. Thankfully, with English being the international language, and the fact that Athens made English subtitles for all of their signs for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, navigating in the city isn’t as hard as we thought. Going to try to get to bed earlier today, we have big plans for tomorrow, because we only have forty- eight hours here.
3-9-10 Today was so interesting. The walking tour started in one of the subway stations. Not only was this a good meeting point in the city, but also because of all of the civilizations buried under Athens, every subway station is a museum. We saw ancient mosaics and even burial sites all along the walls of the subway. After that we walked outside to the parliament building and watched the changing of the guard. The guard’s elaborate costumes were historically accurate and every little detail was originally designed for a functional purpose. Their pleated kilts originally concealed extra knives, and the pom-poms on their toes concealed spikes. After watching what was like a choreographed dance which the guards preformed, we saw the original location of the first modern Olympic convention. We saw Hadrian’s arch, a monument that makes the Greek and Roman half’s of the city. Then we visited the Acropolis of Athens. Its name is very interesting, because ‘acropolis’ means the highest point in the city, and it also has something to do with a castle. The acropolis of Athens is actually not the Acropolis, but is located on a nearby hill. Also, you should specify which city the metropolis is located in, because there is one for almost every city in Greece. At the Acropolis of Athens, we saw what is believed to be the first theater, and of course the famous Parthenon. What we liked best about the Parthenon is the amazing architecture. It was built in ways such so that it counteracted many optical illusions that make strait lines look crooked. For example, if you stand on a set of train tracks and look down their length, they appear to come closer and closer together the further away you look, even though they never meet. Aware of this illusion, the architects of the Parthenon constructed the columns so that they curved inward ever so slightly, so that if you extended them higher, they would meet. The floor of this temple dedicated to Athena was also made ‘crooked’ so that it would appear perfectly strait. If you stand on the top step of the Parthenon, and your friend stands across from you also on the top step, you won’t even be able to see their knees even though the step is only shin high. To wrap up with this very full day, we ordered a meat tray for four at a local restaurant and ate more than the four adults with the same order sitting at a nearby table. We had been living on a starvation diet of bread, cheese, and power bars up till now and that felt like to best thing I had ever eaten in what seemed like forever. My mom had to say goodbye to her Rick Steve’s Best of Europe book here (which we basically lived with…we followed his recommendations faithfully and were never disappointed), and mom feels a little vulnerable without a guide book for Athens and Egypt, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. She’ll continue to read Rick Steve’s Europe 101 to us, which is “a chronological sweep through the story of Europe-from the pyramids to Picasso-that makes the past come alive”. So far, we’ve read Prehistoric Europe, Egypt, Greece, Rome, The Dark Ages, The High Middle Ages, and are in the middle of the Renaissance right now. It has given us some great background on all the places we’ve seen or will be seeing this trip.
3-10-10 We took a flight from Athens to Cairo today, and used most of the afternoon finalizing our travel plans for the last major leg of our journey. Another crazy thing that is very terrifying is the fact that most of Egypt has severe ‘drive outside the lanes’ syndrome. We were very glad we left our beloved car in Rome, and our hired driver told us that the penalty for killing a pedestrian with your car is the equivalent to 40 USD. This just made us even more nervous. The only thing that prevents more accidents and deaths is because of how much Egyptians care about the cars they rely on so much. While walking home from the train station where we were buying our tickets for the next day, we bought enough pastries for two meals for four for less than a dollar because of the great exchange rate between Egyptian Pounds and USD.
3-11-10- 3-18-10 I’m going to lump our Egypt days together since we didn’t have access to internet and so keeping up with the blog was difficult. I will apologize in advance if this section of my blog doesn’t give as many details as previous entries. I may possibly elaborate mare later. We started our exploration of Egypt in Cairo. We saw the Egyptian Museum, which now houses most of the artifacts from the area, and then moved on to Giza, the location of the great pyramids. We took a horse ride through the desert to reach them. It was incredible to just look at how many stones there are and how much each huge stone weighs. We also went inside the temple of the sphinx and the sphinx. That night, we took an eight hour train ride down to Aswan were we started our tour of the Nile. This same day, we saw the High Dam which created Lake Nassar and the Philae temple. This temple was original completely submerged when the dam was built, and there was a massive conservation effort which raised the temple stone by stone and relocated it on a nearby island. We were also going to take a ride in a tradition Egyptian water craft, a felucca, but they are a lot like a sail boat, and there was no wind, making our voyage unsuccessful. The second day of our journey down the Nile, we saw Kom Ombo temple. We also explored the Edfu temple dedicated to the god Horus. What was amazing about these temples is the fact that each one has its own unique story to tell, and also the fact that they are so well preserved that on most, you can still see the original paint on the ceiling. After seeing all of the drab colored artifacts during our travels, we thought it was cool that the Greek paint didn’t survive, the Roman paint didn’t survive, but you can still see the Egyptian paint today. Our next visit along the Nile was in Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile. We saw the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and the Colossi of Memnon. The next, and final day along the Nile, saw us exploring the Necropolis of Thebes, the Luxor temple, and the Temple of Karnak. This evening we took a train to Cairo, and from there, a bus to St. Katreen. St. Katreen is the located on the Sinai Peninsula, and is a small town and monastery built at the base of Mt. Sinai, the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments in the Bible. We arrived into St. Katreen late in the evening, and like nearly all of the tourists in the area, we took a short nap before waking up at one o’clock in the morning to climb the mountain to see the sunrise. We have absolutely no regrets about compromising our sleep schedule to do this. The feeling was incredible. There are two paths up Mt. Sinai, originating at the St. Katreen Monastery, a long, winding path, or a short set of 3,750 stairs. Because we knew the stairs would be shorter, and that when we got to the top we could nap a little, we set off with our much appreciated guide. Because of the tiny size of the St. Katreen, and the lack of light pollution, it seemed as though every star had come out in the sky to shine just for us. It was also probably the closest feeling I have ever gotten of floating on a cloud. Below us we could see the flickering train of lights below us marking the path of the saner route up the mountain, above us was the stars, and everything else was as black as ink and seemingly inexistent, like you were floating between heaven and earth. Once we reached the summit, all we had to do was to meditate on the wonderful experience, and wait for dawn. The gradual lightening of the sky and the eventual rising of the sun was the greatest show of gorgeous serenity I have ever seen in my whole life. It really put everything into perspective. Back at the base of the mountain in the monastery, we saw the Burning Bush from the Bible, and Moses’ Well. Our experience in St. Katreen was the most wonderful conclusion of our Egypt visit we could have ever imagined.
3-19-10 Today was another full travel day. Between last night, today and early tomorrow morning, we will have 12 hours of flight time and 8 hours of layover time to get us to the Philippines.
3-20-10 We finally arrived into Manila, Philippines in the wee hours of the morning. We found our grandpa, my mom’s dad, who we call Lolo (this means “grandpa” in the native language of the Philippines, Tagalog). When we woke up, we went to the grocery store, did laundry, and got haircuts, and went to Mass. It felt really good to get organized, cleaned up, and caught up. After sleeping in a bit, we did laundry, got haircuts, stocked up on yummy Pilipino fruits and food, and pretty much made our selves at home and cleaned up from the rest of our trip.
3-21-10 Today we visited the old fortified city of Manila, the Manila National Heritage Museum, and the beautiful church where Lolo and Lola got married.
3-22-10 After what seemed to be an all too short of a night’s sleep, we were on the road again. This time Lolo wanted to show us a ‘Crater within a Crater’, an active volcano, in a town called Tagaytay. It is a really cool location, because there is a giant volcanic crater that houses another smaller volcano and a crater and a lake. It might help you to know that the Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, formed by a chain of volcanoes. A lake has also formed in the smaller volcanic crater. We took a boat across the bigger lake and then horses up the steep side of the still active volcano, then, because it was a hot day and the terrain really wasn’t that difficult, and we were feeling bad for the horses, we descended into the crater on foot to take a swim in the lake. It turns out that our mandatory horse guides rode the horses in our absence. I know swimming in an active volcano’s crater sounds like a really bad idea, but they said that the volcanic activity is closely monitored and that this portion was safe for at least the time being. Like the blue lagoon, the water was supposed to have minerals in it that had healing properties. We were pretty sure that the main natural ingredient was sulfur, and hoped it wouldn’t be concentrated enough to harm us. Although hard to get to, the view was spectacular, and we thought that it was a very exotic place to take a swim.
3-23-10 Today Lolo took us to Mt. Banahaw. There is a small town at the base that developed around an unconfirmed apparition of the Holy Mary, but also the rumor that if you washed under the two waterfalls in the area, you would be blessed with who knows what. Most people say a long life, of good health; it is undefined and varies from person to person depending on what they are wanting. The other part of the belief is that you must purchase a sort of charm bracelet and activate it under both waterfalls. Just for fun we did both and after we got our teeth to stop chattering, we ascended the 257 stairs and had a grand Pilipino lunch. It consisted of lots of rice, with adobo, mackerel, and cooked native vegetables. Yum. We have also been making an effort to learn basic Tagolog, the language of our roots. At the end of our stay I will try to post our accumulated vocabulary.
2-24-10 Today we laid low and used our time to catch- up on homework. I am having to do two Saxons a day to make up for those that I missed, attended my online biology class, drilled my memory work, and have been chipping away at a sizable chunk of Latin homework. I was doing pretty well on my schoolwork until Egypt, as you can probably tell. :)
2-25-10 Today Lola arrived from Seattle, Washington, and will also be going to China with us. Also, VERY EXITING NEWS. After many weeks of waiting, my parents finally received our “permission to travel” notice from our adoption agency today! We will be flying to Beijing very early Easter Sunday morning (April 4th), and will be meeting Mia as early as Tuesday night, April 6th! This is one week later than the earliest possible date we thought we’d be going, so my parents are very happy with this news. This means we’ll be arriving back in the states with Mia one week later than we originally expected though.
WOW!! So glad I finally got this URL. I heard from Gina that you were keeping this blog. What a great idea Matthew. Tonight we saw Dale at Corpus Christi so he shared it with us. So exciting. I'm passing it on to the Overbooked Book Club. We can't wait to meet Mia.
3-26-10 We did some very intense sightseeing today, woke up at midnight, like at Mt. Sinai, and drove to a National Park called, The 100 Islands. Even though one island has eroded away, and there are only 99 left, it was an incredible place to spend the day. We took a boat around to all of the different islands, some of the islands are only little projections of rock poking through the surface, so we didn’t or couldn’t stop and disembark at most of them. Every single island has a name to go along with its own unique shape, and the boat drivers knew every single one. At our first island stop, we climbed to a lookout point that gave us an amazing view of the area. Then, the adventurous ones, Benjamin, Michael, two of Lolo’s assistants, Larry and Jason, and I, unintentionally scared some bats out of a nearby cave. The next island we stopped at had wonderful white sand beaches and we even got to see a variety of giant clams growing inside a special pen. We enjoyed a long stay here and did all of the fun things you do at beaches. On the next island there was a great shallow beach where we had even more fun. We ended our exploration of the one hundred islands by relaxing at a logon only accessible by a tunnel / cave! I am amazed at how favorable to dollar to peso exchange rate is here (45 pesos to 1 us dollar). For example, at the end of our island exploration, we had our lunch, karinderya style, on the street, and for 7 people which included drinks, the bill came to about 250 pesos total, which amounts to less than $6.00 for all of us. We are leaving at one o’clock again tomorrow to visit Bantayan Island for four days.
3-27-10 Today we took a short internal flight to a (relatively) nearby island, and a ferry from there to a wonderful fishing island named Bantayan. Although we are staying at a resort, it is very scaled down, and pretty much the only other visitors are from the island. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and we are almost up to date with our schoolwork.
3-28-10 Attended Palm Sunday Mass today, but it was in one of the Philippine’s 78 different dialects, Cebuano, one that even Lolo and Lola couldn’t understand. Mom was relived to figure out that we weren’t the only kids who play with our palms during mass. Everybody, young and old just picks some palm fronds from the nearest tree and turns them into the most amazing works of art. Even though we were in awe of some of the works of art we saw, Lolo said that we hadn’t seen anything, and if we went to the cathedral in Manila, the palm decorations were even bigger and more elaborate. After mass, we made our palms into humble little crosses to keep until Ash Wednesday. The next place we visited was the School of the Seas. This school was started by Lolo and a few of his colleagues, and was funded and is now owned by a Harvard graduate, Antony Aposa. It is a school that educates many different kinds of people on Environmental Awareness. The first program launched was a once a month weekend camp for local kids on the Island. As word spread, the school became more popular, and now they host seminars for people around the world, and Al Gore is even holding a conference there next month. Although it began as a one of a kind idea in the Philippines, in is now the center of a triangle of environmental awareness agencies all throughout the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia and New Zealand. After we returned to our resort, another one of Lolos many friends, Levi, took us snorkeling with masks donated by Lolo to the school of the seas. We took an outrigger canoe off shore at low tide. The fish and corals we saw were amazing, we saw the brightest colored fish and coral ever, as well as some starfish and sea urchins. It was really cool. Then we tried our hands at fishing, but poor Levi spent the entire time unsnaging our lines from the corals, Michael caught the first fish, a whooping 1 1/2 inches long, and i caught a 5 inch long fish, but Benjamin didn't catch anything, and he went hungry. Just kidding of course. ;)
3-29-10 It was a gorgeous day today, so we decided to take a break from our crazy tourist mentality and just relaxed at the beach today. Also used to opportunity to catch up on homework on the beach. That night, Levi’s nephew had his first birthday, a big occasion, at the resort and we were invited. We had pancit (a noodle dish), lechon (a whole roasted pig), sweetened spaghetti, mango ice cream, and even very rare deep sea clams. The shells of these clams were bigger than Benjamin’s head! It was delicous!
3-30-10 Today we had lunch at Levi’s wonderful typical Pilipino home. It was elevated off the ground, with bamboo slats for a floor to increase air circulation in the constant hot and steamy weather. It also only had three outside walls, allowing the multipurpose dining room, kitchen, and family room, to be like a giant porch. We had a gigantic meal of local sea foods. On the menu was plenty of rice, crab, scallops, two different kinds of shellfish, seaweed, mangoes, and a grilled fish and noodle soup. And then, after we finished eating, we were off to the School of the Seas again, where we were invited to dinner. While we were killing time before dinner, we went snorkeling again. This time, the experience was a little different from the earlier time when we had playfully frolicked in our ignorance. This time, before we went out, we were warned of giant clams that cut feet and toes off, gestures, accompanied this message. My brothers seemed a little reluctant to explore the sea with my mom and me, especially after we were ambushed by a black sea creature that squirted a pink poison cloud at us, having to swim through closely packed colonies of gigantic sea urchins. Plus, it was getting dark, and, the warning of giant foot eating clams was far from forgotten. After our rather short snorkeling excursion, it was time for dinner. It was served on banana leaves, and eaten in typical Pilipino style, with your hands, but we also were benefitted by silverware. We had more lechon, two kinds of grilled fish, seaweed, rice, bananas and soup. It was delicious.
3-31-10 Today was our last day in Bantayan, so we took advantage of the beach and played around in the water with a kayak nearly all morning. We took a ferry back to a bigger island, and a plane back to manila.
After recovering from our day of travel from the Visayan region of the Phillippines (that's where Cebu and Bantayan island are located...the 7,000 islands of the Philippines is actually divided into 12 main regions), we attended Holy Thursday services at their church. One thing about the Philippines is that the country is about 98% Catholic. There are churches every few miles so far, and ever church service we've attended in the Philippines so far (which is four so far) has been jam-packed...well beyond standing room only...more like bodies oozing out the doors into the courtyards in front of the church. After church,my Lolo and Lola wanted us to experience Jollibee, the Philippine version of fast food...their version of McDonald's. Initially, my mom expressed reluctance at this idea, suggesting it may be more appropriate to do a Seder meal, but we were able to eventually justify it to her by explaining that God instructed the people of Isreal to eat their seder Passover Meal as if they were in flight. We figured that the modern interpretation of this was fast food.
Note:If you noticed a few name changes on my blog entries (from "Matthew says" to "theis travel blog says" and back), I just wanted to clarify that all these post are mine but mom wanted me to make sure to claim all these posts and clarify that all these posts are mine. I think she worries because most of these are sent without any parental censoring, and wants you all to know that my blogs are not necessarily representative of the opinions of all parties involved.
Hey!What fun it is to follow your travels and adventures.Uncle Tom and I are learning so much from your messages and your "school on the world tour." I just wish I could have trailed along with you and seen the adventures first-hand.Who knows what fun, creative learning work I could have designed along the way! ha! Hopefully, today, Tuesday, you will be meeting up with little Mia. How lucky she is to be gaining three wonderful brothers! How lucky you all are to be gaining a little sister...lots to teach each other. :-) We look forward to any news from China -- more sites and experiences -- and of course, any photos! Hugs all around and love always, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom
To all of the Theis family's faithful blog followers:
Hi everyone this is Matthew's cousin Mary Clare Theis. Matthew has been in touch with me through email and he told me that they were having trouble with the internetand could not access the blog. He also told me their new exciting news; they have met Mia, their new sister!!! The family is adoring their new little girl and is busy taking care of her. Matthew sent me pictures of Mia and asked me to "share the news with the rest of the world." I have been trying to post the pictures but the blog wont let me do that as a comment (and Matthew didnt give me the username and password for signing in as him so that I can post pictures). If anyone else knows how I can post pictures on this blog PLEASE comment and let me know!!!!!! Otherwise if you haven't seen the pictures and want to, you can give me your email address and maybe I could send them to you. Sorry for the complications with the pictures, but at least I was sort of able to fulfill Matthew's request by sharing the great news about Mia with you all!!
I have also put the photos up on facebook, so that if you are friends with either Maria or I you will be able to see them. I tagged Maria in these photos, so they will be up on her wall. Hopefully this helps for some of you on facebook! Matthew and the family send their best!!!
We are checking the blog site...and hoping that everything is fine in China.From Cousin Mary Claire's message,we understand that technology is giving you fits.Hope that you can send photos and news -- we'd love to "see" you all!At least, keep us all updated with notes through Mary Claire -- a great relayer-of-messages! Love to you all! Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom
Thanks for the update. I am not FB friends with Maria - but would love to see pix and pass them along to Maria's book club friends. Is there any way you could e-mail a few to me? kh_4@bex.net.
Hey Theis family! This is Mary Clare! I hope that you have a really fun trip and learn a lot while visiting the other part of the world! My family and I are really looking forward to having a new baby in the family! Keep me updated while you are on the trip :) Our family will keep your family and the baby in our prayers! Love you guys!!!
ReplyDeleteMC (Matthew's favorite cousin)
Hi guys! Our trip started out with a grand adventure and if this is for shadowing anything, we are in for a wild ride. Because our Detroit to Boston flight was over-booked, we got bumped and instead took another flight south to charlotton, NC. After a quick bite to eat we flew back north to boston first class (one of the perks we recived with the $250+ as compensation). We are now heading out of the country and will arive in Iceland early tomorrow morning!
ReplyDeleteWow, I thought you were leaving in March and was going to call you before that. Oops!! Have a terrific time seeing the world. What an experience it will be!! Can't wait to hear about it and see our newest niece:))) God be with you.
ReplyDeleteAunt Jan
Greetings From Iceland! Even though it should be really called 'Rock, dead grass, and lichen- Land' it holds a lot of cool things to see. An amazing thing we saw yesterday was a place called the Blue Lagoon. It is a giant natural hot tub carved out of organic rock that is the color of blue Gatorade. It also contains white silica mud and blue-green algae, nboth of which have healing properties. It is constantly at 104 degrees and man... it sure felt good on our poor muscles still cramped from the five hour plane ride. Will write more later.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, we had an amazing time in Iceland. We took a shuttle tour around an area called the Golden Circle. This area contains the majority of Icelands natural and man made wonders wonders. The first stop was Icelands geothermal power and hot water plant. In this amazing facility, the Icelanders use natural hot water to warm spring water to pipe into homes as a clean and renewable hot water source. This plant also captures the steam created by the water cycle to turn turbines and so they produce almost a third of Icelands electricity too. Next stop, the Golden waterfall. It is a beutiful double tiered waterfall that is the biggest in Iceland. After that we traveled to was the hot springs. What was interesting to us was that therre was a gyser named gyeser and it turns out that we were looking at the hot spring that gave the name to all of the other geysers in the world! Our last stop, and the one that I thought was the coolest was the Iceland National Park. In it there is the meeting of two techtonic plates, the North American and the Eurasian continental plates. That was the highlight of the day, being able to stradle the 'gap' between 'North America' and 'Europe'. Definately awsome!
ReplyDeleteHello from Seattle, sorry, I meant London. So far (only being here a couple of hours) the most prominent thing I have noticed is the incessant drizzle eminating from the sky which I immediatly linked with my mom's home town, Seattle, WA. Because we set today aside as travel day, we had a chance to catch up on schoolwork and were able to watch some of the Olympics. Now I think it is time to catch up on some sleep.
ReplyDeleteHi guys! We had our first good look at London today! I really enjoyed it and I thing I think I could live here, except for the absence of grass (except for the royal residences) and you guys as great friends/neighbors/family nearby. We are making our plan of attack tonight and are thinking that we could have spent another week here in London. There is so much to see! On our over view tour we saw Trafalgar Square, Piccdilly Circus, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London (our first castle of the trip), St. Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, received ashes at St. Martin in the Fields Church, London Bridge, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, and the House of Parliment. Tomorrow we will see many more stops including the Greenwich Observatory, the London Library, the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, and the National Gallery. Now I have to sleep so I can enjoy tomorrow. Will talk to you later!
ReplyDeleteHey Guys! This is kind of a test email to see if it all worked out correctly. Either way, how is the trip going? You're in London, right? I have to go, but I hope you're having a wonderful time, and I'll be sure to keep in touch.
ReplyDeleteOwen
PS Have contacted Todd at all yet?
Wow! Today was incredible. I must admit, we made a major mistake when we decided to see London in 4 days. For example, we spent the entire day today exploring the Tower of London. A fabulous castle to say the least, but only one of London's many famous sites to see. The tower was originaly built as a simble of power and strength that was meant to 'tower' over the people and keep the rowdy Saxons in check. The tower has a long and bloody history, it still bears messages of condemed prisoners on it's walls and was the site to over 300 brutal executions. These included many of various kings' wives, traitors, and random enemies of the royalty. On a lighter note, because it is the most secure building in London, still serving as a functional castle, the Tower is the home to the Crown Jewels. The Crown Jewels are a collection of the largest on earth. This collection also contains the coronation robes that are used by all of the royalty. Just to give you an example of the majesty of these garments, one of the gowns is made of gold thread and weighs approximately 20 lbs.! Another incredible aspect was the stones in the crowns and scepters of the kings and queens. The collection contains the larges and second largest cut clear diamonds in the world and boast some spectacular rubies, pearls and emeralds. It nocked our socks off when the display boasted that one to the crowns held contained more than 3,000 diamonds of various sizes. Also belonging to the collection is the impressive solid gold and elaborate altar set for the coranation mass and the Royal Dining Set, which contains a punch bowl that is capable of holding 144 bottles of wine! This was all way over our heads and out of our league. Another event that made our visit more down to earth was when Michael and Benjamin were knighted by the 'King of England'(they managed to cramm in their 13 required years of training and preperation into an hour's worth of classes). To wrap up this very interesting and exiting day, we traveled to St. Pauls Cathedral for an evening prayer service and to be wowed by the splendor there also. It was fantastic! Now we are hitting the sack with bellies full of paties and visions of Crown Jewles dancing in our heads!
ReplyDeleteIt worked Owen! Its great to hear from you!
ReplyDeletep.s. If any of our loyal followers could tell me how to spell-check this bog, it would be greatly appreciated by me (and probably you), because you should have noticed by now that my spelling is atrocious.
ReplyDeleteMaria and Boys,
ReplyDeleteSounds like you’re having a wonderful time. We love keeping up with you vicariously. Are you getting good at looking the other way when you cross the street? Keep up the posting! It’s lots of fun to read. (and we don’t mind the spelling errors!)
Hi and hugs to each of you. WOW! We just managed to sign in and this is fun -- reading all about your travels and adventures so far....starting with your beginning flight! First class -- how fun is that? Uncle Tom wants to know how you liked Westminster Abby;he saw it when he was in London. And the GLOBE THEATRE...how cool! Were there any plays being rehearsed while you were there...did YOU get on stage? OK, so how is the food so far? You had some interesting morsels in Iceland. What about England -- any tea and crumpets or scones?How are you doing with picking up the local accents and words...riding a lift?hitting the loo?Keep exploring and of course, keeping up with the schoolwork!We'll check in later.Bundles of love, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom ps...we don't know how to spell check and don't stay awake nights about any mistakes.LOVE YOU!
ReplyDeleteWow! What a full day! The first thing we saw this morning (2/19/10)was the British Library. We saw some really cool things thereincluding the Magna Carta, the document written in the mideval tims tokeep tyrant kings in check, and even one of Leonardo da Vinci'snotebooks, explaining many complicated ideas way ahead of his time. Inthe John Ritblat Gallery, we also saw one of the Gutenburg Bibles, thefirst book to roll of the newly invented printing press. Historicaldocuments like Captin Scott's diary of his journey to the South Pole.The Lindsfarne Gospels,illuminated manuscripts that are consideredsome of the most magnificent books on earth. Orriginal literature andmusic includingLewis Carrol manuscript of Alice's Adventures UnderGround,the original score of Handel's Messiah, and handwritten lyricsby the Beatles scribbled on napkins and the backs of greeting cards.We thought it was really interesting to see an early map of New Yorkand riddles that Davinci scibbled in the margins of his notebook.To be cont. -- Matthew Theis
ReplyDeleteBlog continued
ReplyDeleteThe next thing we saw today was the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. We were amazed at all of the pomp, circumstance, and ceremony that surround this daily event! The Beefeaters marched and strutted and yelled and shouted and got yelled and shouted at. There were bands and cavalry and a lot of other tourists, even though this wasn’t one of the highlights of the trip, we felt we had to see it while we in London and felt it was a very touristy thing to do. Next on the agenda was the royal observatory, the spot that boasts the prime meridian of the world. A little known fact about the observatory is that the original building was built a few feet off from the celestial meridian, so that it was useless for actual navigation, instead, telescopes were set up in a nearby garden shed. This move was so secret that no one even told the king. We had fun here and spent some time with a foot in both hemispheres. After that we ‘tubed’ to Shakespeare’s Globe to explore the theater where the famous playwright preformed some of his incredible masterpieces. Having seen everything from the thatched roof to the floor where the peasants stood, we moved on to the British Museum. The highlights of this visit were the Rosetta Stone and Elgin Marble. The Rosetta Stone is known as the key to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs because this stone contains the same decree written in three languages, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian dialect, and Greek. The Elgin Marble was name after the man who discovered it and took the marble of the Parthenon where it was used for decoration. At the end of this long day it was very welcome to see an old face away from home. We visited Todd Ludwig, a good friend of ours who is a Study Abroad Student from Notre Dame. After seeing all of this and a full week sightseeing, believe it or not we are still caught up on our Saxon Math, spelling, writing, and other school work. Another part of our cultural education was our meal choices; we ate pasties, fish and chips, porridge for breakfast, and drank tea with every meal. We also ate from the local grocery store a lot and after this experience, we all felt like real ‘Brits’.
Hey ya'll! This is Julie Taylor (now McCourt!) from Corpus Christi! I ran into your Dad at church and he told me about your FABULOUS trip! I'm so excited for you and I can't WAIT to hear more!
ReplyDeleteJulie :)
Hey guys! Glad you landed safely on the other side! Can't wait to hear of all of your adventures to come. We thought of you last weekend when we had dinner at The Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord! We had a great time skiing but would have been better with you.
ReplyDeleteDiana
Just a note for all of you faithful followers of our blog: We are sorry for falling behind in our posts, our apartment in Normandy, France did not have internet like we hoped. You will find multiple posts a day until we are caught back up.
ReplyDelete2-20-10
ReplyDeleteThe first thing we visited today was Westminster Abby. It was interesting because it was like a cemetery for famous, important people and a place of worship all in one. It was really cool to see all the famous people buried there or that have a commemorative plaque there. My favorite tomb to see was that of Sir Isaac Newton, which was right beside Charles Darwin’s. Another interesting place was the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abby; here, there are many memorials and tombs of famous poets, authors, and composers. These include Rudyard Kipling, George Handel, and Charles Dickens.
One of the stops on the audio guide tour also pointed out a grapefruit sized hole that was the only damage that the entire Abby sustain throughout the entire Blitz of London, which was when the Germans tried to bomb London into submission during WWII. We believe that this is incredible because the Abby escaped any major damage, unlike a lot of other buildings in London during WWII. What a shame that would have been to lose all of that history if it had been bombed during the war.
Next we went to the Winston Churchill Cabinet rooms and they were so cool. The museum is set in the actual underground concrete and steel reinforced complex where Churchill and his Cabinet met during the Blitz of London. It was amazing to be able to see everything how it was during the war because after peace was declared, the employees where so sick of the long hours they had spent there, that they tidied their desks, left, and locked the doors for a while.
While touring this huge complex situated directly under Churchill’s house, we saw a secret scrambler telephone that only Churchill knew about and used to try to talk President Roosevelt into joining the war. One fact I never knew before: one display in the Churchill Museum said that Churchill had actually received intelligence reports suggesting that Japan was planning an attack on the U.S., but he did not share this with the U.S. because he knew he’d have a greater chance of the U.S. joining the war if they were attacked. He was right; the U.S. did join the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
There were many other cool things to see, my favorite being the Map Room where there was a blackboard where tallies were kept on the number of airplane casualties in the battle for the skies above London. One of the cool gadgets that was installed in the Map Room by royal engineers to cater to one of Winston’s unhealthy habits, was a cigarette lighter built from a light bulb socket, a doorbell, and a coil of wire. You operated it by pressing the button and waiting for the coil of wire to glow red before using it.
The walls of the map room were completely covered in maps and you could still see the wide swath of pinholes that marked each individual transport, ship, or submarine that was crossing the Atlantic. It was from here that Britain conducted WWII.
2-21-10
ReplyDeleteToday it was time to say goodbye to London and travel to France. The first thing we did was tube to the airport to pick up the car that we will own for twenty days and then sell again through a special program. Here we had the exiting experience of driving on the ‘wrong’/left side of the road. It was really interesting to try to figure out how to make turns and do roundabouts and all of that stuff that comes naturally to most drivers. To cross the English Channel to France, we got to take the Chunnel/Channel Tunnel, an engineering feat that is a giant tunnel running under the English Channel from Folkstone, England to Calais, France. Because you cannot drive through the Chunnel, to do this we drove our car onto the upper level of a double- decker train, and rode the train in our car for the 35 minute ride. Once in France we used the rest of the day for homework catch- up. Believe it or not, by the end of week one, I was pretty much up to date with my Saxon Math, writing, and memory drill work!
2-22-10
ReplyDeleteToday we began our exploration of the Normandy Beaches. To get an overview of the area we went to the Caen (pronounced: Kahn) Memorial Museum. It was a great overview of events leading up to WWII and the events immediately following it, but we were surprised that the museum didn’t have a larger focus on D- Day. After exploring many tour options we realized that many of them require participants to be over twelve years old, and because Michael and Benjamin did not fit those criteria, we decided to try to do it on our own. We did receive very helpful information and booklets and brochures from the Caen Memorial Museum, and with those in hand, we set off. We saw Omaha Beach and followed a number of sign posts marking points of interest along the length of the beach. At this point, even our GPS Matilda surprised us, we were aware of a German Battery called Grand- Camp Maisy that you could look at. Little did we know that many D- Day museums in the town of Grand- Camp Maisy bear the same name. Our faithful Matilda located the nearest one and led us to it. It ended up being off the beaten path surrounded by farmland on a rutted, muddy, dirt road. A cluster of four or five rusted artillery guns and a sign saying that it was one of the Grand- Camp Maisy batteries greeted us.
By this time, our daylight was waning, so to wrap up the day, we went grocery shopping. It was quite an adventure, especially because we were relying on our main French speakers, Michael and Benjamin. (When we returned to our apartment that night, Benjamin reported feeling under quite a bit of stress and pressure as one of our two main interpreters for our shopping excursion!) Normandy is known for its apple orchards and camembert cheese, so our main staples were therefore, baguettes, Camembert cheese, and apples. One of the funniest moments of the day came when we unloaded our groceries and choosing what to eat for dinner. Mom went to open what we had thought was yogurt, and ended up with sour cream. After this we were curious to see what the ‘cottage cheese’ actually was. Well, to tell you the truth, we didn’t ever really figure it out. All the information we have is that it is a dairy product that looked like cottage cheese, but tasted like sour cream.
2-23-10
ReplyDeleteWe started the day off with some schoolwork. After that we drove to the Abbey of Mont Saint Michel, an ancient abbey built on top of a hill that is accessible by a small cobble walkway that is sometimes overtaken by the tide. It is a small quaint community that is built on a rising spiral situated around a monastery on top. As the story goes, the Abbey was started when Saint Michael the Arc Angel instructed the bishop of the area to build a place to worship the Lord. Initially, the unfortunate bishop refused, and as a result, Saint Michael burned a hole in the bishop’s head with his finger. The abbey is a beautiful combination Gothic and Neo- Romanesque architecture that was even used to hold prisoners during the French revolution before being converted back into an abbey as it is still used today. It is a remarkable sight as you approach it on the small, back country roads because it dominates the sky- line much like a solitary spire protruding from the middle of the ocean. Also, the view from the top was spectacular; you had a great view of the Channel, and of the nearby towns and villages. You could see the Normandy Beaches, which we visited more next.
To be continued.
Again....WOW!We are thrilled that you are including us in your exploration adventures.Uncle Tom commented on how wonderfully you write, Matthew -- including so many details and observations.Keep 'em coming!We are equally impressed with the family's efforts to explore the foods where you are.We look forward to sharing a "travel" meal with you when you return.Auntie Lynn will buy your list of "travel morsels", you can serve the food!Keep exploring and keeping up with the homework. BRAVO!HUGS to you all!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your encouragement and compliments, it really fuels me to keep writing!
ReplyDeleteBlog Continued (focused on Normandy Beaches)
ReplyDeleteThe coolest thing about the Normandy beaches was just being there. It was incredible knowing all about what went on there and being able to see it in real life. The feeling you get is overwhelming and indescribable. One of my favorite sites, because of the remains of the casemates and gun placements and barracks and fortifications, was Point Du Hoc. That was where the US Army Rangers had the nearly impossible task of scaling massive cliffs under fire, and to disable the guns firing down on the other beaches. Aside from this we also saw bits and pieces of all of the other beaches including many memorials and other monuments. Normandy is beyond words. The serene French landscape is still pockmarked with bomb craters, pieces of abandoned equipment litter the country side, and great concrete fortifications are a common occurrence. If you are even the slightest bit into history of any kind, never turn down an opportunity to visit Normandy.
2-24-10
ReplyDeleteWe laid low today because Benjamin wasn’t feeling well. It was a great opportunity, though, to catch up on school work. I was able to watch my online biology class, start my next writing assignment, and do my daily math.
We hope Benjamin is feeling better! Thanks for the updates,
ReplyDeleteUncle Manny and Lola
Yep, he is feeling great now. Just needed a day to recover.
ReplyDelete2-25-10
ReplyDeleteFor our last day in Normandy, we used the American cemetery as a capstone to our Normandy days. It was the single most incredible thing I saw in Normandy. We learned from our amazing guide that the American Normandy Memorial Cemetery is the one and only interpretive museum in the entire country. Our guide said that on average, French museums have to be entertaining, interactive, and enthralling to be successful. She said that because the site is American, the style of exhibit was modeled after the American national Parks museums, and was built to me more educational versus entertaining, which it certainly was. Our guide said that most people from France do not enjoy the museum because it lacks that typical French feel to it. I must say though, if we had left Normandy without seeing the American Cemetery, I would have left feeling incomplete. It ranks as one of the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and everything you learn there, see there, or feel there is incredibly overwhelming. There are 9,387 soldiers buried there, along with a Wall of the Missing that contains 1,557 names. Because the immediate family of the casualty was permitted to decide to transfer the body from a temporary cemetery in Normandy back to the United States, or to have the body place in the Cemetery here, these numbers only account for only 40% of all of the graves. I was very encouraged to see the Cemetery after the unmarked monuments throughout the rest of France. All due respect and then some are still being given to those who gave their lives for our freedom. The tombstones, which are made of white marble, are either a Star of David, or a Cross, and are arranged to appear in rows no matter how you look at them, and the grounds are immaculate. My favorite quote from the Museum sums up all of feelings as well as anyone could, it is, “Beneath every one of those grave markers lies not a dead soldier, but a little piece of freedom.”
2-26-10
ReplyDeleteGreetings from the City of Lights! After spending the night in the city, we explored yet another subway system, this time in Paris, but it was not our main form of transportation. Because of the fact that the Seine River runs right through the center of the city, we took a hop on, hop off boat called the Batobus to reach nearly all of our destinations. The first site we tried to see was the Shrine of the Miraculous Medal, but it was closed for lunch. Our next stop was the Ile De La Cite, where we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral. We all thought that it was very interesting to see all of the carvings and figures all played a hand in teaching the highly illiterate population virtues, bible stories, and consequences of sins. Our funniest fictional caption for the scene of the Last Judgment was from Rick Steve’s, a humorous travel guide who described the fate of those people who had been condemned after the judgment as sorry souls chained up and about to be taken on a six hour tour of the Louvre on a hot summer day. The next stop after the Cathedral was the Paris Story, a narration about Paris’ history. We walked to the Louvre next, just to see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, because none of us have enough art appreciation to enjoy looking at much more than that. Honestly, the Mona Lisa was rather anti- climactic. It is a rather small painting, and none of us could figure out what made it special, considering all of the potentially more interesting artworks around us. About the same thing goes for Venus de Milo, even though it amazed us how anyone could make something so beautiful out of stone, to get to it, you had to walk through an entire gallery of statues that appeared to be almost identical to that one. Finally it was time to visit the Eifel Tower. Although it looks big in some pictures, you never really appreciate its full size until you walk all of the way up to its base and stand in its shadow. It is 1,063 feet tall and looks every bit of it. You can take the 1,665 stairs up to the second observation platform during the daytime, but since we arrived at night, we had to use the elevators. The panoramic view was incredible, what was even more fun was to try to spot the places we had visited during the day at night. We had fun pondering all of the insignificant looking pieces of steel, and trying to figure out exactly why that piece was there. After taking lots of pictures, we rode the lift back down and took the edge off of our hunger with a delicious cheese crepe, and a hot cup of tomato soup. Then it was back to the hotel for a long, peaceful night’s rest after a long day on our feet in Paris, the City of lights.
2-27-10
ReplyDeleteWe packed the car and left Paris for Switzerland today. For breakfast we stopped at a local boulangerie, or a bakery, and a fruit stand. With our bellies full of croissants, pomme (apple) pastries, and breakfast buns, we hit the road. Our destination in Switzerland was our Uncle Aaron and Aunt Erin’s new apartment. Driving through the French countryside gave us a sense of déjà-vu because it looked very similar to the landscape that you see in the state of Michagan. There were some small hills, the sides of the road were boardered by towering pines, with farmland peaking through in between. The other thing that we noticed, is how everything about the French countryside is quaint and serene, compared to US farmland which is vast, and powerful, and seems to streach on forever.. It is amazing though, how fast the landscape can change from the quilt- like farmlands to the rugged splendor of the Swiss Alps, which hold the only snow we had seen on our trip (even in Iceland, we didn’t see much snow, because it is in Gulf Stream and recieves temperate weather).
2-28-10 & 3-1-10
ReplyDeleteWe were thrilled to have the opportunity to be able to visit my dad’s cousin Aaron Westrick and his family in Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks to their amazing hospitality, and their willingness to share their three bedroom apartment with spectacular vistas of the surrounding mountains on all sides, our three nights, and two day stay proved to be a rejuvenating, relaxing and a wonderful reprieve from foreign languages and full but fun days of sightseeing. We enjoyed walking and running around and playing in parks with Mackenzie and Zach in Geneva. I would highly recomend to anyone traveling in Europe to at least stop by and say 'hi', but Aaron and Erin also have an extra bedroom specialy set aside for guests too.
3-2-10
ReplyDeleteWe got to drive through the beautiful snowy Swiss and Italian Alps, I could almost picture myself in Colorado except for the extra snow and foreign chalet type structures dotting the mountainsides.
Road tripping in Europe has its advantages and disadvantages: milk in Europe is treated in such a way that it does not require refrigeration. We actually bought a package of eight one- liter bottles of milk and have kept them in the trunk of our car for about a week. It has been so handy!
A disadvantage: getting used to Italian drivers. My theory about Italian drivers is that they were the kids who had trouble learning how to color inside the lines. I say this, because now that they are older, they have trouble staying inside the lines, this time with their cars instead of their crayons!
3-3-10
ReplyDeleteBecause the streets of Venice are water, the city does not accept cars, so we took the train into the city tonight via the only causeway. Rick Steves said in one of his tour books that the best way to capture the ambiance of Venice was to allow yourself to wander through the city and to get lost. We tried this at night with a map in hand, but we were too good of navigators to truly succeed. During our wanderings we picked up a yummy snack, a ciabatti (a type of Italian bread) with prosciutto (ham) and gelato (ice cream) for dessert. A gelato day is a good day!
3- 3-10
ReplyDeleteBonjourno!
Venice’s history is very intriguing. During the renaissance, the city sought refuge from barbarians by building a new city on top of a swamp, because they believed that the barbarians were afraid of water. They accomplished this by driving a whole forest worth of trees down into the swamp to use as pilings and a foundation for their new city. For transportation through the mud, the founders of the city opted to dredge canals and use boats for transportation, also hoping again that the barbarians wouldn’t like water and would leave them in peace. Because of the mud, farming was impossible, and they relied on trading fish and salt, for preserving meat, for their livelihood. As Venetian trading reached more corners of the world, they soon became the go- between for warring and peaceful nations, and held the monopoly of European trade until trade through the Spice Islands opened. During their heyday, Venice was a world power because of her powerful navy and massive income from trade. They had the largest single warehouse of the age. It employed 16,000 workers, and could produce one warship a day. That’s amazing to me and I think that it is still a major accomplishment for modern shipyards. If anyone knows how many ships a shipyard today can produce, it would be amazing to know if Venice is still the record production holder.
Today’s self proclaimed itinerary had us viewing the major sights in Venice by Vapporeto, the slow-moving, aquatic version of a city bus. On our journey we gawked at the public services of Venice because they were so foreign to us. We saw an ambulance boat zoom by, fire boats docked and ready to go, we observed a postal barge unloading as we enjoyed our lunch of pizza in the shadow the Rialto Bridge, one of the four bridges over the grand canal, and even saw a police and security boat and team transporting money and documents from the Mayor’s palace to another location.
Mom can be over the top with this cultural emersion thing, for instance, today for lunch, she made us order our pizza in Italian, even though the guy behind the counter spoke English to us. We must have looked very funny to the passerby, standing outside the pizza shop repeating the names of our pizza choices multiple times out loud to Mom. We learned that peperoni is red and green peppers (not pepperoni sausage), diavola is the closest thing to pepperoni sausage, capricciosa is ham, mushrooms, olives, and artichokes, and formaggi is a combination of four different cheeses.
Water Closets (public restrooms) are a major enterprise and money maker in some cities. An admission ticket to the restrooms is usually 1.50 euro, about 2 dollars. Luckily, today was the only time that I had to contribute to the ‘European Potty Fund.’
3-4-10
ReplyDeleteAfter a full day of roaming Venice streets and hitting the highlights of the city (St. Mark’s, where I’ve never seen more gold in one place in my entire life, and the Doge’s palace) we trained back out of Venice to our car at the end of the causeway and drove down to Pompeii.
We had been begging mom all trip long to let us camp in our car (we love our car with all its storage and sleeping compatibility), and because there was a campground right across the entrance to the Popmei archaelological site, she decided to let us sleep in our car last night, just because it looked so inviting and we thought it would be a fun experience. We were so excited. One of the best things about camping was the orange trees all throughout the campground. When we got up in the morning, there were fresh oranges hanging on tees that we got to pick, and man, were they yummy. After this wonderful breakfast, we visited Pompei, the excavated city that was preserved as it perished, underneath a cloud of volcanic ash. It was to interesting to see ancient buildings just how they were centuries ago, they are hardly lacking anything, except sometimes paint and their wooden roofs. It was a great overview/sneak preview of what Roman life must have been like before we actually hit Rome.
3-5-10
ReplyDeleteToday was our first day in Rome. Because we heard that pickpockets are everywhere in the city, we tried to blend in and look like local. Apparently we did a pretty good job too, because while we were on our way to the metro stop, somebody asked me in Italian for directions!
On the first day we explored the art gallery of the Vatican, the Vatican museum. Mom had read a bunch of stuff to us about the Renaissance, and as she was reading, we all picked out things we wanted to look for once we arrived at the museum. It was a fun way to browse through the galleries, deciding where our special items would be based on the style of the art or time period, etc. The major highlights of the museum were Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel with his amazing painted ceiling depicting the story of Genesis and a fresco of the Last Judgment (which he painted about 30 years later and it showed a very different tone or ambience reflecting the decline of the glory of the renaissance period. He even included his own face in a distorted form in his disillusioned state) the Laocoon (which was a great example of the Hellenistic art period, showing movement and emotion), rooms upon rooms with walls filled with murals and tapestries, including the Transfiguration by Raphael (a great Italian renaissance artist). We even saw examples of cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing, and an unfinished painting by Davinci called St. Jerome.
After spending about three hours at the Vatican Museum, we encountered a new kind of pizza (potato) and hit the sack.
3-6-10
ReplyDeleteToday was another full day in Rome. We got an overview of the Forum and Palatine Hill, the ancient city center of Rome and the literal cradle of Rome from a walking tour. The forum contains most of Rome’s ancient sights. Palatine Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome and was the location where a basket washed up containing two babies. They were taken care of by a she- wolf until they were old enough to be adopted by a childless farmer who named them Romulus and Remus. When they grew up and developed a small city, the two brothers felt that they needed more room to expand and grow, so they conquered the surrounding territories. Because of leadership conflicts, Romulus and Remus went to an old medicine man who told them, “I will draw a box in the sky with my finger, and whichever of you has more crows fly through for you will be the Emperor of the growing nation. Romulus won, and that is how Rome got its name. To firmly take control of his nation Romulus built a small wall at both ends of the valley that he controlled and proclaimed, “For anyone to come over this wall, they must first ask permission, and anyone inside this wall will defend it against any invasion.” Mocking his brother, and probably still sore that he was not ruler, Remus laughed and jumped over the little wall, and without batting an eyelash, Romulus killed him. The empire of Rome began with fratricide. This was only the beginning of a nation that believed that loyalty to your country came before loyalty to your nation, and led to a bloody series of slayings within families.
The Forum was the center of social and political life in Rome. We explored the Forum via the Via Sacra. This is the original road that Caesar and all of the other great emperors in the history of the Forum walked on. Most people don’t believe that this rolling, uneven road could be one of the fabled Roman roads, but this is only because the archeologist excavating the area thought that the road was too perfect to be from the time of the Romans, they pulled it up and kept digging. When they never found another road underneath it, they realized that the road they pulled up was indeed the original Roman road. They feebly attempted to relay the stones, so now you can still walk on the same stones the Emperors did, but not the road in original condition.
The Forum contained, and still contains many ruins of the literal power houses of the Roman Age. Although these buildings look very rundown, insignificant, and bland, they were once clad in marble and porphyry marble. Porphyry marble is a red, but sometimes green stone that was mined to extinction by the Romans in Egypt, because of its beauty. Porphyry and marble was used to cover many buildings in Rome until it was stolen from the buildings to be used elsewhere. We also noticed that it is still visible in other more modern buildings in Rome. The Forum also contains the remains of the Basilica of Constantine, a giant courthouse that the Church named their buildings after. We also saw the many other temples and buildings scattered throughout the Forum including two massive six story arches that commemorate the victories of Rome over Israel and Septimius Severus’ battles in Mesopotamia, also celebrating the fact that he was African born.
(Because this post was going to be over 4,096 charecters, it is in two parts!)
Maria and boys,
ReplyDeleteI give you high marks for taking on this adventure and even higher marks for your travel blog. I'm fascinated by your stories and admire your spirit (and management skills). Look forward to your return with a baby sister!
Sandy Luetke
3-6-2010 Continued
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite buildings in the Roman Forum is the Temple of Antonius Pius and Faustina, later converted into a church. It was on the steps of this building that St. Laurence was slowly grilled to death by the current emperor. This transpired because the Emperor was jealous of the Church’s wealth, and forced St. Laurence to turn all of it into him the next morning. Being well versed in the Bible, and being a little bit of a smart- alec, St. Lawrence rounded up all of the city’s poor and delivered them to the emperors doorstep the next morning, because the Bible says that the poor are the treasures of Heaven. In a little flash of rare humor, the Church made St. Lawrence the patron saint of barbeques, cooks, chefs, and the dying.
After a great tour of the forum, we visited the Colosseum. This was the major sports arena of the day. It could hold 50,000 blood thirsty fans who came to watch men, and surprisingly enough, woman, fight men and women and animals to the death. It is estimated that close to one million people, and three million animals died in the Colosseum. Also aside from its barbaric nature the stadium itself is a marvel of engineering. The wooden floor that is now missing concealed a labyrinth of tunnels and lifts that were used to hoist gladiators and wild beasts up through trapdoors to the arena floor. This floor was also constructed to be water- proof, and for special occasions, it could be flooded, and the Colosseum would host not so mock, ‘mock’ sea battles. The Colosseum is also the dying place of hundreds of thousands of Christian Martyrs who were gruesomely killed by wild animals in front of the emperor and cohorts, as well as a massive crowd enjoying the brutality of the day’s events. All considered it was a very thought- provoking experience, especially when you compared it to a modern sports event where instead of cheering for competitors; the masses were enjoying the blood and violence in only a slightly more barbaric way than some modern day cultural ideas.
For dinner tonight, we went to the grocery store and picked up a loaf of bread, yogurt, a kind of Italian cheese which tasted like a smoked provolone, and Milano Salami.
3-7-10
ReplyDeleteToday was the first day in my entire life that I had to stand in line to go through security just to attend church! I can see why though, seeing as we were entering St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican, right around the corner from Pope Benedict’s apartment. The inside of the basilica was incredible, but we saw it better later. We expected the entire mass to be in Latin, but were really excited when we heard the Second Reading in English! After hearing snippets of French, German and other languages, we realized that they were saying different parts in different languages. The other inspirational part of mass was the length of the procession in and out. Mom counted eighty- nine servers and dignitaries of the Church. When mass ended we went outside to St. Peter’s Square where we stood and got blessed by Pope Benedict, speaking from his apartment window. What was really cool was how he repeated the blessing in nine different languages, just to make sure he got his message through to everyone.
The inside of St. Peter’s Basilica is majestic and humbling. Designed by Michelangelo, the atrium of the massive basilica is larger than most churches. St. Peter’s, amazingly, does not contain any paintings; all of the two- dimensional artworks are mosaics. The basilica contains, the beautiful and moving Pieta. There is much more to this statue than meets the eye. Michelangelo created this mind- boggling work when he was only twenty- three. We learned from our impromptu tour guide, a young man studying in the Seminary at the Vatican from Ann Arbor, whose family was visiting him. He told us that Michelangelo perfected a polishing technique for marble that makes the first layer almost perfectly clear, this is a skill that is unrivaled still today. The faces of Mary and Jesus portray the feelings of each. Mary’s face shows few feelings of sorrow, but mostly acceptance, acceptance that everything will go as the Lord planned, believed to be the same feeling that Mary must have felt at the Immaculate Conception. Jesus’ face does not betray any pain or suffering, but it appears that he is merely asleep, ready to waken in three day’s time. A contrasting appearance is the fact that blood poling is visible in Jesus’ veins, this also points out that the sculptor was very committed to his work, and even spent time studying cadavers. Another wonderful insight of Michelangelo’s is when he knew that the statue would be placed over an altar, be created Jesus to seem to be falling out of Mary’s lap and onto the altar below. This minute characteristic symbolizes the fact that although he died on the cross, Jesus is the Bread of Life, received by us through the Eucharist. I hold Michelangelo’s Pieta as probably the most moving piece of artwork that I have seen our entire trip. I must remind you, though; we would have never noticed any of these details if not for our wonderful tour guide.
(This blog will be segmented also)
3-7-10 Cont.
ReplyDeleteThe Pieta is only one example of embellishments in the Basilica that are packed with subtle ‘side stories’, for example, there is the story of two popes. They were Pope Gregory XIII and Pope Gregory XIV. Gregory XIII was very well loved by the Italian people, he had all of the qualities looked for in a pope, and really was a pope for the people. On the other hand, Gregory XIV was scandalous and far from liked by just about everyone, he squandered the church’s money, put his own family members in positions of power, and created more problems than he solved. As a result, Pope Gregory XIII is honored with a truly magnificent and awe- inspiring tomb. Guess what Gregory XIV got, a second hand tomb, his burial committee used Gregory XIII’s practice tomb, and added an ‘I’. Thus, Pope Gregory XIV’s tomb is labeled like this, ‘XIIII’, instead of this, ‘XIV’.
Another incredible thing to see in St. Peter’s Basilica is the ‘Uncorruptables’. They are called this because after death, these two pope’s bodies did not decay, this is a sort of miracle, and now the two popes are visible in crystal coffins spiritually preserved for as long as anyone can predict. It seems that a whole book of stories could be compiled just about the popes, but I will tell you just one more. In a little alcove overshadowed by the Pieta, is a statue of a pope that looks slightly out of proportion. This is not the fault of the sculptor however, but an accurate depiction to follow along with a story about the pope. As the story goes, the Pope was kind hearted and did everything in his power to help Jews during WWII, he even hid some children in his own bedroom. One day, it is said that the German army heard he was doing this and raided the Vatican, the pope heard the soldiers coming up the stairs, and told all the children to hide. All but two of the children found hiding places, and just as the Germans burst into the room, the pope threw his vestments around the children and none of the kids were discovered that day. That is the reason why it appears as though he has a rather skinny upper body, but widens out at the bottom.
Although all of these things that I have mentioned are magnificent, none of these are the centerpiece of the Basilica. As the name suggests, the Basilica of St. Peter is a functional monument in honor of the death of St. Peter. Even though this is not the original church, the centerpiece of this work of art is a seven story bronze and gold monument over the central altar which is over the tomb of Saint Peter, located in the middle of the original floor plan of the church. When we attended mass though, we used the secondary altar, located at the extreme front of the church. The monumental decoration mounted behind the altar is a dazzling, golden starburst whose center is a window portraying a dove, symbolizing Jesus. Another part of the amazing decoration is a giant throne, symbolizing the power and authority of God. When we attended early morning mass, the sunlight streaming through all of the windows created heavenly rays of light reflecting off of the smoke of the incencse and gold. Truly spectacular.
3-6-10 Continued again.
ReplyDeleteMy amazement was never ending, walking around we even saw an amazing likeness of Raphael’s transfiguration, which we had seen at the Vatican Museum. One of Michael’s favorite parts of the Basilica was the Jubilee Door. This door was cemented shut when we arrived, and we were told that it is opened only for each estimated fiftieth anniversary of the church, the next one being in 2025. The grandeur is so extensive that even Charlemagne’s coronation was held here. Another interesting part of the city as a whole is that no building is allowed to be taller than that of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome.
After we finished ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ at St. Peter’s, we took the bus over to an only slightly less spectacular place, the Pantheon. This is a great example of Roman architecture and building skill and economic might. It is a round structure topped by a legendary dome. The massive awning over the entrance is supported by the largest single piece columns in Europe. To be able to construct the dome, the architects poured different mixes of cement into molds supported by scaffolding. The strongest and heaviest cement was poured at the bottom, while the lightest cement was layered at the top of the dome, around the open skylight. The Pantheon us also the final resting place of the first two Italian Kings, and the famous and very talented artist, Raphael. This building is open to the public and is a popular hangout, especially on rainy days when the people in the square outside seek cover under the umbrella of the dome while avoiding the small circle directly underneath the open skylight.
We also decided that the Parthenon would be a great place to hang out, so we enjoyed more gelato in the giant building’s shadow. We enjoyed a combination of Dark Chocolate, Banana, Hazelnut, and an unknown classic Italian flavor.
After all that we had seen today, it made our nice hotel room seem like a measly little tool shed.
3-8-10
ReplyDeleteEntered another county today! We flew into Athens, Greece this afternoon and are in the first country this trip that uses a non-western alphabet. Thankfully, with English being the international language, and the fact that Athens made English subtitles for all of their signs for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, navigating in the city isn’t as hard as we thought. Going to try to get to bed earlier today, we have big plans for tomorrow, because we only have forty- eight hours here.
Editors Note: I accidentaly called Rome's Pantheon the Parthenon in my previous post on Rome.
ReplyDelete3-9-10
ReplyDeleteToday was so interesting. The walking tour started in one of the subway stations. Not only was this a good meeting point in the city, but also because of all of the civilizations buried under Athens, every subway station is a museum. We saw ancient mosaics and even burial sites all along the walls of the subway. After that we walked outside to the parliament building and watched the changing of the guard. The guard’s elaborate costumes were historically accurate and every little detail was originally designed for a functional purpose. Their pleated kilts originally concealed extra knives, and the pom-poms on their toes concealed spikes. After watching what was like a choreographed dance which the guards preformed, we saw the original location of the first modern Olympic convention. We saw Hadrian’s arch, a monument that makes the Greek and Roman half’s of the city. Then we visited the Acropolis of Athens. Its name is very interesting, because ‘acropolis’ means the highest point in the city, and it also has something to do with a castle. The acropolis of Athens is actually not the Acropolis, but is located on a nearby hill. Also, you should specify which city the metropolis is located in, because there is one for almost every city in Greece. At the Acropolis of Athens, we saw what is believed to be the first theater, and of course the famous Parthenon. What we liked best about the Parthenon is the amazing architecture. It was built in ways such so that it counteracted many optical illusions that make strait lines look crooked. For example, if you stand on a set of train tracks and look down their length, they appear to come closer and closer together the further away you look, even though they never meet. Aware of this illusion, the architects of the Parthenon constructed the columns so that they curved inward ever so slightly, so that if you extended them higher, they would meet. The floor of this temple dedicated to Athena was also made ‘crooked’ so that it would appear perfectly strait. If you stand on the top step of the Parthenon, and your friend stands across from you also on the top step, you won’t even be able to see their knees even though the step is only shin high. To wrap up with this very full day, we ordered a meat tray for four at a local restaurant and ate more than the four adults with the same order sitting at a nearby table. We had been living on a starvation diet of bread, cheese, and power bars up till now and that felt like to best thing I had ever eaten in what seemed like forever.
My mom had to say goodbye to her Rick Steve’s Best of Europe book here (which we basically lived with…we followed his recommendations faithfully and were never disappointed), and mom feels a little vulnerable without a guide book for Athens and Egypt, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. She’ll continue to read Rick Steve’s Europe 101 to us, which is “a chronological sweep through the story of Europe-from the pyramids to Picasso-that makes the past come alive”. So far, we’ve read Prehistoric Europe, Egypt, Greece, Rome, The Dark Ages, The High Middle Ages, and are in the middle of the Renaissance right now. It has given us some great background on all the places we’ve seen or will be seeing this trip.
3-10-10
ReplyDeleteWe took a flight from Athens to Cairo today, and used most of the afternoon finalizing our travel plans for the last major leg of our journey. Another crazy thing that is very terrifying is the fact that most of Egypt has severe ‘drive outside the lanes’ syndrome. We were very glad we left our beloved car in Rome, and our hired driver told us that the penalty for killing a pedestrian with your car is the equivalent to 40 USD. This just made us even more nervous. The only thing that prevents more accidents and deaths is because of how much Egyptians care about the cars they rely on so much. While walking home from the train station where we were buying our tickets for the next day, we bought enough pastries for two meals for four for less than a dollar because of the great exchange rate between Egyptian Pounds and USD.
3-11-10- 3-18-10
ReplyDeleteI’m going to lump our Egypt days together since we didn’t have access to internet and so keeping up with the blog was difficult. I will apologize in advance if this section of my blog doesn’t give as many details as previous entries. I may possibly elaborate mare later.
We started our exploration of Egypt in Cairo. We saw the Egyptian Museum, which now houses most of the artifacts from the area, and then moved on to Giza, the location of the great pyramids. We took a horse ride through the desert to reach them. It was incredible to just look at how many stones there are and how much each huge stone weighs. We also went inside the temple of the sphinx and the sphinx. That night, we took an eight hour train ride down to Aswan were we started our tour of the Nile. This same day, we saw the High Dam which created Lake Nassar and the Philae temple. This temple was original completely submerged when the dam was built, and there was a massive conservation effort which raised the temple stone by stone and relocated it on a nearby island. We were also going to take a ride in a tradition Egyptian water craft, a felucca, but they are a lot like a sail boat, and there was no wind, making our voyage unsuccessful. The second day of our journey down the Nile, we saw Kom Ombo temple. We also explored the Edfu temple dedicated to the god Horus. What was amazing about these temples is the fact that each one has its own unique story to tell, and also the fact that they are so well preserved that on most, you can still see the original paint on the ceiling. After seeing all of the drab colored artifacts during our travels, we thought it was cool that the Greek paint didn’t survive, the Roman paint didn’t survive, but you can still see the Egyptian paint today. Our next visit along the Nile was in Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile. We saw the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and the Colossi of Memnon. The next, and final day along the Nile, saw us exploring the Necropolis of Thebes, the Luxor temple, and the Temple of Karnak.
This evening we took a train to Cairo, and from there, a bus to St. Katreen. St. Katreen is the located on the Sinai Peninsula, and is a small town and monastery built at the base of Mt. Sinai, the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments in the Bible. We arrived into St. Katreen late in the evening, and like nearly all of the tourists in the area, we took a short nap before waking up at one o’clock in the morning to climb the mountain to see the sunrise. We have absolutely no regrets about compromising our sleep schedule to do this. The feeling was incredible. There are two paths up Mt. Sinai, originating at the St. Katreen Monastery, a long, winding path, or a short set of 3,750 stairs. Because we knew the stairs would be shorter, and that when we got to the top we could nap a little, we set off with our much appreciated guide. Because of the tiny size of the St. Katreen, and the lack of light pollution, it seemed as though every star had come out in the sky to shine just for us. It was also probably the closest feeling I have ever gotten of floating on a cloud. Below us we could see the flickering train of lights below us marking the path of the saner route up the mountain, above us was the stars, and everything else was as black as ink and seemingly inexistent, like you were floating between heaven and earth. Once we reached the summit, all we had to do was to meditate on the wonderful experience, and wait for dawn. The gradual lightening of the sky and the eventual rising of the sun was the greatest show of gorgeous serenity I have ever seen in my whole life. It really put everything into perspective. Back at the base of the mountain in the monastery, we saw the Burning Bush from the Bible, and Moses’ Well. Our experience in St. Katreen was the most wonderful conclusion of our Egypt visit we could have ever imagined.
3-19-10
ReplyDeleteToday was another full travel day. Between last night, today and early tomorrow morning, we will have 12 hours of flight time and 8 hours of layover time to get us to the Philippines.
3-20-10
ReplyDeleteWe finally arrived into Manila, Philippines in the wee hours of the morning. We found our grandpa, my mom’s dad, who we call Lolo (this means “grandpa” in the native language of the Philippines, Tagalog). When we woke up, we went to the grocery store, did laundry, and got haircuts, and went to Mass. It felt really good to get organized, cleaned up, and caught up.
After sleeping in a bit, we did laundry, got haircuts, stocked up on yummy Pilipino fruits and food, and pretty much made our selves at home and cleaned up from the rest of our trip.
3-21-10
ReplyDeleteToday we visited the old fortified city of Manila, the Manila National Heritage Museum, and the beautiful church where Lolo and Lola got married.
3-22-10
ReplyDeleteAfter what seemed to be an all too short of a night’s sleep, we were on the road again. This time Lolo wanted to show us a ‘Crater within a Crater’, an active volcano, in a town called Tagaytay. It is a really cool location, because there is a giant volcanic crater that houses another smaller volcano and a crater and a lake. It might help you to know that the Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, formed by a chain of volcanoes. A lake has also formed in the smaller volcanic crater. We took a boat across the bigger lake and then horses up the steep side of the still active volcano, then, because it was a hot day and the terrain really wasn’t that difficult, and we were feeling bad for the horses, we descended into the crater on foot to take a swim in the lake. It turns out that our mandatory horse guides rode the horses in our absence. I know swimming in an active volcano’s crater sounds like a really bad idea, but they said that the volcanic activity is closely monitored and that this portion was safe for at least the time being. Like the blue lagoon, the water was supposed to have minerals in it that had healing properties. We were pretty sure that the main natural ingredient was sulfur, and hoped it wouldn’t be concentrated enough to harm us. Although hard to get to, the view was spectacular, and we thought that it was a very exotic place to take a swim.
3-23-10
ReplyDeleteToday Lolo took us to Mt. Banahaw. There is a small town at the base that developed around an unconfirmed apparition of the Holy Mary, but also the rumor that if you washed under the two waterfalls in the area, you would be blessed with who knows what. Most people say a long life, of good health; it is undefined and varies from person to person depending on what they are wanting. The other part of the belief is that you must purchase a sort of charm bracelet and activate it under both waterfalls. Just for fun we did both and after we got our teeth to stop chattering, we ascended the 257 stairs and had a grand Pilipino lunch. It consisted of lots of rice, with adobo, mackerel, and cooked native vegetables. Yum. We have also been making an effort to learn basic Tagolog, the language of our roots. At the end of our stay I will try to post our accumulated vocabulary.
2-24-10
ReplyDeleteToday we laid low and used our time to catch- up on homework. I am having to do two Saxons a day to make up for those that I missed, attended my online biology class, drilled my memory work, and have been chipping away at a sizable chunk of Latin homework. I was doing pretty well on my schoolwork until Egypt, as you can probably tell. :)
2-25-10
ReplyDeleteToday Lola arrived from Seattle, Washington, and will also be going to China with us. Also, VERY EXITING NEWS. After many weeks of waiting, my parents finally received our “permission to travel” notice from our adoption agency today! We will be flying to Beijing very early Easter Sunday morning (April 4th), and will be meeting Mia as early as Tuesday night, April 6th! This is one week later than the earliest possible date we thought we’d be going, so my parents are very happy with this news. This means we’ll be arriving back in the states with Mia one week later than we originally expected though.
WOW!! So glad I finally got this URL. I heard from Gina that you were keeping this blog. What a great idea Matthew. Tonight we saw Dale at Corpus Christi so he shared it with us. So exciting. I'm passing it on to the Overbooked Book Club. We can't wait to meet Mia.
ReplyDelete3-26-10
ReplyDeleteWe did some very intense sightseeing today, woke up at midnight, like at Mt. Sinai, and drove to a National Park called, The 100 Islands. Even though one island has eroded away, and there are only 99 left, it was an incredible place to spend the day. We took a boat around to all of the different islands, some of the islands are only little projections of rock poking through the surface, so we didn’t or couldn’t stop and disembark at most of them. Every single island has a name to go along with its own unique shape, and the boat drivers knew every single one. At our first island stop, we climbed to a lookout point that gave us an amazing view of the area. Then, the adventurous ones, Benjamin, Michael, two of Lolo’s assistants, Larry and Jason, and I, unintentionally scared some bats out of a nearby cave. The next island we stopped at had wonderful white sand beaches and we even got to see a variety of giant clams growing inside a special pen. We enjoyed a long stay here and did all of the fun things you do at beaches. On the next island there was a great shallow beach where we had even more fun. We ended our exploration of the one hundred islands by relaxing at a logon only accessible by a tunnel / cave! I am amazed at how favorable to dollar to peso exchange rate is here (45 pesos to 1 us dollar). For example, at the end of our island exploration, we had our lunch, karinderya style, on the street, and for 7 people which included drinks, the bill came to about 250 pesos total, which amounts to less than $6.00 for all of us.
We are leaving at one o’clock again tomorrow to visit Bantayan Island for four days.
3-27-10
ReplyDeleteToday we took a short internal flight to a (relatively) nearby island, and a ferry from there to a wonderful fishing island named Bantayan. Although we are staying at a resort, it is very scaled down, and pretty much the only other visitors are from the island. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and we are almost up to date with our schoolwork.
3-28-10
ReplyDeleteAttended Palm Sunday Mass today, but it was in one of the Philippine’s 78 different dialects, Cebuano, one that even Lolo and Lola couldn’t understand. Mom was relived to figure out that we weren’t the only kids who play with our palms during mass. Everybody, young and old just picks some palm fronds from the nearest tree and turns them into the most amazing works of art. Even though we were in awe of some of the works of art we saw, Lolo said that we hadn’t seen anything, and if we went to the cathedral in Manila, the palm decorations were even bigger and more elaborate. After mass, we made our palms into humble little crosses to keep until Ash Wednesday. The next place we visited was the School of the Seas. This school was started by Lolo and a few of his colleagues, and was funded and is now owned by a Harvard graduate, Antony Aposa. It is a school that educates many different kinds of people on Environmental Awareness. The first program launched was a once a month weekend camp for local kids on the Island. As word spread, the school became more popular, and now they host seminars for people around the world, and Al Gore is even holding a conference there next month. Although it began as a one of a kind idea in the Philippines, in is now the center of a triangle of environmental awareness agencies all throughout the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia and New Zealand. After we returned to our resort, another one of Lolos many friends, Levi, took us snorkeling with masks donated by Lolo to the school of the seas. We took an outrigger canoe off shore at low tide. The fish and corals we saw were amazing, we saw the brightest colored fish and coral ever, as well as some starfish and sea urchins. It was really cool. Then we tried our hands at fishing, but poor Levi spent the entire time unsnaging our lines from the corals, Michael caught the first fish, a whooping 1 1/2 inches long, and i caught a 5 inch long fish, but Benjamin didn't catch anything, and he went hungry. Just kidding of course. ;)
3-29-10
ReplyDeleteIt was a gorgeous day today, so we decided to take a break from our crazy tourist mentality and just relaxed at the beach today. Also used to opportunity to catch up on homework on the beach. That night, Levi’s nephew had his first birthday, a big occasion, at the resort and we were invited. We had pancit (a noodle dish), lechon (a whole roasted pig), sweetened spaghetti, mango ice cream, and even very rare deep sea clams. The shells of these clams were bigger than Benjamin’s head! It was delicous!
3-30-10
ReplyDeleteToday we had lunch at Levi’s wonderful typical Pilipino home. It was elevated off the ground, with bamboo slats for a floor to increase air circulation in the constant hot and steamy weather. It also only had three outside walls, allowing the multipurpose dining room, kitchen, and family room, to be like a giant porch. We had a gigantic meal of local sea foods. On the menu was plenty of rice, crab, scallops, two different kinds of shellfish, seaweed, mangoes, and a grilled fish and noodle soup. And then, after we finished eating, we were off to the School of the Seas again, where we were invited to dinner. While we were killing time before dinner, we went snorkeling again. This time, the experience was a little different from the earlier time when we had playfully frolicked in our ignorance. This time, before we went out, we were warned of giant clams that cut feet and toes off, gestures, accompanied this message. My brothers seemed a little reluctant to explore the sea with my mom and me, especially after we were ambushed by a black sea creature that squirted a pink poison cloud at us, having to swim through closely packed colonies of gigantic sea urchins. Plus, it was getting dark, and, the warning of giant foot eating clams was far from forgotten. After our rather short snorkeling excursion, it was time for dinner. It was served on banana leaves, and eaten in typical Pilipino style, with your hands, but we also were benefitted by silverware. We had more lechon, two kinds of grilled fish, seaweed, rice, bananas and soup. It was delicious.
3-31-10
ReplyDeleteToday was our last day in Bantayan, so we took advantage of the beach and played around in the water with a kayak nearly all morning. We took a ferry back to a bigger island, and a plane back to manila.
4-1-10
ReplyDeleteOur adoption didn't go through, so we are coming home early and are flying standby. Will be home in a day or two.
4-2-10
ReplyDeleteHahaha! April Fools! Everything is still on track and we should be seeing Mia in 4 days!
4-1-10 (for real)
ReplyDeleteAfter recovering from our day of travel from
the Visayan region of the Phillippines (that's where Cebu and Bantayan island are located...the 7,000 islands of the Philippines is actually divided into 12 main regions), we attended Holy Thursday services at their church. One thing about the Philippines is that the country is about 98% Catholic. There are churches every few miles so far, and ever church service we've attended in the Philippines so far (which is four so far) has been jam-packed...well beyond standing room only...more like bodies oozing out the doors into the courtyards in front of the church. After church,my Lolo and Lola wanted us to experience Jollibee, the Philippine version of fast food...their version of McDonald's. Initially, my mom expressed reluctance at this idea, suggesting it may be more appropriate to do a Seder meal, but we were able to eventually justify it to her by explaining that God instructed the people of Isreal to eat their seder Passover Meal as if they were in flight. We figured that the modern interpretation of this was fast food.
Note:If you noticed a few name changes on my blog entries (from "Matthew says" to "theis travel blog says" and back), I just wanted to clarify that all these post are mine but mom wanted me to make sure to claim all these posts and clarify that all these posts are mine. I think she worries because most of these are sent without any parental censoring, and wants you all to know that my blogs are not necessarily representative of the opinions of all parties involved.
hi, we have had a good time reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteWill write more later.
Aidan
Hey!What fun it is to follow your travels and adventures.Uncle Tom and I are learning so much from your messages and your "school on the world tour." I just wish I could have trailed along with you and seen the adventures first-hand.Who knows what fun, creative learning work I could have designed along the way! ha! Hopefully, today, Tuesday, you will be meeting up with little Mia. How lucky she is to be gaining three wonderful brothers! How lucky you all are to be gaining a little sister...lots to teach each other. :-) We look forward to any news from China -- more sites and experiences -- and of course, any photos! Hugs all around and love always, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom
ReplyDeleteTo all of the Theis family's faithful blog followers:
ReplyDeleteHi everyone this is Matthew's cousin Mary Clare Theis. Matthew has been in touch with me through email and he told me that they were having trouble with the internetand could not access the blog. He also told me their new exciting news; they have met Mia, their new sister!!! The family is adoring their new little girl and is busy taking care of her. Matthew sent me pictures of Mia and asked me to "share the news with the rest of the world." I have been trying to post the pictures but the blog wont let me do that as a comment (and Matthew didnt give me the username and password for signing in as him so that I can post pictures). If anyone else knows how I can post pictures on this blog PLEASE comment and let me know!!!!!! Otherwise if you haven't seen the pictures and want to, you can give me your email address and maybe I could send them to you. Sorry for the complications with the pictures, but at least I was sort of able to fulfill Matthew's request by sharing the great news about Mia with you all!!
I have also put the photos up on facebook, so that if you are friends with either Maria or I you will be able to see them. I tagged Maria in these photos, so they will be up on her wall. Hopefully this helps for some of you on facebook! Matthew and the family send their best!!!
ReplyDeleteWe are checking the blog site...and hoping that everything is fine in China.From Cousin Mary Claire's message,we understand that technology is giving you fits.Hope that you can send photos and news -- we'd love to "see" you all!At least, keep us all updated with notes through Mary Claire -- a great relayer-of-messages! Love to you all!
ReplyDeleteAuntie Lynn and Uncle Tom
Mary Clare,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update. I am not FB friends with Maria - but would love to see pix and pass them along to Maria's book club friends. Is there any way you could e-mail a few to me? kh_4@bex.net.
Thanks,
Kate