Don't Worry, I'm Working on my British Accent

Thursday I left for a four day trip to London. We left for the train about 11:00. We took a taxi to the station and we arrived so late that we almost missed the train. We found some seats, sat down, and relaxed. Then we went to the dining car and got some lunch. I got this pita thing that was kind of like a pizza on the inside and was really good. We played a game that we brought and when we finally got there we walked straight to our hotel. It was really nice and had the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on. Then we went to Burger Shack. They had some of the best burgers I have ever tasted in my entire life. I got a chili cheesburger and chili fries.

After that we left to see the grand opening of "Zorro" because one of my best friend's dad is the producer. The bus ride to get there took over two hours. I thought that it was a really good musical. At one time Zorro came down a rope with a safety belt and took a long time to unhook it. That was kind of weird. Then my mom got me some gummy worms and some hearts that tasted like fizzy peach Nestea. After the show there was a party that lasted about 45 minutes. I was so tired that I went to sleep on a couch with my jackeet and my dad's jacket covering me like blankets. My dad woke me up when it was time for the bus to leave. In the bus I also slept for long time. After that we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next day we took double decker buses all around London. On one of them I hurt my arm so bad that we had to stop and go to a pub to put ice on it and have lunch. Then we went to the Tower of London. For those of you who don't know, the Tower of London is a Medieval castle where many of the kings and queens of England lived. They also kept a lot of prisoners there before they were killed. We saw all of the jewels, crowns, and crests of a lot of the kings or queens who ruled England. We also saw a really cool armory. I really liked it and thought it was a really awesome place. Then we took a boat back to Westminster. We saw Big Ben and then went to try to get into Westminster Abbey but it was closed. After that we went to meet John and Susan, one of my best friend's parents, and had dinner at an Indian restaurant called Mela. After that we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

On Saturday we went to the British Museum. We were going to see an exhibit with thousands of sculptures of Chinese soldiers but the tickets were sold out so we couldn't go. Instead we went to see some Japanese Samurai armor and paintings. Then we went to see some Egyptian mummies, and we stayed at that exhibit for a long time. Then we went to see some sculptures of Assyrian lions and after that we went to see the Elgin marbles, some marble scultpures that were stolen from the Parthenon in Greece by Lord Elgin. The very last thing we did was go to see the Bog man from Lindow in Great Britain. He is a human who has been kept in a certain kind of soil which makes it so that even his skin is still there after 2,000 years. He looked pretty disgusting, but still it was cool to see.

Then we went to Covent Garden, saw some street preformers, and got pasties. I got a cheese and bacon pasty. After that since my dad had promised me that I could have Sushi, we went to a Sushi restaurant. When we got home we watched TV and waited for my mom. When SHE got home, she wasn't sure we would find the Sushi so she brought some more back and I ate some of that. Later at dinner I barely ate anything, just a few bits from other people's plates, since I had already eaten all that. I got some jasmine tea and drank a whole put of it and also two or three glasses of water. I had to go pee three times in about fifteen minutes. Then my parents had planned a surprise for me which was to go to a show called Spamelot. It was really, really, really funny. At the show I hit the bathroom I think four times because of all that water and tea.

It was really a good trip and I liked London a lot. But still, I wish it would rain less there.

Away for a week

This whole week I went to a ski camp in the French Alps. Everything was really good about it except that on Tuesday I felt sick and had to stay in bed the whole day. The other days were pretty good, except for something. I was in the highest level group and the director was the one skiing the us, and it's really weird because if you did just one thing wrong he would start screaming his head off at you. He screamed a lot at me because I had never skied in the French style before. But here is the weird thing: everywhere else he was very nice and making jokes and things like that.

A good thing was that the food was really, really good. We must have had the best cooks in France there! But since it was all French dishes, I can't really tell you what they were... After skiing we had gouter, which is a little snack you have between lunch and dinner in France. Then we went straight to our rooms to take showers and then got in our PJs, and did things in our room.

I was in a room with three other people. One of them was the director's son! He was my best friend there. We weren't really old enough to go the the big kids' floor, but we were older than the little kids' floor. There were two rooms that we might get when we arrived, one of which was in the big kids floor and had the only PSP in the whole building! Unfortunately we got the one on the little kids' floor! I can't believe I was so close to having a PSP at my disposal for a whole week! Also, since we were more often with the big kids, we went to the activities room on their floor to do things there, so we stayed there until 9:20pm.

The train ride to the camp is about 5 hours, then there is a bus for about 45 minutes. My parents dropped me off at the platform around noon, and we got to the lodge right before they started dinner. We just had time to put our snowboots downstairs before we went straight for dinner. On the way back, since there were three of us who were really good friends, we squished ourselves into seats for two people since we all wanted to be together on the train back.

Eurodisney

Last Wednesday we went to Eurodisney, which is Disneyland, just in France, so they call it Eurodisney. For breakfast I made pancakes for the family. But, since this took a while to make for the whole family and since we had woken up late (and it took a long time to eat) we left for Eurodisney around noon.

When we got there, it took a while to get in, and my brother and I jumped around a lot. Then right when we got past the entrance I realized that I had lost the necklace I was wearing, and we went back to look for it. I never thought we would actually find it. We miraculously did find it right next to a pole that I had tried to climb and fallen off of. I think the necklace must have fallen when I fell. The chain was broken but I least it was still there. And, you know, you can get a cheap chain like that pretty much anywhere. Then in Eurodisney we got annual passes so that we can go almost every day of the year, although there are a few days when we can't go.

The first thing we did was go to the Buzz Lightyear ride. But the line was so long that we got a fast pass for 4:00pm. Then we had a hot dog and chips for lunch, then we split up. My mom went with me, and, after a lot of crying, my brother went with my dad. First my mom and I went to Frontierland, where we looked around but could not see anything interesting. That took a while.

Then we went to Adventure Isle, which is not a ride, but has two sides, on one of which there is a really big tree and a bunch of little passages that go under the roots of the tree. Then on the other side is what appears to be a humongous rock with a bunch of caves that lead to a bunch of places. There are two bridges to get from one side to the other. One of them goes from the top of the tree to the top of the rock. The other one goes right over the water, there is not even a foot over the water.

Then we also looked at the Indiana Jones ride, but I was too small to go, and we also went to Space Mountain where I was only one inch too short to go. I think it's pretty unfair, because in America I can do Space Mountain, but not here. Then we just walked around, because we did not have time to do any more rides before 4:00pm. But my brother and my dad were a bit late so we waited a while for them.

Then we switched off. My brother went with my Mom and I went with my dad. My dad and I went to the Buzz Lightyear ride. After that we went straight to the Pirates of the Carribbean ride. The line was pretty short but it was still about 15 or 20 minutes. But that's not long considering this is Disneyland we are talking about here!

Then my dad and I went back to Adventure Isle to play hide and seek. The first time he found me in five minutes. The second time I found him in two minutes. The third time he did not find me at all, and he went back to our agreed meeting point if we got lost. Then we just walked back to meet my Mom at Main Street. There we went in a store where my brother and I got huge lollipops. Right at 7pm when the park closes they light up the big Disney castle and we watched that before leaving for good.

On the way out we saw a movie theater that looked like it might have some good movies. It did not really have anything, but my brother smashed my lollipop so I got some strawberry cheesecake icecream, although my dad disagreed but I still was able to get it.

No More Lindsay

Friday night Lindsay took me out to dinner and a movie since it was her last week day in Paris. We were going to go to a sushi restaurant, bu they were closed. So we went to a place that I think was called "Lyons". There we shared a really good meal. It had a bunch of mussels covered in tomato sauce, melted cheese, fries and something else that I dont know about, but it was really good anyway.

Then Lindsay took me to a candy shop and we both took a bag of candy. One thing that I got there was a huuuuuuuuuge gummy snake that was over 60 centimeters, and might have been 80. That's over two feet long!!

Then we went to the movie "National Treasure: Book of Secrets". But like most movie theaters you weren't allowed to bring food that you had not bought there, so I had to smuggle the candy in by putting it in a big pocket I had in my sweatshirt. The movie was pretty good but I still think that the first one was better.

Saturday we did not do much. But Sunday we went to the Luxembourg garden. There we found out they had tennis courts and ping pong tables, but the only problem was that we did not bring any ping pong or tennis gear with us. Then we walked around for a while, and when my brother woke up we went back to a pedal kart stand where I went rode 15 laps around a bunch of cones going as fast as I could. Then we went a a hamburger place for lunch. It was pretty bad, but it still paid off since it was the first time I had a hamburger since leaving California.

When we asked Lindsay what she wanted for her last day she asked fro fondue, so that's what we made. Except that, for some reason we don't know, the cheeese never melted quite enough. It was still good though. Tee next day Lindsay left for California, and we found out that her boyfriend proposed the day after she arrived!

Double Party

Yesterday a person who may become my babysitter came over from Roumania, or, more exactly, from Transylvania, land of the vampires!

Today, we walked around the Louvre, but not inside, and we went in the glass pyramid, but we weren't able to go around the underground castle that is underneath the Louvre, because we needed tickets and we were in a hurry. Instead we went to the Louvre gift shop and bought Lindsay a pretty necklace as a gift since she is leaving next week. Then we got her a gift card so she could got to a place called the Moulin Rouge that she has been wanting to go to for a while. We also got her a shirt of the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge is a place where there is a lot of dancing like the French cancan and stuff like that.

Then we walked alongside the Louvre for a long time, while looking for things to buy. We almost bought me a pair of boxers that had the whole metro lines on them. But the smallest size was too big for me so I could not get them. My dad said that if I bought them, from now on he would use them as a real metro map, and he would look down my pants at them when he needed to know where to go in the metro. We walked next to the Seine river for a while.

Then we came back and drove straight to my cousin Samy's for his birthday. We were half an hour late, but we were still the second group of people there! There we also had a surprise party for Lindsay. The whole thing was a lot of fun.

The Longest Line Ever

Yesterday, my grandma and her friend were there for the whole morning because they had slept over. We had breakfast with them, then the rest of the time we were in the house I played legos, that I had just received from California with all our things from there. My mom went for a haircut while I was playing. Then we went to the Jardin des Plantes, where we met my mom, my aunt, my grandma, her friend, and my aunt's friend. The Jardin des Plantes is a really big garden, and it has two museums.

We went to one of them called La Grande Gallerie de l'Evolution, which means the Great Gallery of Evolution. One of the really cool things that we saw was three different kinds of whole whale skeletons. They also showed a lot of animals that had been killed and stuffed, so you could see them as if they were real. And they had small videos about some of the animals that were there and some that weren't there.

After the museum we had crepes, then we went on to a cafe to get some drinks, then on the way back my dad went to a Chinese restaurant to get some Chinese food to eat at the house, which was really far away from the restaurant. That's when we noticed my brother's sippy cup was missing, so I had to run all the way back to the cafe to get it then run all the way back. We had not had Chinese food since being in California, except once in Barcelona.

Today we met a babysitter that might take care of me after Lindsay goes back. Then around noon we went straight to an amusement park called Jardin d'Acclimatation that my other aunt had invited us to, where we met her, her husband, my grandma, her friends, and two of my cousins that are way younger than me.

When we arrived we were really hungry as we had not had lunch, so we went to the restaurant to eat, and it took 1/2 hour just to get our food because the line was so long, Then we all went in separate directions to go to different places. My dad and I went in one direction together.

First we went to a climbing strucutre that was made entirely of ropes except for a central pole that was about 30 feet tall, with ropes all aorund it like a spiderweb going all the way up to the top of the pole. I climbed it once, then I had my dad time me twice going up it.

After that we went to a ride where there is either one chair or two chairs connected to each other that have chains on them attached to something else really high up, then, when you are in the chair, the whole thing turns and you fly really high and fast. I got a headache in it, so I did not want to go in any ride that moved fast. So we went to a place where you could remote control boats on the water, and my dad and I tried to crash each other. It was really fun!

Jardin des Tuileries

Guess what? Yesterday we found out that, during the night, the whole building night next to us caught fire and burned to smithereens, and the outside is still there, but if you look inside the windows, all it is is coal and you can't even see anything that was in there. It is all pitch black. What is even more amazing is that we did not hear any of it. Come to think of it, I did wake up and heard some weird noises but I thought I was imagining it and I went back to sleep - that could have been it.

Also, the other big news is that my babysitter who has been with us for more than two years, Lindsay, is leaving: she is going back to the US in a month. She is going to live with her boyfriend. I think she is going to get married (to him), but she does not like me saying that... We are all really going to miss her!

Today we went to the jardin des Tuileries, which is what I wrote was 5 minutes walk from home. Right when we got there, we went to play hide and seek in a bunch of hedges that we saw that weren't supposed to be a maze but that were kind of like one. Then we walked around and my brother went on a pony ride. While he was doing that, my dad was timing me climbing up a lamp post, and I think my record was 6 seconds. Then I went on trampolines practising flips. Then we went to a really big Ferris wheel to see what the whole garden looks like from above.