Our Trip Away

I'll tell you about my favourite things from each country or place we visited...

First of all - my favourite thing in Paris was climbing the Eiffel Tower - I loved climbing up the steps. There were more than 600 steps I climbed up and then down again. This is us in front of the Eiffel Tower and the other one is me posing on the second floor of the Tower.

Part Two - on the way to Zermatt we saw snow at the Visp Train Station - it melted straight away. I saw really nice fluffy snow on the train after Visp on the way to Zermatt. When the train stopped at one of the stations on the way we hopped out and ate some snow. My favourite bit in Zermatt is skiing (accompanied by a loud and long squeal)!!!!!! First I had one day learning to ski with Andrei and the next day I had poles and was going down the beginner's slope on the Sunnegga mountain slope. One of my stacks was very good - I couldn't brake on the icy bit and there was a whole clump of soft snow and I went whoosh straight off the edge and my ski pole was up in the air and I was like a cloud in the sky and I went kerthud into that soft snow. Dad had to take his skis off and walk back and pull me out with his pole that he had and that was real funny!!!!!!! Our skis were longer than a metre - everyone's skis had to come up to their neck or chest. We had to carry our skis to the ski slope where Andrei taught us - they were very very very very hard to carry!!!!! One night we had cheese fondue and rosti (which is grated potato fried like a pancake). This is how you make rosti - you get some potatoes and peel them. Then you boil them and leave them in the fridge for a night so they are cold. Then you grate them and let the potato gratings fall lightly on a plate so they don't get compacted together. Then you put some in a frypan with some butter and cook them on high heat until they start going golden then you turn them a bit. Then when that side's done you get a plate big enough to hold the rosti and put it on top of the frypan and flip the frypan over holding the plate there so the rosti falls onto the plate. Then you slide the rosti back into the frypan onto the other side to make that golden brown. Then you have done it and you can eat it. You can eat the rosti with bacon, sausage, egg, cheese or ham. I love rosti when it is all oily and burnt a little bit. I have finished part two.

Next we went to Geneva and went for a walk that night before tea. We walked around and we saw mirrors and we saw a big square mirror that if you walked back in front of it you would be smaller than a dwarf. Then we had tea. Then we saw a running race and there were people all dressed up for the race - they looked funny!!!!!!! In the Netherlands there were heaps and heaps and heaps of bikes everywhere - there were bike paths and we'll show you a picture of how many bikes were parked in one area. In Amsterdam they have chips in a paper cone and they have mayonaisse on their chips. The mayonaisse was gross but the chips were really really yummy!!!!!! I can't wait to get back to Perth now -
it's time to say adieu adieu to you and you and you!

The Mixed Story

Matt is calling this the Mixed Story because this blog is about two things we did.

The first thing I want to talk about is the mountain we climbed on the Isle of Skye. When we climbed the mountain I was very puffed when we got to the top. It was very cold and windy when we got to the top and we touched cloud where we stopped. The top was a long way further up and we didn't keep climbing as we couldn't see the peak in the clouds. When we were coming down Dad was first and then Sam was second and I was third but then I overtook everybody by miles and Sam was grabbing and snatching at me trying to make me slow down but I kept on going fast. Once we couldn't see Mum (who was, like, back where we climbed to!) so we had to stop. The mountain was covered in heather and when we climbed down we were running so fast we'd fall over and do a face plant. When Jo was running full pelt down there was a stream and Jo fell in it and she got a soaked bottom. When we were nearly at the car there was some mud and I nearly stepped in it. Sam didn't step in it but Jo did and got muddy shoes! At the car we had to change our clothes as they were so wet. We didn't think any cars would come by but one did and Jo squealed and hid. After we hopped in the car we went for a drive down to the end of the road where there was water and an Otter's Hide. We walked to the Hide. When we went inside there were binoculars to look at the ocean and Daddy, Mummy and Sam saw two seals and one otter. The end of part 1.

The next story is about the Museum (Grampian Transport Museum in Alford). We went to the Musuem on Wednesday. They had lots and lots and lots of motorbikes, bicycles and cars and and a snow plough and vans and old cars and buses. We saw a car like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There was an awesome car that was used in a James Bond movie - it was a bright green jaguar. It had a machine gun behind the back seat, missiles that could shoot out of the radiator and bombs and grenades in the doors. I wished it was a car I could buy. There were quizzes and things we had to find. I had to find different numbers on the cars, bikes and vans - I found all of them. When you finished the quizzes you got a lolly and I got 2 and 1/2 lollies.

We saw a big yellow snow plough that sweeps all the snow to the side of the road. We could climb on the bus, tram, the pennyfarthing, the plough and a tractor. There was a huge! organ that you had to get someone to press the button and then the music would play. The music played automatically - I don't know how the instruments played when they needed to but there was a saxaphone, cymbals, drums, tappers, and a pipe organ and other things too. (Sam took a video which you can click on and hear the organ play.)

The End!!!

Ireland

Hi laddies and lassies...(just so you know, Matt is having a real giggle over his clever scottish greeting that he thought up - Mum)

I like living in Scotland because I'm going to see snow.

The longest trip we've had in the car was on Thursday and Friday last week from Aberdeen to Holyhead - this took 8.5 hrs. Then we caught a ferry to Dublin in Ireland (we drove our car onto the ferry) and that took 2 hours. Then we drove to the hotel for 1 hour. Then on Sunday we drove to Galway and this took 3.5 hours. Then we had to do this all over again to get back home to Aberdeen. This is a photo of the ferry we went on and a picture of where we parked our car when we drove onto the ferry. There were two decks of cars on top of each other (each x shaped metal railing housed a layer of cars - Mum)

All together it took about 30 hours of travel - but 4 hours of this was on the ferry.

When we were in Galway (on Monday 28 Sept) we drove along the Galway Bay coast and climbed a maaasssiiivvve mountain (314m high). Dad says we probably only climbed 200m but my legs felt like jelly. The wind was cold and breezy when we got out of the car and I put on my rain jacket and jumper but I took them both off when I was climbing the massive hill. I chucked them to Dad and he carried them up the massive hill.

The hill was rocky and we saw two caves. There were no trees - it was bare - just grass and rocks. When we got to the 'top' (of our climb) of the hill we saw some cairns. A cairn is a pile of rocks that people chuck on the pile to show that they have got to the top of the eeeenormous hill. Jo and I made our own cairn.

Then we saw a wall that people made out of rocks and it went from the top to the bottom of the enormous hill. The rocks were just put on top of each other very carefully - they don't use cement to join them together. In fact in Aberdeen and in Ireland they build lots of their field walls out of rocks that are piled on top of each other and not cemented on.. There are lots and lots of sheep and cows and horses when you drive along on the roads. The photo of me on the rock wall has a pirate ship in the background - you can hardly see it (it's a 3 masted ship about 1inch right of Matt's head. Matt is absolutely convinced it's a pirate ship in Galway Bay - Mum). I'm saying 'arrrgh me maties'. (Here's a better one of the Pirate Ship)

When we were on lots of windy roads, when Dad was going so fast Mum was so scared - saying 'stop, slow down!!' but Dad kept going fast and we were saying 'go faster Dad, go faster Dad'. When there were cars coming Dad had to slow down and Mum was like 'yippee' because she didn't like going so fast around windy corners when you couldn't see cars coming.

I liked Ireland because there is lots of things to see and when we went to the waterfalls we saw millions of rally cars. If you don't know what rally cars are - put it this way - they are racing cars. They are light but they have to have a spoiler because if they go fast their two back wheels might go off the ground and be airborne.

This is a photo of the waterfall we saw. We went climbing on the rocks at the bottom and drank some of the water - the end.

Glamis Castle

Last Saturday we went to Glamis Castle. It was so slushy and mucky and muddy - we got such dirty shoes that Mum had to wash them when we got home.

We went on the quad bikes and I went heaps fast but Sam overtook me when I had a sore thumb. Then I went faster and caught up to him and then a man called me in to open up my throttle so I could go faster. Everybody got their throttle changed so they could go faster.

Here's a photo of me on the quad bike.

Daddy had a real rifle that he was shown how to fire at some clay targets that a man made fly up into the air. Daddy hit 5 and he missed one.

We sat and watched some terriers racing each other to catch a pretend rabbit. Daddy bought us a donut while we were watching.

The terriers were pretty strong holding onto the 'rabbit' and when the man tried to get it from them they kept on holding on even when he picked them up.

We watched some people do really special tricks on horses and one of the men stood up on two horses - one leg on each horse - and made the horses go very fast and he still was standing up on them. Everyone cheered.

Someone else was on their horse, then they jumped off and ran along the ground when the horse was full pelt and then they jumped back on the horse. They were very amazing.

When we went inside the castle there was a little brown bear we saw. A long time ago one of the boys who lived at the Castle had him for a pet and he was tame - he used to shake people's hands when they came to the castle but one day he thought he'd go and play with the Angus Cows but the mother had a baby so the mother stabbed the bear with her horns and he died. The people picked him up and stuffed him and now he is in the castle for people to see.

cool things to do in Scotland

In Scotland we saw people skiing without snow!!

They were skiing on special fabric on a hill in Aberdeen. there were jumps and we saw somebody do a 540 when they stacked it.

toothless in Singapore

I lost my tooth in the cab and Jo pushed and she pulled. My tooth was VERY VERY VERY VERY wobbly!!! The tooth was bleeding a bit. I was very excited beause it my first tooth and I have another wobbly tooth but it is only a little wobbly. I was very excited.