Chloë in France

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Saint Paul de Vence

Saint Paul de Vence was our first day in France. Saint Paul de Vence is a small town and we stayed there for two weeks in an apartment. Our balcony had a beautiful view of the countryside. Under our apartment there was a bakery full of French bread and sweets. Every morning my brother and I would go down to the bakery and get either fresh chocolate or plain croissants or one fresh baguette and we would all share it.

The croissants and baguettes were very fresh and smelled so good! One morning I was coming back from the bakery and I had to run home because the baguette came fresh out of the oven and it was so hot! In Saint Paul de Vence I also made a really nice friend. Her name is Emma and she was 11 years old and she spoke a little bit of English so it was easy to communicate. Emma also had a brother named Fabio who was five years old. I played with Emma and Elliot played with Fabio.

Beune

Today we went to visit Hotel Dieu, a hotel for the poor. The hospital was built by a man named Nicholas in 1883. One of the reasons he built the hospital was so he could go to heaven. In the hospital there is one very big hall. The hall is where all the poor patients with absolutely no money lived. More wealthy patients got their own rooms. In the hall where all the poor patients are there are 330 beds. The hospital is run entirely by nuns which care for the patients. The nuns are very hard workers and wake up at 5:30 in the morning and go to bed at nine. In World War II nuns helped a French general escape by pretending he was dead. The nuns even made a fake funeral for him and filled his coffin with sand. The roof of the hospital is covered with beautiful colourful tiles. The tiles are made of porcelain and black, green, red and yellow colours. The Hotel Dieu is very old and figuring that it was built in 1883 even though it is more than 1,000 years old it is still running.

Museum in France

While in Paris we visited the museum de Pompidou. We spent one afternoon exploring the museum. There was one really cool exhibit where you could fly a virtual WWI plane. At the end of the ride you get a certificate. The certificate that I got said “Adventurous pilot”. The certificate that my mom got said “Reckless Pilot”. There was another really cool exhibit where a video describes how an astronaut lives in space. At the end of the museum, we visited a planetarium that held a show about space and comets. Close to the end of the show is starting to get very cold! After the planetarium, the museum was starting to close so we visited the gift shop really quickly and left. And that was our day at the museum.

Luxembourg Garden

The Luxembourg garden is a big garden in Paris. One day for lunch we brought sandwiches and had a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens. We brought our picnic blanket hoping that we could have a picnic on the grass but we forgot that like most gardens in France you were not supposed to sit on the grass. Since you can’t sit on the grass, the many chairs and benches made up for it. After lunch we saw there was a bunch of sailboats in the pond. My mom and dad let my brother and I rent our own boat for 30 minutes. Each sailboat had a country flag on it. I wanted to get Canada but I was already taken. My brother got Poland and instead of Canada I got Japan. We got our sailboats and we also got a stick to push our boats into the water.

The boats are controlled entirely by the wind, when the wind is really strong the bolts will zoom across the pond, but when the wind is very still the boats will not move or move very slowly across the pond. After that we went to a really cool park. To get in the park you have to pay 1.50 euros but it was worth it! At the park there was a zip line!

Musee d’Orsay

The museum d’Orsay holds the largest exhibition of impressionist art work in the world. It was at first a train station and then converted into a museum. We spend a day at the museum admiring beautiful artwork and sculptures. The museum also has a collection of artwork by Vincent van Gogh! At first I thought that the room where van Goghs art is displayed was going to be very crowded but it’s surprisingly wasn’t that bad. The artwork was amazing! My favorite work by van Gogh is a painting called the starry night. It was especially amazing as we stayed in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the place where van Gogh painted the painting and then seeing the art in person. The famous starry night is at the MOMO in New York City but this museum had a similar one. At the museum there is a place where you could dine in 100 year old restaurant! A long time ago there was a hotel beside the museum d’orsay and the hotel had a restaurant where their customers could have dinner. 100 years later the restaurant was converted into a restaurant for the customers of the museum d’Orsay. The restaurant was amazing with an original painting ceiling and at the end of our meal our waiter showed us pictures of the restaurant 100 years ago and it was almost looking exactly the same!

Paris

We stayed in Paris for 3 weeks. Paris is a beautiful city with a river called the Seine that runs right through it. Get a fresh baguette from the grocery store and some lunch supplies sit by the SeineGogh’sand you will have an amazing lunch! It’s also fun to sit by the canal and watch the water levels rise and just watch as the water gates open and close. While in Paris we also visited the Eiffel tower! We went there at night because when the Eiffel tower lights upd’Orsay it’s so beautiful! When we got to the Eiffel tower we climbed to the second floor and saw an amazing view of Paris. In Paris because the Parisians love food they have food contest for everything! If your bakery won best baguette in France they will be a big sign on the bakery saying first place!

Paris versus Rome

Paris and Rome are very different cities but they are also very similar in some ways. For example they’re both big cities with beautiful monuments like the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum. Both of these cities are also famous for good wine and food. The most tourist day on is probably Paris because it is so famous for the Eiffel Tower. Both the cities are European so they are pretty similar. My favourite city is Rome because the food is just amazing!!!

Elliot in Italy

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The plane ride from Tokyo to Milan was 16 hours, with a 1-hour layover in Shanghai, China. When we arrived in Milan we took a taxi to our hotel.

After Milan, we took three train rides to get to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is made of 5 villages and we stayed in Riomaggiore for 5 days. The other villages are called Monterosso, Vernazza, Manarola, and Corniglia.

 

After that, we went to Siena for 5 days. We were there for Easter Sunday and went for a two hour mass in Italian! In Italy, they have big chocolate eggs that are fancy and so for Easter I got an egg as big as my head…what?!? And I couldn’t even finish all the chocolate! That stinks, right? Then for the rest of the days….I forget.

Tuscany
After Siena, we went to our villa in Belforte in Tuscany. We arrived at a villa that was ginormous. Our friend’s were visiting us and their names were Mark, Scott, Jordyn, and Jeff (he’s the adult). We got settled in and then Mark, Scott and I made worlds in Minecraft. Mark was going to make a base and you need to kill pigmen, zombies, and skeletons. Then you need to get to the middle of the base and put one emerald on the beacon and then you win. We were also going to make a TNT run. So there will be three people and TNT everywhere and you need to run and try not to die. We made this ginormous house on a hill and then we were going to get an ender dragon and blow everything up. But I didn’t want that because it was so cool. Most of the time we played on our iPad’s together.

Here are some of the towns we’ve visited in Tuscany:

  • Montepulciano
  • Montalcino
  • San Gimignano
  • Volterra
  • Monteregiano
  • Rodicondoli
  • Belforte (the town where we lived)

Rome
From Tuscany, we went to Rome. In Rome, I got a condo and we thought our friends were staying in a different condo but they were like two floors up and it was awesome. There was a playground just down the street so we went there E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y. Close by was the Pantheon and it’s like a meteor crashed a hole in the top and that’s where all the light shone in. There was another place called St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s one of the biggest churches in the world and it’s in the smallest countries in the world called the Vatican. The Vatican has its own laws and postage stamps and mail system. It takes 40 minutes for anybody to run around the Vatican and the Pope of the church is the king of the country so he’s a Pope King with a sword and a staff.

Facts from Rome:

  • The Colloseaum had no start at first
  • The Colloseaum was flooded everywhere every year until they built the ??
  • The Trevi fountain has drinkable water
  • In the Trevi fountain, they collect 25,000 euros every year
  • The fight in the Colosseum started at 10 AM and ended at 4 PM
  • The emperor of Rome is King Caesar
  • A pope said if the walls of the Colosseum crumbled the world will crumble

Pompeii
Pompeii is a town outside of Naples that is covered in ash from a volcano eruption in 79AD. Archeologists uncovered most of the place. Some people got buried arrive in the ashes and they uncovered their bodies. There were these holes that measured how much food people get. So it works like this: If you want a big chicken for two dollars, two dollars equals a medium pot. So you give them two dollars and they put enough chicken to fill the two dollar pot.

Positano
Today we went to Positano and it was horrible. The road was twisty and I barfed after we got off the bus. The good thing was there was a lemonade slushy at the end. Every day we went to the beach. Positano was very little. Oh, I forgot, we climbed a hill to see the Black Madonna. It took 2 hours to get up there and it was in the blistering heat and you could go from one town to another by walking.

Castro Marina
Today we went to this place called a Frigitorria. They sell fish and calamari and so on. My favorite was the fried bread balls. They’re so good. Then we went home to go swimming. A couple of days letter we went to this place and bought a floaty mattress. Next day we walked to a supermarket. You have to walk like 400 steps because it was on a mountain.

A week later my grandma and grandpa came to visit us. They lived a couple of houses down from our place. The first day they came we went to a seafood restaurant called The Underground. The next day we ate breakfast and went out to the rocks to swim with my grandma and grandpa.

Today we rented a paddle boat. We had our grandma and grandpa with us and the paddle boat had a water slide. Two people sat in the front, so my grandma and dad were inside and my grandpa and mom were at the front. Me and my sister were sitting on the side. We went around a rock and went back and then we went swimming. At the start, this kid was holding onto my foot for some reason??

Today my mom, grandma, and grandpa went to Poland for a meeting, so my dad, Chloe and I went to a nearby town called Otranto. There was a church there with 800 people skulls and some skulls had holes in them. What you want to know is the way they died. They died because the others said to the Catholics if you don’t follow our religion we will execute you but the Catholics said NO! So you know what happened.

Tips for Italy:

  • Most gelato places have pistachio. If it’s bright green it’s not real gelato. If it’s an olive colour, then you know it’s real.
  • If you ask for a latte they’ll bring you a cup of hot milk because latte means milk in Italian.
  • Italians don’t eat meatballs with pasta. They eat pasta first and then meatballs separate.
  • They don’t wear white socks with sandals.