Traveling!

I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to write to you in the past few weeks. I've been in Paris with my friend so things have been hectic.

We left early in the morning for the Avignon T.G.V. station and left for Paris. After three hours we arrived and were greeted by our friends, Serge and Isabelle. We were driven twenty minutes to their house. It was really big! They had a small house and a big house on the same property. The main house was called the "Captainerie" and was built in the 15th century as the house for the captain of the guard for the nearby chateau. The chateau belonged to a mistress of Louis XIV, but was destroyed during the Revolution. This is what it now looks like:

Everyone was staying in the main house, while Raphael and I stayed in the small house. They had two gardens out in front of their house. I put my luggage in my bedroom, and Raphael and I went on a tour of the local town. It was a cosy town with big houses in it and numerous dogs on walks with their owners. In their backyard, Raphael had set up an archery target. It was my first time using a bow and arrow, and after an hour I wasn't hitting trees and statues in their garden, but was actually hitting the target.

We went sight seeing in Paris, over the next three days. A few of the highlights being a river boat cruise on the Seine river from the Eiffel tower to the Ile St Louis, and on this island enjoying a Paris favourite, "Berthillon" ice-cream.
My favourite shops in Paris were the "Warhammer" shop. I love the intricate detail of the Warhammer figures, and the numerous colours of the paints.
We saw these beautiful stained glass windows in the church of Sainte-Chapelle:

And we played with sail boats in the Jardin de Luxembourg:

I was supposed to leave Paris together with my parents on Saturday, but we made arrangements for me to stay with my friend Raphael for another week, and I drove home to Provence with him on the following Thursday. The day after Mum, Dad and Ivy left, Raphael's uncle Pascal came to the house and let us use one of his four PS3s for the time that I was there. Lucky for us; it was quite rainy and miserable for a few days so we got to stay inside and play for hours.

On the last afternoon we went to Pascal's eye laboratory where we had a look at his work, which is the manufacture of resin eyes. He was making some fake eyes when we arrived and the whole place stunk of glue! I got to hold one of the eyes and it was so cool! I also was able to try on a contact lens with stripes. It was funny. Raphael and I also played on his PS3 at the workshop.

On Thursday we drove eight hours to get home. I was so exhausted that night.

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A few days after arriving home from Paris, Mum, Dad and Ivy and I drove down to the south coast of France, to the Riviera. We started at Cassis. We drove up to the top of Cassis and admired the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean.

From there we drove to Sanary sur Mer which is a small fishing village about an hour away from Cassis. We strode along the esplanade and watched the seagulls pick all the remains of the fish out of the nets strewn along the docks. I had a coffee ice-cream with grains. In France, they have a drink called 'Orangina' which is like fizzy orange juice. We ate salami and bread for lunch, and drank a cup of Orangina.
From Sanary sur Mer we drove to Cavalaire sur Mer, where we had a swim in the clear water. I enjoyed swimming down to the bottom of the ocean and sitting there. I swam to a pontoon on the water and jumped off it. I also played touch rugby with some French people. There were some jellyfish bobbing around in the water so we all steered clear of that spot.

Our final destination, St Tropez, was definitely the best part of my day. We looked at the posh people and expensive shops and walked down to the docks where we saw about a hundred boats docked. But the special thing about them was that they were all mega luxury boats. They each had two or three floors with couches out on the decks and glass revolving doors into the lounge. The walkway from the boats to the docks extended out hydraulically, and touched the dock. On one of the boats, one of the crew members opened the back, to reveal a jet-ski and a small tender inside!

We enjoyed dinner at a seafood restaurant, over-looking the port. From here, we could see the 'beautiful' people getting on and off their boats.

I'm going to school again on Thursday so we will be getting back into everyday life of learning French and playing with friends.

Au Revoir!

HaRiBo

Hello everyone! The weather here has been really hot lately, ranging from thirty to thirty-five degrees. The other day it came down to into the twenties. I must say, I prefer it better when it's cold.

We were in a sugar wonderland on Saturday because we went to the Haribo museum. What's Haribo? It's a German lolly company, started by Hans Riegel from Bonn, that sells all kinds of lollies and sweets to the whole of Europe. We set off that morning ready to explore all the secrets of Haribo and eat all we could get our hands on. As we pulled up in the parking lot, we were suprised by the sheer number of people, all walking to and queuing up for the Haribo museum and the shop!

While Mum and Dad queued up for the museum, Ivy and I explored the lolly shop. It was huge! There were sacks of lollies from marshmallows to jelly babies and tubs of karate belts to coke bottles. When we arrived inside we were given free samples and silver coins to use in the machine room in the fifth room. The first room was the room of history and production, the second room was my favourite because it was about how Haribo used to advertise and what brands they used to be a part of. The third room was about scents and the ingredients that they use in their lollies. The fourth room was about where the ingredients are imported from and the fifth room was the machine room where by using the silver coins, we could watch our own lollies being made in front of us. Later when we left, the line snaked it's way all the way down the footpath outside of the museum. Lucky we got there early!

Au Revoir

Friends and Family

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't written to you recently. I've been really busy with friends and family so I haven't had time to write. The last few weeks were great because I had a trip from my great-uncle Terry and great-aunt Jean and later, my friends Jack and Georgia and their parents.

We went to Fontaine de Vaucluse to see the paper museum with Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean. I really enjoyed it because of the paper machine which was powered by the stream outside. There was a hallway which went from the paper museum out off the museum. The whole group was happy that afternoon because we went to Isle sur la Sorgue to get an ice-cream from Isabella's ice-cream shop. The line at Isabella was huge and that was only to buy a normal ice-cream! The line to get a seat for a big ice-cream was even bigger so we went next door and bought an ice-cream excactly the same as the ice-creams next door!

Dad, Uncle Terry, Aunty Jean and I went to the Camargue again because they had said that they wanted to go there with us.

On the way there we stopped at St Remy de Provence and dropped Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean off at the markets to look around while Dad and I drove two minutes to Glanum archaeological site. These are ruins of an old town from the sixth century! It was buried under two meters of dirt before they dug around columns coming out of the ground and found a village, three hundred metres long! There were numerous baths with Roman and Gaulish coins in them as offerings to Glan, God of healing. There was a big gate halfway in the town which divided the poorer people and the richer people. I was amazed at how hygienic the town was! There was a fresh water stream under the path and a sewerage stream too! There were stairs which led up a hill to higher levels of terraces. Their food was a lot like ours now! They had bread, cheese, milk and meat from various livestock and water from a fresh stream near them. Vincent van Gogh stayed in St Remy de Provence and after in a mental asylum overlooking the ruins, though back then they weren't dug up.

Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean really enjoyed the bird sanctuary and St Maries de la Mer. Last time we went there we were allowed to climb on the roof of the local church but Dad had read in the newspaper that the church minister had won the court case against the mayor, to stop people doing it. When we arrived we were surprised to see people still on the roof! The beach was perfect so we had a stroll along the promenade before we headed home.

The day that Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean left was the day that Jack and Georgia arrived! The second they arrived, I took off with Jack and showed him around town for a bit before we drove to Vito's restaurant. Pascal and his family and Lugdivine and her family were there too, so we played with their children.

We only had one full day together with Jack and Georgia, so we woke up early and jumped into the activities for the day. Us children first walked to the lake and swum. We jumped off a small pont and we sun baked for an hour before the parents arrived and took us home.

After lunch we drove to the Ventoux Adventure Park near the lake. It was fantastic! We put on harnesses and we climbed around. My favourite part was the numerous flying foxes and the thick cables that we had to walk along! There were five parts with different difficulty levels and I did the hardest one! From the lake you can see a big banner that advertises the park and I climbed onto the under side of it.

I loved the evening because there was a fete on in Mormoiron so we walked into town to have some fun! There was a booth were you shot at balloons and the prizes were air guns! I won a pistol and a packet of pellets.

We woke up early the next morning to say goodbye to our friends because they were driving down to Barcelona to get on a three week cruise! Sounds great, doesn't it?

That's all for next week, see you next time!

Au Revoir!