Perth

We went to Belmont, a shopping center, and looked around.

Then we drove down to the beach again. We had a little picnic. The water was very clear and beautiful.

Then we walked across a bridge. On the other side of the bridge there were a lot of stores, and restaurants. On the other side of the stores and restaurants, there was a walkway, which led to AQWA an aquarium. 

In AQWA, there were tons of moon jellies. There were poisonous sea jellies as well. They had clownfish, and whatever fish Dory is. There were also great nurse sharks, huge stingrays, and green sea turtles like Crush.

Later that evening, Jasmin, our great aunt, and I went back to Belmont to look around. We picked out a few stores we would like to come back to, but didn’t get anything.   

Perth

Today we went to the koala sanctuary. I was over excited. When we pulled up at the koala sanctuary there were a lot of peafowl walking around. It wasn’t just a koala sanctuary, but an exotic Australian animal sanctuary. There were peafowl, talking cockatoos, echidnas, bob-tailed lizards, emus, kookaburras, owls, dingoes, kangaroos, wallabies, deer, ostriches, pelicans, swans, and koalas!!!!!

The best part of going to the koala sanctuary was that we got to hold koalas. They were much heavier than I expected.

Plane/Sydney/Perth

I had woken up from an about 4 hour sleep. I was still tired. It was still dark outside; I had no idea, what time it was where the plane was. It was around 6:00 am in LA, and around 11:00 pm in Sydney. I played Bejewelled deluxe 2 for about half an hour, and then I fell back asleep on Jasmin for about 2 hours. When I woke up, it was still dark outside. We were about ¾ of the way there. I played a few games, after I got tired of staring at the TV screen for awhile I leaned back, and glanced out the window. I saw the first glimpse of dawn, a little pink on the horizon.

My dad (who was sitting in the window seat) took my iPod, and took a few pictures (including the one above). I played Tetris for some time, tried to see if the boys wanted to play against me, because you could connect to other peoples TV’s and play games against them. They didn’t want to play though. For breakfast I had scrambled eggs, tea, orange juice, fruit, and yogurt. Then I played Bejewelled deluxe 2 again. I did the puzzle mode, used a lot of hints, and finished it completely just an hour before we landed in Sydney.

When we were landing, I put the Skycam on, and I continuously said “We’re losing altitude!” To Jasmin, she got really bugged by that. When we landed, we had made an accomplishment; we had finally made it to The Land Down Under!

Because our flight was delayed, we missed our transfer flight to Perth, and everybody else missed their transfer flights to wherever. A Passenger Announcement told everybody, which flight they were switched to, except we were told which flight we were switched to.

When we got off the plane, we asked around to find out which flight we were put on, it also seems like we weren’t the only people who had missed the flight to Perth. After getting the information about our flight, we went through customs, snooped around a store, and went through security. On the other side of security, there was a bus stop. We had to take a bus to the domestic airport; we were still in the international airport. The bus drove on the tarmac to the domestic airport, there were some luggage on the round, where they had fallen off the luggage car, and it was good thing that it wasn’t ours.

Our plane was scheduled to leave at 10:10 AM, which was the same time that the A380 was supposed to leave, but at night. This plane was an A330, and it was only a 5 hour flight. The TV’s were much smaller. On the plane I finished watching We Bought a Zoo, and I watched The Hunger Games. For lunch I had Beef, polenta, juice, water, and a chocolate. I played Tetris, and a whole bunch of other games, for about an hour before the plane landed.         

Then FINALLY, the plane landed! We had finally made it to our final destination.

(We are the blue dot)

I was glad that I didn’t have to sit on anymore airplanes! We were greeted by our great aunt and great uncle. While Dad, Ben, and our great uncle claimed out baggage we Jasmin, Mom, Lukas, our great aunt, and I were on way to our great aunt, and great uncle’s house. As we pulled into the driveway, Lukas and I spotted the park across the street. We couldn’t wait to go and run around there.

We hopped out of the car, dropped our bags off at the house, and ran to the park. The park turned out to be a bike park. Lukas and I ran around on the structures. There were tons of trees to climb. There was a play structure in the way back, Lukas and I pretended we were monkeys and we climbed all over it. When the rental car with Ben, Dad, and our great uncle pulled into the driveway, I hoisted Lukas into a tree, and climbed in after him. Ben ran over to the park, he asked how we got up into the tree, we said we climbed.

After a while we got bored, so we went back to the house. We played around in the backyard. There was a Caster Board, which is two boards with a handle in the middle on wheels, and you had to move and balance on it. Then I took a bike to the bike park, and rode around on the obstacles. After biking, I learned how to play backgammon.

Our second cousins came, Maddie, Bella, Jordan, Carl, Charlotte, and Alicia. We played on our iPods, and had dinner. After dinner, because it was Carl’s birthday we had some cake for dessert. It was cheesecake, with Jell-o on top. Then I played on my iPod and tried to refrain from falling asleep. At 8:00 I couldn’t help it anymore, and I went to bed.    

La/Plane

Today; the day we embark on our journey to The Land Down Under. This day seemed to take forever, ever since the day I woke-up and played Hockey, until we finally got on the plane. Ben and I even tried time warping, so we could embark on the journey already. That didn’t go so well, so Lukas and I ended up in a pretend bar fight. For dinner we went to a nice Indian restaurant called Karma.

After dinner, we started on the long drive to the airport, which didn’t seem to take that long. The moment I stepped out of the rental car, and out onto the sidewalk that was in front of the airport, I knew that I was on my way. After checking our baggage, we explored the Duty Free Store. We didn’t get anything in the Duty Free Store, so we continued onto security, and hunting down our gate.

When we arrived at our gate, our plane was sitting just outside the window. It was huge! It had full two stories, like a flying house! It was a Qantas A380! We got to sit in economy, which was on the bottom level, and was pretty far back, but it was still very cool. As we started boarding, I could feel the excitement bubbling inside of me. I ran excitedly down the jet way and onto the plane.

As I sat in the aisle seat, I was also trying to look out the window, and trying to see what I could do with the little TV screens on the back off the chairs in front of us, all at the same time. I was ready to go to Australia. As I poked around on the TV screen, I found out that it had, a Skycam, a camera on the tail, the flight path, entertainment (which consists of movies, games, TV, the radio, and music), and lots more.

I started watching We Bought a Zoo, but was interrupted by the announcement that said that they were closing the doors, and we would soon take-off. It was cut off again, for them to announce that the handle had come of the door had come off into the guys hand!! They tried to put it back on, and I took two and a half hours! Then we had to be cleared to land by Sydney, which took a little while. Then because we were on such a big plane, we had to use a special part of the runway, and for some reason, we were stopped for 5-10 minutes.

 During the take off, I had set my TV to the Skycam. It was very interesting to watch us take off from the tails point of view. By the time we finally got into the air, I was ready to fall asleep, but when I found a comfortable spot to rest my head on the armrest, Jasmin kept trying to push me off her “arm space.”

*Note: We didn’t really have a July 1^st. It was only a few hours; we took off at about 12:30 am, which was half an hour into July 1^st, so happy Canada Day! Ten I fell asleep, and by the time we woke up, we were, or had crossed the International Date Line. This changed July 1st into July 2nd. I am not going to Blog for July 1^st, because I was sleeping for most of it.    

Day 2 July 1, 2011 Canada Day

Today is Canada Day! We all were told to get dressed in a Canada t-shirt so we did. After that the three girls (Jasmin, Colette and I) went downstairs and finished making our fort. It was very complicated. Jasmin took umbrellas from the part of the basement that is our Jiddo’s (aerobic for grandfather) work area. I told Jasmin she shouldn’t, but then I regretted it because know we have the best fort ever. There were a few holes that needed patching up. The boys wanted a cool fort too. We tried helping them but everything we suggested they didn’t like. We brought all our candy that Colette gave us down into the fort. Colette also brought our iPods and my charger down. It was a nice comfy fort.


Later at 2:00 we left our grandparent’s house to go to some of our friends. I slept on the car ride there. Our friends live by a water tower, so every water tower we drove by I kept asking if it was theirs. Their drive way was decorated with little Canadian flags. The boys wanted to take one home. When we got inside Jasmin and I got WIFI so we could update our electronic devises (or get a few apps). We went outside and James (one of the kids we were visiting, he has a brother named Alex) gave me an iPad charger so I could charge my iPod. We had a drawing contest. We had to draw something Canadian. I drew a moose my sister had to help me draw the antlers. My sister drew a beaver and a Montréal Canadiens symbol. There was other people at the party too, a girl named Serena and a boy named David. After the drawing contest we played a game called Bingo. Bingo is a game when there is a ball and you through it at a person and if the person misses it they get a letter or if you through poorly you will get a letter, the first one who spells bingo is out, and that was me. Then we had a Canadian pop quiz. We each had teams. There were random Canadian questions, such as who is the Prime minister of Canada, name three famous Canadians. The one question that my team got stuck on is who the voice of Sherk is. Our team leader (Alex) put down Jim Carrey when it really was Mike Myers.

Day 1 June 30, 2011

As soon as the plane had landed I knew we were home. I was bursting with energy. I was about to explode with happiness. Everything was going great. It got even better as soon as we arrived at my grandparents house. After I set my back down upstairs, I ran back down stairs strait to the basement. We all (me, Ben, Lukas, and Jasmin) were playing when our Tita (Tita is aerobic for grandmother) came down stairs to the basement and told us that our cousins were coming in a few hours. I was getting happier just the thought of seeing Colette again. Colette and I have been e-mailing each other every day since left our house in February, but now seeing her again got me bursting with even more happiness.

After we ate dinner we went back down to the basement just to come back up and greet our cousins at the door. I almost squeezed my cousin to death with hugs. We went up stairs to get my cousin settled in. We all exchanged presents, Colette gave Jasmin and I tons of presents. I got all these stitch (from Lilo and stitch) things. We also got a hoard of candy. She also gave us bubbles and Frisbees. After we put all our stuff a way we went to the basement and started building a fort. It took a little while because it kept falling down. When we were less than half through we had to go up stairs had go to bed. It was around 11:00 or 8:00 pacific time. I had trouble falling asleep that night. I got out of the bed and went to the floor where my cousin was also trying to fall asleep, but couldn’t. We talked little while until we woke up Jasmin and told us to go to sleep. So we tried.

Week 5-Cadiz July 31

Day 1


We did Ben's walk. It was so interesting and confusing. The first things we saw were two arches. After them the walk sort of got confusing. We went up, then right, and then suddenly we were on a break off. In the humble of a jumble we came upon the cathedral it was so huge and pretty. We went up in the bell tower you could see forever. It even gave certain things to look at. Jasmin and I tried to find all of them. Then we went to the cathedral museum. I really liked that. My favorite thing in it was the miniature gold cathedral that holds the Eucharist during Easter, it was so pretty. The last thing on the walk was the arch that separated the “old city” and the “new town”. Inside it was a press museum. That was my favorite thing. Mom told us about how grandma used to do it. She also told us how they did it. It was so cool (in both ways, how they did it and the stuff in the room [I guess you could say it was cool in there too]). Then we went to the beach. At the beach Jasmin and I wave surfed until mom came in then we talked to her when she always comes in. Shortly after she had gone out of the water I went out because I was cold. Then Jasmin came out because she had nobody to play with. We wrote stuff on the sand about each other. After that we helped the boys finish their castle, Jasmin helped Lukas on the moat and I helped Ben on the crazy windy road. Jasmin found the same hermit crab as yesterday.

 Day 2


We walked across the peninsula, it was very narrow. At the other side we saw a big building that said “Bahia de Cadiz”. Jasmin wanted to know if it was a shopping mall. We went in and it was. We continued our search for the plate. First we went up stairs and up there was a bookstore, a cafeteria, toy store, and a cinema. Jasmin found the English books! Hurrah for Jasmin! Jasmin and I each got a book. I got a book called “The Book of Tomorrow” and she got “Handle with Care”. Then we went down stairs took look for a plate, down there we found an electronic store and a large grocery store. There were a few plates, but they wert the ones we were looking for. We went back up stairs to eat lunch at the cafeteria. I got a sandwich with a sunny side-up egg, some bacon, chicken, three slices of bread (one on the top, on the bottom, and one in the middle),and some mayonnaise (of course). Mom had the exact same thing; Jasmin had bread with ham and cheese, Lukas had crocquettas, and Ben had penne pasta. After lunch we went to check out the cinema, we all wanted to see “Toy Story 3” except it was in Spanish and the cinema was closed because it was Saturday. When we walked home it was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, etc. windy. Then we went to the beach. It had no waves because the wind blew the waves the other direction. Then I went through a lot to build a fancy-patterned farm land. At first I tried building it in between us and the waves, but the waves kept coming up and destroying it. I repeated that multiple times. Then I tried digging a hole to the wet sand and make a farm land in there, but it was too curved and too small. Then I tried to gather water in a bucket and dump it on the sand so it would get wet and make it there, but the wet sand formed a shell and when I went to make a farm land the wet sand would get stuck in my rake to reveal dry sand underneath. Finally the waves went down a little bit so I was finally able to make it. After mom took my picture the waves got to it, and we left. Then after supper and ice cream we went to the beach.




Day 3


Today started off slow we stayed at home and played. We played on the computer. Then we went to the beach it was really yucky, the waves were really filled with seaweed and the open part after he waves was so yucky too, there were dead birds and stuff from the rocks. It was so nasty. So we went in and played monkey in the middle. Then we came to the beach. I found a really cool hermit crab. It was small but it wasn’t. Ben and Lukas found tons and we made a crab zoo. Jasmin made a hole that was right behind us. Then she made a channel, it took water from ours into hers then it drained water form hers then through the rock lined channel that had a few twist and turns and into a large hole that we let our hermit crabs go in to when we left.

 Day 4



We went on Lukas' walk. Mine started right next to his, so we walked next to each other until mine broke off. It was a short walk and we saw a lot of stuff we saw on my walk. After lunch we went to an ice cream store mom had thought it was puny but it wasn’t so she thanked us for convincing her to go to it. When we got home we rested then we went to the beach. The beach was so clean unlike yesterday. Mom came in right after we came in. Then the boys left so we played monkey in the middle in the water. Then the boys came back in. They clung to mom. Ben came up underneath me and he freaked me out. So when mom went in, I stayed where I could touch. Then I went in and tried to convince mom to play monkey in the middle but it was too windy so we left. After supper we went crabbing. We met two kids. They helped us catch crabs. We caught twenty or more crabs. Then we walked to the other rock pier to let the crabs go. While we were doing it the boys watched the sunset. I was so bummed that I didn’t get to watch it.

 Day 5



We went hermit crabbing. The boys found most of the hermit crabs. Jasmin and I went to look for crabs on the rock pier, but the crabs aren’t morning animals. We came back with none. We went crabbing again. This time we were successful and we got two big crabs (the man that gave them to us took off the pinchers). We also caught a lot of small ones. We missed the sunset again.



Day 6


We went on Jasmin’s walk. It was also our second last day. Jasmin’s was nice. We went by souvenir shops and tons of other things that were on other people’s walk. The last thing on the walk was the museum of Cadiz. We had lunch before we went in it. We all had mini pizzas. Inside the museum was everything: archeology, paintings, modern art, puppets etc. That was my favorite thing we did on Jasmin's walk. We got home around five so we didn’t go to the beach to swim. We ate supper went to the beach and caught tons of crabs. Then we all went swimming in our clothes!!!!! Then we (Jasmin and I) gave a fisherman and his wife our crabs and left the beach.

 Day 7


We went crabbing. A fisherman gave us lines with hooks on them. We each caught one giant crab mine only had one pincher, but it was huge! We also caught tons of small crabs. The boys went hermit crabbing after they caught their crabs. They had tons of hermit crabs. I wish we had gotten the lines when we first came here instead of on our last day. We were leaving for Madrid the next day. We came back to the beach after lunch. Our beach was all sea weedy so we went to the other beach, this time we sat with other families. We met this one family from Canada; we talked to them for some time. I got buried and so did Jasmin, then we were all sandy. Then we went and packed everything, had dinner, and came back to the beach to walk along the water. After the sun set mom took pictures of us jumping. I had a wonderful time.

 Day 8



Today we woke up really early and went to the train station. We took a train to Seville that one I got a major head ache! The one to Madrid we watched Inkheart, we found the English channel so we didn’t have to watch it in Spanish. When we got to Madrid we took a metro to the airport and we caught a bus to take us to our hotel. After we got settled in we went to find a mall. It took us a long time because we were supposed to take one street up but instead we went the other way so we went around a thing of buildings instead of going up the street. When we go there we went shopping and had supper at a Brazilian restaurant.



Epilogue (Day 9)


We woke up early, packed everything up, caught our bus, went through the airport, and got to our airplane. On the airplane I watched movies most of the time. When we landed in Canada I wanted to stay and visit everybody but we had to get to the next flight. In our gate to Los Angeles we met Michele who works for AirCanada. She gave us lollipops before the airplane. On that airplane I listened to songs. When we landed I wanted to get home as soon as possible. I was glad we didn’t have to wait long until dad came with the car. When I got into the car I instantly fell asleep. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep when we got home.