Today there was wind on the southern edge of Crete. Not so much as the wind a few days ago that come north from Africa, but there was still enough wind to make the waves be big. The beach that we went to was the Saint Paul Sandhills. It is just around the point from Saint Paul beach, but it was still nice.

At first, I went out and swam around in the 3 to 4 foot waves, and then I got out when I got tired. We all tanned for a while before Eryn and I climbed a big rock. Eryn and I then walked around the corner of the rock in the ocean and came back to the parents. After a bit of tanning again, my father and I went out and swam in the big waves.

Some of the waves were bigger than others, and my father and I stayed out farther than where the waves broke. We rode up and down, going from trough to top to trough again. Some waves broke a long ways out and were powerful. My father lost his hat in one of them, but recovered it.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went out around 9 o’clock and drove south. When arriving on the southern shore of Crete, we went to our first beach. Along the way, we went down a paved road, turned around, and then went down a badly kept gravel and rocky road.

At the bottom, we found a nicely surfaced dirt road and drove on it until it joined up with a paved road. We went down to the beach and lay out on the sand and occasionally jumped around in the waves. After about an hour of doing that, we got back in the car and found a paved road going up the hill. It came out 5 feet after the place where we had turned around the car. Oh, well.

After that  beach, we drove for several hours and looked out over lots of beaches. We decided to do the Paul Sandhills beach again tomorrow morning and then walk along the beach. When we got home, my father and I swam in the pool while my sister worked on her math test.

That’s all for now, Folks!

I have (currently) one more math problem for the entire year…too bad. I will finish it before I go to bed, however. In any case, there was wind here today. It started last night about the time when I came in from playing football.

The wind was loud. My family reported that the wind howled through the night. I was too busy sleeping. I woke up this morning and had breakfast with my sleep deprived family. We then looked out the window and couldn’t see the ocean so decided not to go to the beach.

We sat inside and did schoolwork before staying inside some more and doing some things like playing Minecraft. We then went out to get some stuff from a supermarket and then got some bread from the bakery. Later, we went to dinner. After dinner, we learned that the dust came from Africa.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Some people out in my audience might not classify a palace as a castle, but it is close enough for what I wanted, which was alliteration in the title of my post.  Today we went to a castle, or palace, if you prefer it that way.

The palace was the Knossos Palace, under which is situated the labyrinth which used to house the Minotaur. Since you either know or do not care, I will not bore you with the tales of Theseus and the Minotaur; suffice to say that the first one killed the latter. The palace, going back to the original subject, is in ruins, not surprising, considering the fact that it was built around 2000 B.C.

We took the guided tour and walked around, learning about the throne room, how the queen had makeup, about the first toilet, and other interesting factoids. The palace has the oldest mosaic, throne, staircase, theatre and road in Europe. The Minoans were also the oldest civilization in Europe.

After about an hour and a half, the tour ended and we got ourselves some fresh juice. On the way home from the Iraklion area, we stopped by a store and bought their whole supply of juicy red cherries.

That’s all for now, Folks!

This morning, after a bit of breakfast, we left the house and went to beaches. The first beach that we visited was called Saint Paul Sandhills, and there was a fair amount of people in swimwear… or lack thereof. After a bit of sunbathing there, we drove for 3 hours to go 3 kilometers along the coastline. The roads were un-surfaced and bad and sometimes ended up at people’s farms. Oh, well, at least we got to where we wanted.

At this next beach, I swam around and climbed on rocks before it was time to go and we got into the car and started home. It may sound like not much, but there was a lot of driving time. On the way to the first beach, though, we did see lots and lots of grasshoppers hopping around on the road.

After staying at the house for a while, we went out to eat at a Taverna. We had lots of food and came back stuffed with deliciously delicious food. It was all good, homemade, and healthy. Well, most of it, but still, as I might have mentioned, the food was good.

That’s all for now, Folks!

…or lack thereof. Today was interesting. We spent most of it planning what to do on other days. We got up this morning and ate breakfast inside and then sat around, read comics, played Minecraft (only me) read books, and looked at possible beaches to which we might drive.

Around 3 pm, my parents and I went out to swim and swam for about half an hour. Eryn just sat in the poolside shade and read a kindle. When we got back inside, we read for a bit before eating dinner out on the patio. The dinner mainly consisted of rice and beans.

After dinner, Eryn and I went and played with Maria and Bobby. Before long, two boys (ages 6 and 9) came out and played with us too. We played football and then basketball and then tossed balls around. Bobby and I rode on his bike down the hill and around the road. I rode on the axels.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Last night, after I posted yesterday’s post, Eryn and I went outside and played basketball and football. Football, in this case, means what you Americans might call soccer. I call it football. In any case, Eryn and I played with Bobby and Maria, twin 10 year olds. Before we came back in for bed, we promised to play tonight after dinner.

This morning, I went out and shot some hoops with the basketball that they had left behind and eventually, when the kids came up, played with them while Eryn stayed inside. After a day of sitting inside, we went out to eat. By the late time that we got back, the kids weren’t there and the balls were gone.

Oh, well. That is a shame. Still, though, we will have time to play again, I hope. As I was saying earlier, we did nothing very interesting today, though we did swim in the pool, which was blissfully cool in the spring heat.

That’s all for now, Folks!

We, in case you couldn’t tell from the title, have arrived in Crete. After a good night’s sleep aboard the ship last night, we bumped against the dock this morning around 6:30. When we got off, the boat, we found our rental car and got in. After driving for a bit through Heraklion, we found a bakery and bought some pastries and pies.

We then drove for about an hour before arriving at our new house. On the way, Eryn and I looked at a map, which showed a gigantic waterpark. Sadly, it is a ways away from where we are staying, but that is okay. On the way here, we saw a much smaller waterpark, but it didn’t look as fun.

The place where we are staying has a pool. Tonight before dinner, Eryn and I both swam in the pool. It was nice to swim after months of not doing so.

That’s all for now, Folks!

In South Africa, when we were at, I believe, the Haven Hotel, I told you all out there about the changes of a woman’s life. When they are young, they want horses, when they get a bit older, they want a man, and when they get older and older, the want to go on a cruise ship. In other words, the way of a woman’s life can be summed up in one word; horsemanship…horse, man, ship.

Today my mother, who is in the 3^rd stage of that cycle, probably got on to the closest thing to a cruise. The boat in which we are all riding is large. It may not be the largest boat in the harbor, but it is still very large. There are 9 decks in total as far as I can tell, and we are staying on deck 4. Our tickets may say that we are in room 4009, but I can assure you that the plaque on the outside of the door says 4033.

The levels below us are just for cars and trucks, so we are the lowest possible. The main deck from which you can feel the breeze is number 9. As I said earlier, it is a big ship, and it is big enough to even have a pool. Sadly, though, the pool wasn’t open to swimmers, so we spent a dry afternoon and evening. Tonight, after getting on the boat, we ate dinner at one of the onboard restaurants.

That’s all for now, Folks!

In the state capital, Athens, members of the elite Evzones light infantry unit, provide a 24-hour honor guard, with an hourly guard change, at the Presidential Mansion and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier off Syntagma Square at the foot of the Hellenic Parliament. The Changing the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in particular has become a tourist attraction, with many people marveling at the guards, who stand motionless for two 20-minute intervals, during their 1 hour shifts.

Or so says Wikipedia. We saw that changing of the Guard today in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Since you probably learned more than you wanted or needed to about the whereabouts of the Guards, and what they are, so I will go into something that my sister would enjoy…maybe.

The Evzones wore tassels hanging from the back of their hats. Those tassels were then draped over the shoulder and then hung down the front of the tan colored clothing. On the back of the tights, at about knee-height, there was a ball of black cloth fluff hanging on both legs. On top of the shoes, as well, was a puffball.

That’s all for now, Folks!

The Acropolis area is large. In my opinion, it includes the Ancient Agora, the Acropolis, the Zeus Temple, and Hadrian’s arch, not to mention a few other things. Today we explored that area further than yesterday. Yesterday, if you didn’t read my post, we went to the Acropolis and visited the a Parthenon in warm Greek weather.

Today we explored the Ancient Agora, a nearby hill, and peeked inside the Acropolis museum. The Agora was mainly a bunch of ruins that some people thought was very interesting. The most interesting, picture-worthy, and noteworthy thing there in my opinion and a bunch of others’ was the large amount of tortoises.

Actually, the best thing in the Agora was the Temple of Hephaestus, which is the most preserved piece of ancient art in the world. We eventually left the Agora and went up to a hill. We then went and saw the Acropolis museum, to see what we missed. Sadly, photographs were not allowed to be taken for some odd reason.

That’s all for now, Folks!

The sun is hot…I am sweating. Bodies are pressing against me and stinking of sweat as I try to get through the line. I am almost to the front…almost there…

I got there. Eventually, after only a little bit of time, my family and I got to the front of the line and bought our tickets for the Acropolis. For those of you who haven’t, like me, studied archeology or anything like that, then you probably will not know that the Parthenon and the Acropolis are not the same thing, despite ‘common knowledge.’ The Acropolis is a wide field surrounding a plateau.

On that plateau, there are a bunch of ruins, the most important one being the Acropolis. The Acropolis is in ruins, now, of course, and there is a crane sticking out of the middle on ‘restoration.’ I knew that Greeks were smart, but I didn’t expect that.

That’s all for now, Folks!

When we got into the airport,
We saw a bunch of Greek,
We ate a bagful of pastries,
And tried of Greek to speak.

We failed much at this large task,
then got into a cab,
We drove for a while to our flat,
At there we saw now crabs.

Even though Athens was renowned for its navy in the Greek wars against Persia, we cannot see the ocean from our flat. So, because of that, we saw no crabs. We live inland a bit, on a 7 floor building. We are on the sixth. We arrived in Athens after a 3 hour plane ride this morning from Paris, waking up too early.

We are starting to learn the Greek alphabet, which only has 24 characters!

That’s all for now, Folks!

We drove for a long ways today. We drove all the way from Lauterbrunnen to Paris in one day in our gray Ford Focus. We started around 8 this morning and drove north. We first passed through Interlaken and then drove on the northern side of Lake Thun. We then passed through Thun and continued on our way going northwest.

We passed through Bern, the capitol of Switzerland, and then continued on our way. We eventually crossed the border and entered, low and behold, GERMANY! We went for a while on German roads before crossing a canal and arriving in France once again.

We continued on, and while I read some more of J. R. R. Tolkien, my father drove us across France. At around 6 o’clock in the evening and checked into our Hilton hotel near the Orly Airport. We eventually ate dinner in the Eastern terminal and then came back here, to our hotel.

That’s all for now, Folks!

CH stands for the Confoederatio de Helvetica. In English, that means the Confederacy of the Swiss, or the Swiss Confederacy, or something along those lines. In the case of my title above, it does not mean that we went on a large ocean liner filled with people and swimming pools galore, I mean a simple cruise around a lake.

We woke up this morning and left our house around 11:15 and hopped on a ubiquitous train down to Interlaken. In Interlaken, we used our 6-day passes and got onto a boat headed around the Brienz Lake. We stopped several times around the lake before finally getting to Brienz. We stepped out for a bit and took some pictures and bought a chocolate bar and some raspberries before getting back in the boat and heading back towards Interlaken.

After we got back to Eastern Interlaken, we took the train to Grindelwald, and rode up a tramway that was included in our ticket and hadn’t yet been ridden by my family and me. We looked around on the top and stepped into the UNESCO Park before hopping back out again and catching the tram down. We went up to Bort again and Eryn and I played on the rope and wood playground while my parents ate chocolate.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Jungfraujoch… the top of Europe, is the highest railway station in all of Europe. It is at an elevation of 11,332 feet above sea level and is only two hours’ train ride from Lauterbrunnen. Today I will be telling you how close we got and why we were only that close.

We went up towards Klein Scheidegg and changed trains there. We got on the red train going up towards Jungfraujoch and rode upwards until the first stop: Eigergletscher.  Eigergletscher is the highest train station that we can go to with our six-day passes without paying extra.

We shivered a while at Eigergletscher before riding the train back down towards Klein Scheidegg. We caught the train back down towards Lauterbrunnen, and, when we got there, my mother and I scoped out Lauterbrunnen’s recycling capabilities. It wasn’t much… only plastic bottles, glass bottles, and aluminum cans.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Again, like many a day in Cape Town, the three of us (Mother, Eryn, and I) played miniature golf. We played on a course that we had seen yesterday while walking through Grindelwald, hence the title of this particular post.

When we left this morning, we went down into Interlaken and walked around in search of something that we didn’t fully understand. We didn’t find that thing, and so we went back to the train station and rode it up to Grindelwald. In Grindelwald, we walked to the miniature golf place and paid the fee. We went through all 18 holes.

The holes were different from most; one of them was a vertical loop, another was a jump into a net, and another was a horizontal loop. They were all fun, even though I lost. When we finished playing, we found my father again and walked to the train station and took the train back to Lauterbrunnen via Klein Scheidegg.

That’s all for now, Folks!

When we woke up this morning, we didn’t know what we would see or do today. We thought about going up to Klein Scheidegg and playing in the snow, but we never imagined seeing flying diapers. Unlike the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service, I think that the flying diapers that we saw didn’t want to do anything to help hurt people.

When we left the house, we took the train up to Klein Scheidegg and romped around a bit before heading down to Grimmelwald. From there, we took a tramway up to the ‘First’ Station. While on the way up, we saw a sign that said ‘Restez Assis’… interesting. We walked around on the top for a bit, going to a lake and seeing frogs, before coming back.

On our way back down, we saw some people riding down cables in red harnesses. We thought that that was interesting and noted it. When the people got out, the red ‘diapers’ flew back up the cables, two at a time. They were actually hooked on a rope, but it looked like the harnesses were flying.

That’s all for now, Folks!

That is what we saw today. We went up to the top station and walked around in the snow. However, that wasn’t until late in the afternoon. We first left the house around 11 o’clock, and walked for a while out to a set of waterfalls.

That set of 10 waterfalls is famous for all being inside a cliff face and not being on the outside, like a bunch of the other waterfalls in the valley. We rode up the Ascensor on the inside of the cliff and then climbed around the top 5 waterfalls. We worked our way down to the bottom waterfall and then left.

We eventually got to the train station and rode the train up to Kleine Scheidegg , which is the station at the top. We got out of the train and hiked up a ways through the snow until we found a nice viewpoint. I threw some snowballs at my family, accidently hitting my mother in the neck with one. Sadly, though, I missed most of the time.

That’s all for now, Folks!

In yesterday’s post, I told you that we had driven to Switzerland. Today, we did a bit of exploring around Lauterbrunnen and found some nice things. One of those nice things was snow, and in great quantity. For those of you who have been skiing high up in the Cascades of the Rockies or in any mountain range, you will have seen lots and lots of snow; we didn’t see that much.

After having breakfast and wishing Mother a happy Mother’s day, we set out to the train station and got tickets for 6 days before hopping on a train and going up. We went up until the end of the line at about 2000 meters above sea level, and found snow. Not enough snow to ski on, but still enough to make lots and lots of snowballs. I did. I never hit anybody up at the top, even though I got close.

We rode some more rails back into Lauterbrunnen and then went up the tramway. At the top, we took a train to Murren. There, I found some more snow and threw at least a dozen snowballs at the rest of my family…only a few of them found their mark. We then rode the rails back to the tram and trammed back down to Lauterbrunnen.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Lauterbrunnen means ‘louder fountain.’ We think that that is signifying the 72 waterfalls scattered about the valley of Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen is in Switzerland, and it we drove into Switzerland and from France today.

After yesterday’s French activities, today we drove. By the way, the answer to yesterday’s riddle is ‘mice.’ In any event, today we drove. We started out around 9 o’clock, and drove until we got to the French border. At a border shop, we bought a highway ticket, so we could go on the highways of Switzerland, and then we were off.

We drove through groves of yellow and green trees and mountains. We went through tunnels and on the lakeside before finally driving into Lauterbrunnen. We then found our new accommodation, which isn’t super luxurious and mansion-like, but it does the job, as we won’t be here too long.

That’s all for now, Folks!

A River Beside,
with mighty rains coming still,
a house with flooding

Roughly describes our time during the flooding. A more peaceful haiku of our time here might go like this,

Sunlight on Flowers,
yellow in mustard fields,
the beauty of France

Shows how beautiful France can be if you come in the right season; just after the rain, and right as the flowers are blooming. Since, however, I am more into riddles and limericks; I bestow this one upon you:

Green Willow trees,
Upon some blue rivers,
Flowing to the seas,
Water it delivers

Rain clouds gather,
In the blue sky above,
Rivers lather,
Releasing the above.

And so on and so forth. I probably could go on for a while, but you get the idea.

That’s all for now, Folks!

PS:

It scurries all ‘round,
all the crumbs to eat,
it makes no sound,
To cats, MEAT!

That is a riddle that I composed today. The answer will be in tomorrows post.

Today was the Day of the Death March. Luckily for us, it did not rain today, so it was an okay walk. We first drove to a lake about 5 kilometers out of town and then parked in a nearby parking lot. We left the car (locked) and walked down to the beach to look at the water.

Seeing as though it wasn’t warm enough, there were not any people in swimsuits, only in sweat suits. We went past them all and crossed the lake on a bridge before starting to circumnavigate the lake. The lake was 12 kilometers all the way around, and we did all of it in 3 hours. Not exactly our best time, but still…

When we finished walking around the lake, we got back in the car and drove to a supermarket. After Eryn and Mother finished doing the necessary shopping for dinner, we drove back to the house. In the house, we did whatever we wanted to do until it was time for dinner. After a dinner of pasta, zucchini, and salad, we retired to the salon and read books.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was a rainy day. I mostly sat inside and read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. From time to time, I got up and had a break from my usual repertoire of sitting around, but mostly, it was the same as when it rains here.

I speak like I know the rain here. I may not know the rain, but I sure do know the chocolate bars. We have sampled countless flavors of chocolate bars, from lemon and ginger to pate de almande. We have tried so many flavors that they mostly blend together. Today, for instance, we had almond, the day before yesterday we had the lemon and ginger, and about a week ago we had the pate de almande. It is fun, eating chocolate, and I enjoy it.

Later in the evening, when it was raining a lot, I went against Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout’s example (for reference, please see link below) and took the garbage out. I took it all the way to the end of the road, but that wasn’t far, so I stayed somewhat dry without a rain coat.

http://mste.illinois.edu/courses/ci407su01/students/north/kristy/Project/K-Poem-Net.html

That’s all for now, Folks!

Yes. With today’s bike ride, I will have ridden a bike on 5 continents, the two exceptions being Antarctica and Africa. Africa is sadly missing, even though that is the continent on which we spent the most time. Still, though, we biked today, and it was fun.

The Burgundy canal is 150 miles long and has 189 locks for raising and lowering boats up and down the canal. We drove in the car north to Montbard and rented 4 bikes for two hours. We first got onto the bike path that ran along the edge of the canal, and then we rode away.

We rode for about an hour; passing trees, farms, forges, and houses.  When we got to the one hour mark, we turned around on the path and went back, passing over bridges and across roads. We stopped for about 20 minutes to watch a boat be lowered down in the locks.

First the lock woman opened the top gate and let the water inside the lock be brought up to the level of the upper canal. The boat drove into the lock and got shut in with the closing of the top gate. Then, the bottom gate was opened and the boat slowly went down. When it reached the level of the lower canal, the bottom gates were opened and the boat was FREE!

That’s all for now, Folks!

When most people talk about rolling heads, they usual say it in the phrase, ‘heads will roll!’ Today, though, my definition of rolling heads is a bit simpler…and less gory. My definition of rolling heads is when people nod their heads in unison to music. Maybe it is not a perfect description, but it is adequate for my uses.

Today we went out on a walk. The walk went along the river for a ways before cutting across and going along the edge of a cow field until we got onto a road, and then walking along that road back home, making a large loop. When we got home, we had dinner and then sat around reading books and generally being lazy.

We finally left the house again, this time for an organ concert. At the concert, we faced the organ and listened to several songs. At one point, the people in the row two rows in front all started to nod their heads in unison to the same beat. We finally left after an hour and a half of organ playing.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was Sunday, and almost everything was closed. I say ‘almost’ because the main thing that was open was the farmer’s market on the pedestrian walkway. When I went up to my father and attempted my Spanish with ‘moi carne,’ as in, much meat, and then my father went on about ‘oinki carne’ and ‘clucki carne.’

After I finished being annoyed with my father, we went back around to our house the long way. It was mother’s idea, and when we got home, she wanted to walk along the river on our bank, which we had never done before. We kept going for only a little ways before coming along to a barricade. We did not go past the barricade, instead, we walked back home.

Later, we had dinner in our house of pizza, zucchini, and other such things. I think that today was a good day.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was spent in relative ease. We spent most of the morning inside, telling the TV news reporters that there was nothing to see, and generally just sitting around. I personally read Lord of the Rings, so I had a good time.

Eventually, we left on a quest to see the Chateau de Bussey, an old manor up in the hills. We left our house and its receding floodwaters in our car and drove to the museum. On the way from the car to the Museum entrance, my father and I both petted and scratched a nice looking dog that had looked endearingly at us over the fence with his paws stuck through the holes.

Eventually, after we finished walking through the museum and going through a maze that wasn’t amazing because there wasn’t any way to turn wrong. We then left and went back home, and when we got home I made us all some Pecan and Chocolate brownies. They were very, very good.

That’s all for now, Folks!

I was thinking about titling my post ‘Wet-‘ something or other, but when I came up with the title that you see, I knew that it would be best. You have heard from previous posts recently that it is very wet this spring in France, and that was proved today a lot.

When I woke up, I walked to the boulangerie and bought the day’s supply of 1 baguette, 4 pain au Chocolat and 1 pain cereal. It was raining the whole time, and when I got back, I sat in the living room and won our monopoly game that has been sitting there for some time on the floor. I finished with 11 hotels and all the properties, un-mortgaged, of course.

Just so you know, our house is arranged on three different levels. The bottom one is directly on the river, and is Eryn and my bedroom. It is also only accessible by an outside staircase. Then there is the kitchen/dining room and salon area, where we spend most of our time, and finally there is my parents’ room on the very top with an inside access stairway.

We started seeing the water level rise a bit earlier, and Eryn and I had put all of our stuff up on our beds. When a police officer came and advised us to clear out, we took our bedding and luggage upstairs and waited. Eventually, the property caretakers came along and put the beds and everything in a storeroom above the oncoming onslaught of water, as it was flooding the room.

Safely on the top floor now, we have most of our stuff in the car in anticipation of the air raid siren to go off to signal for us to evacuate, but we hope that that doesn’t happen.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was spent on a quest for Mustard.  Dijon mustard is famous for its strong flavor, and we experienced some of that while trying to find some good varieties. We finally found some in a streetside shop.

Inside the shop, there was shelf after shelf of mustard bottles. There were lots of different flavors, from raspberry to blackcurrant to wine. We got a bottle for ourselves and have not yet delved into it. I think that we will, though, in the morning.

We found the mustard on our day’s excursion to Dijon. It is about an hour from our base by driving, and we walked around and saw several churches and gardens during our walking, and also ate sandwiches and pain au chocolat.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was mostly spent by me immersed in my schoolbooks so that I could get the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my kindle. My father had promised me that if I got two weeks ahead I could buy them, and this is the closest that I have ever gotten. I hope that I will make it.

When I wasn’t buried in a book with my pencil in hand, we were going outside on walks. Whenever the sun was shining, which wasn’t very often, we would go out. The first time was to go to the church, and we achieved that. The church even had nets below the ceiling to keep the pigeon poop from falling on the heads of worshipers.

The last walk out went to dinner, and we went to the place that we had been to twice. I talked several times about our family and Eryn, but no one at the table thought that it was funny, especially Eryn.

That’s all for now, Folks!