The End!

Our trip has ended. Five months and sixteen countries. Some would call this a trip of a life time and it was pretty much that. The only down side really was the length of it. Five months is a long time and I would have liked it to much shorter but we probably couldn't have seen everything we saw in any shorter time. It also is a very long time to spend with your family in one small hotel room every night, but it's not that bad after a while. Well actually it is and I don't recommend it. This will be the last of me you will hear for a while until my dad comes up with another super trip to Mars or something like that. So don't worry my Russian and Ukrainian readers, yes I know you are watching. Anyway goodbye! I hope that all your lives are not bland because you don't get to read about my horribly interesting life everyday!

Nautical Fun Times!

Climbing wall!

Queue the music. “Ohhhh if nautical nonsense be something you wish, then jump on the deck and flop like a fish!” Let’s get in the nautical theme everybody because I have been getting pretty nautical in the last few days. It’s partly because we are in Portsmouth and it’s a wee bit nautical because of the influence of Nelson and all. But it’s mostly because we have been doing some hard core museuming in the past few days. One of the museums we looked at was the museum to Horatio Nelson. Nelson was a great Admiral in the British Royal Fleet in the 1800s he was very famous for his many navel victory’s all throughout his life. One of his most famous ones and his last was when he defeated the combined French and Spanish fleet in the battle of Trafgar. While on the deck of the navy’s flagship the H.M.S. victory he was shot by a French sniper and was mortally wounded. He only lived 3 more hours in time to see the British fleet beat the French and Spanish in the battle of Trafalgar.

Ayi Ayi captain!

Another museum we went to was the H.M.S. Warrior which is actually a ship turned into a museum but it’s all the same! Anyways the H.M.S. Warrior was the first iron hulled battleship in the royal navy it was commissioned in 1860.  Although it was state-of-the-art in its day it mainly used cannons. It could drop its sails and use its steam engine in bad weather. We also went to another museum ship the H.M.S. Victory. The Victory was the same ship that Nelson led the attack from on the French and Spanish fleet in the battle of Trafalgar. Apparently it is a commissioned battleship in the British Navy, but when aliens from the sea attack do they really want a wooden 400 year old battleship? Now I may not be glorifying Nelson as most Navel historians would be but since he has his own square in London and has a lot of monuments to him I will talk about him more! This guy was so good at his job even when his left arm got amputated he was still walking around the deck of his ship in the middle of battle. Then when his eye got blown out he commanded the entire British Fleet and was by most people considered one of the best leaders of all time. Now when I first mentioned his name I only said his first and last name but he has big name it is: Vice Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, such big, much name, wowe doge.

Inside the H.M.S. Warrior

Another  thing we went to was more of an interactive museum that featured  two  climbing walls, one normal and one that was like a treadmill that went on forever. You could also alter the angle to make it like you are climbing against gravity. The last two museums we went to were the submarine museum and the explosion museum. The submarine museum featured things like one of the first submarines that was used by the British Navy to some of the newest subs today. We also got a tour of the H.M.S. Alliance which was a sub used in the Second World War. Then it was turned into a training area for cadets then into a museum. Lastly we went to the Explosion museum which featured missiles and Artillery cannons used today and as early as the American civil war. They also had a missile that would have carried a nuclear bomb. All these nautical historical museums pleased my very nautical dad very much for Fathers Day.

The Warrior

The H.M.S. Victory

H.M.S. Alliance

More Climbing wall!

Doge!

Bella!

 

England Fun Times!

Do you think that once the English discovered so many old castles and artifacts, whenever they found a new one they’d just be say, “Hey you found a castle. That’s great, put it in the books with the 300,000 other castles we have found.” Now since they have all these castles, one day a guy probably came along and realized that he could charge an admission to go look at castles and he probably got rich. That same guy was probably the same dude who started the English Heritage Sites and sucked people in to paying their horrible prices to see castles and sites like that. But that guy`s probably long dead and his great great great great grandson thought that his ways were not very family friendly. So for one price you can buy a family membership and get free admission to hundreds of English Heritage sites. Now you ask where am I going with all this. Well we are members of the English Heritage and in the past few days we have been using our membership extensively.

In the past few days we have seen the Kenilworth castle which was the castle where the Boyfriend of Queen Elizabeth the First lived. Originally it was surrounded by trees but the land was flooded so that it was surrounded by water to make it harder to attack and so the rich inhabitants of the castle could swim on the lake. We also went to the Avesbury stone circles which were a lot like Stonehenge but a lot more spread out in a bigger circle. We are still wondering how they moved the very heavy stones. Lastly, that day we drove up one of the few mountains in flat England where there was a bronze age fort called Bratton Camp. On the side of the very grassy mountain there was a chalk horse carved into the mountain side. All around England there are horses like that on hills to commemorate generals victory’s.

Ireland!

Why do people have accents? Is it because one day a lonnggggggggggg time ago someone started talking with an Irish accent and though it was cool so for the rest of his life he talked like that then he passed the accent on though generations until everyone just naturally talked like that. Who knows but I do know that accents are funny! But yea, I’m in Ireland now. We took a two hour ferry from Scotland to a town near Belfast. In Belfast we went to a museum about the “troubles” in Ireland.  The troubles were because of the Protestant English coming into Ireland and the Catholic Irish people did not like them at all and there was very large civil un-rest.  In that time there were many bombings all around Ireland and some in England because the Catholic Irish wanted the English to go back to England. The rest of the museum was about the geological history of Ireland and how it formed. We also took a walk in a park by the Lough Neagh which is the biggest lough (lake) in all of north and south Ireland. The next day we drove down to southern Ireland which is a different country and goes by the name The Republic of Ireland. It’s because the south do not belong to the UK (England, Scotland and Northern Ireland) they separated and later joined the EU because they didn’t like the way of the English.

Frolick time!

Castle!

That day we drove to Dublin and walked around the city and then we drove around the country looking at little Irish towns. At one of them a town called Wicklow we had  a impromptu  tour of an old search and rescue boat by one of the rescue volunteers. Now, we are on the ferry back to England because we are to fly back to Canada in 10 days or 864,000 seconds, yes I did the math.

Scotland!

Rain go away.

So sexy 

“Byi byi now have a nice trrreep.” Those were the accent infused words we heard as we drove away from the English border guard on our way off our ferry from Amsterdam. That day we were to drive up the coast to Edinburgh, Scotland. On the way to Edinburgh we stopped at Warkworth Castle, which was the castle that belonged to the Earl of Warkworth and was one of the settings in a Shakespearian story. We stayed one night at Edinburgh and saw the Edinburgh Castle which in my opinion was the best well kept castle I’ve seen on the trip so far. They also kept the Scottish crown jewels there which were once worn by Mary Queen of Scots. After the castle we drove for the rest of the day to a small town outside of Glasgow called Port Glasgow (soo creative). In Glasgow we went to two museums. The Kelvingrove Museum had lots of old paintings and artefacts! Yea old paintings! Apparently at one time the museum had the best art collection in all of Europe. The other museum, The Riverside Museum of Transport and Travel was about the “evolution” of vehicles like cars, boats, and bikes since the early twelve hundreds. It also had an old tall ship floating on the River Clyde turned into a museum. A tall ship is a large sailing vessel.

The rolling green hills of Scotlnad!

Since we have arrived in Europe we have been making fun of accents all the time particularly, the Germans when they spoke English. However, since we have arrived in Scotland sometimes it’s hard not to giggle when Scots are talking to us. Sometimes we can’t even understand them if they talk fast, all we hear is a blur of words. Just yesterday I walked in to an Asian restaurant and I asked for a burger and the Asian guy had to ask me three times if I wanted chips (fries) because I couldn’t understand him. I think the guy didn’t like me after that because after I ordered and sat down on a chair he kept muttering to himself.  We are off to Ireland tomorrow and I wonder if an Irish accent is going to be any worse to understand than a Scottish person. Though I bet it will be funnier to listen to.

Oh Willie, you were my first glimpse at a real Scot.

SWANNN!

Amsterdam!

Cheese!

In Amsterdam we went to the Rijks Museum and to the Maritime Museum. The Rijks Museum had paintings and artefacts from different times and different styles. The Maritime Museum showcased the navel and nautical history or The Netherlands.  Amsterdam has canals that act like roads all through the city so people can use boats and cars to get around.  The people of Amsterdam would probably be using boats much more to get around if it wasn’t for their massive dykes and dams. In fact if they didn’t have any of their dykes or dams they would all be underwater today and much of the country wouldn’t be there. The Netherlands has so many dams and dykes an at one point there is a 40 km long dam with gates to control the tidal flow or to stop fields and homes from flooding in storms. In Amsterdam they have many bridges over the canals and most of them are not lift bridges. So that means that most of the boats are specially made to be long and low in the water so they can go under the bridges with ease. While we were in Amsterdam we stayed in a one of those boats converted into a hotel which was pretty cool.    

Paintings!

Now the people of Amsterdam don’t just use cars and boats to get around. In fact mostly they use bikes Ana Frankly (Ann Frank WW2, LoL,) they probably use bikes more than any other vehicle. The Dutch think when they are on bikes they rule the road and in truth they do because of the shear amount of them sometimes. But, no fear, the city of Amsterdam is prepared for the swarms of bikes, almost everywhere there are bike lanes and passage ways. If you step on one of those bike roads you will get a wave of angry ding ding dings and some profanities in Dutch. Although we stayed in the Netherlands for a whole 4 days we didn’t see any wooden windmills, no one wearing clogs, and no big circles of cheese though I did see lots of plastic circles of cheese.  But, we did see a lot of modern metal windmills stationed in land and on the sea. Other than the bikers that will ding ding ding you at any second I’d say Amsterdam was a pretty nice city and I’d like to go back there one day.

Bikes

Ferry time!

World War One Fun times!

The one and only picture we took.

I believe in the early stages of planning our trip the whole point of it was to escape the cold of winter in Canada and go to Asia for the worst of it then go up to Europe just as it was warming up there and by the time we flew back to Canada it would be well into summer. But sadly, the past few days’ weather wise it’s been pretty dodgy and I don’t think being in muddy, damp northern Belgium would help. I wonder what it was like 100 years ago during the First World War when the Germans were invading northern Belgium trying to take back the land that the Belgians and Germans had been fighting over for many years.  For the record, my facts may be horribly wrong so if you’re really feeling historical you can go look up Passchendaele on Wikipedia. But back to the point.

Pictures from the internet!

Britain and their colonies (New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and Australia) and Belgians built trenches from the River Rhine to the ocean which is almost 200 km of trenches. The Germans and British both had trenches all along those 200 km on both sides, about 100 meters apart. The fighting lasted for about four years and in that time the British had sent thousands of men from their colonies to help with the war effort and many of them ended up killed or missing. Now, you may say “Why are you writing about the First World War?” Well it may be because I’m feeling a little historical and I just wrote about what I know. No, I’m not particularly feeling historical at the moment.  It’s because we went to the site in Passchendaele, Belgium where some of the worst parts of trench warfare in World War 1 happened.  There they have reconstructed some trenches and bunkers that would have been used in the First World War. They also had an interesting museum about that area in the First World War. In the museum they had many things including artillery shells, old uniforms, and guns used in the war.  Personally, I think I learned more from the museum than I would from the Wikipedia page.