Where in the world is Natalie Portman!?

Why is the Mona Lisa so famous? I don’t really know why. Is it because it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or is it because it’s all over the internet in different versions like cat Meowna Lisa? Who knows, but what I do know is that it’s actually a lot smaller than you think it is in real life. When you see it with your eyes with about 100 other people trying to do the same, it’s not easy to get a good look at it. So I basically ended up looking at the Mona Lisa for about three seconds then moving on to go look at some more paintings! I spent my day at the Louvre looking at old famous paintings and other types of very old, famous things. They had Napoleon the third’s bedroom and many of his treasures from his collection from other countries.  For example, the Rosetta Stone, which was in the museum.  In the five hours we were there, we never saw it. Though in those five hours we saw a lot of paintings of naked women (my dad’s favourite), even more paintings of dead and live animals from land and sea, and many paintings from the French revolution.

In our four days in Paris we did a lot of “hanging around” because my mom wanted to “absorb the atmosphere” of Paris and the cheapest way to do that was to go eat sandwiches in a park. While people watching, my mom said, “Is that the girl from Starwars? I recognize her voice. Look at her. LOOK AT HER!”  as a lady walked by speaking English with an obvious North American accent and wearing sunglasses even though it wasn’t sunny out.  My mom said “that is deffanitly Natalie Portman!” My dad argued, “Why would she be in Paris?” but thankfully free internet told us that, she lives in Paris and the article was only ten days old. Then my mom got up and creepily followed her while Natalie spoke on her phone.  Coming back, she said that the lady was definitely her. Also, my dad felt the need to confirm that it was really her so he got up and followed her and coming back he said it was her for sure.  Though, after confirming her height, once again with Google, we determined that we were 99.9 percent sure, that we just saw Natalie Portman.  All we would have needed was a DNA match, which my mom was sure she could have obtained. My mom was going to take a photo but she decided to leave her to her privacy even though we just Google stalked her.

The louvre!

Marrakech!

Marrakech, the land of really big markets and wailing guys! Yes, those things in my opinion are the most distinguishing things about Marrakech and probably the rest of Morocco. At four o'clock in the morning everyday someone from the each mosque in the city starts to yell or wail a prayer into a microphone that gets blasted so everyone can hear in a ten block radius. But don't worry if you're not in that ten block radius, another guy in a Mosque goes and wails the morning prayer so that everyone can hear. Basically there is no escaping. At noon it happens again then at five o'clock at night and again at nine o'clock and lastly at eleven o'clock.

So cute!

The markets are so big that they span most of old Marrakech, it's like one big mall that never ends and the variety of stuff you can buy is the same. From leather bags and cheap one dollar souvenirs to pirate clothes, phones and shoes. There is also a part where you can mainly buy things made by blacksmiths like giant locks and door knockers. Of course, my dad got sucked into buying a huge lock about the size of a small laptop screen, though it wasn't easy. It involved a lot of bargaining and the Moroccan’s have an interesting way of doing so. They start out normal bargaining, exchanging prices and usually they come down to your price, but there is a catch. If you go to the bank and then come back, they raise the price. I think they think it's a way of punishing you for not buying it right then, even if you had no money to pay them, so you're right back where you were and you have to go through the bargaining process all over again. Sometimes they don't even meet your price so it makes all that work for nothing, and usually when that happens it's not a nice goodbye.

Spices!

Chameleon anyone?

Another highlight of Marrakech was the square. The square is one of the most famous things about Marrakesh it has a big complex of shops in the middle surrounded by many freelancing henna tattoo stations, guys with monkeys, snake charmers and people making music with drums and thimble like things. Now that’s only what happens in the day at night it is much livelier. Around five o'clock portable restaurants start setting up all over the square and by seven o'clock everything is in full swing. The restaurants are all packed and all over the square there are circles of people singing and dancing sometimes around a chicken. There are other circles with play or dancing and singing. it is a very exciting square. But the best thing about this is it's every night all year. it’s not for a holiday, it’s just everyone having fun in the name of fun.

One other thing about old Marrakech is that it's like a huge maze. If you look on at old Marrakech on a map its diameter is 2 km and if you do the math it’s 12400 square hectares. Now that’s a lot of maze and we only walked probably about one half of that shopping and walking to places. But half of that was probably following people to their friend’s stores or to tourist traps. After we got sucked into following to people to their buddy’s store we made a pact that we would never follow a Moroccan again but of course my father instantly broke that rule following someone hoping that it would pay off and of course every time we did we always got led to a friend’s really expensive store or a tourist trap.

Tea time!

Catssssssssssssssssssss! There are a lot of cats in Marrakech.  So many that I once counted twenty seven cats in one hour. There are so many on the streets it’s much like Mexico’s stray dogs, they were everywhere. Though it also seems that the Moroccans like cats much better than dogs because the entire time I was there I only saw two dogs. I wonder what the rat and mouse population in Marrakech is like. There are probably none with all those cats walking around.  I also saw three cats lying on top of each other and it was really funny! Cats are silly!

The Square!

OK, my last paragraph was a bit weird. It’s probably because I’m running out of things to say and I still have 100 more words to write and only twenty nine percent of battery left. But anyways I should probably update you of where I’m actually know before I get super behind when I have to write a mountain of words about Paris tomorrow, I’m in France now driving towards Paris which is 246 km  away and it’s already 6:15 so we are going to arrive in the dark around 8:30 (yayay). I’m at 776 words now and only twenty seven percent battery left so I should be able to proof read and finish this post. Yea only 1 more word left! I did it 800 words, actually 810 now so goodbye my next post will probably be about Paris!

Scary Plane Rides

I have been on many airlines, some amazing, some horrible and some scary. Ryanair is somewhere between scary and horrible. For starters, when we arrived at our gate the plane was just done unloading and we  immediately started loading. There were no engineers visually inspecting the engines for technical failures, no techs running diagnostics on the plane’s computer just two guys with a fuel truck filling up the plane. Now Ryanair's slogan is "The low fares airline" and it really is. Inside there were ads plastered everywhere, much like a Vietnamese town. Where TV’s would have been on Air Canada or any other airline there was an ad surrounded in bright yellow plastic. While waiting for the rest of the passengers to load on the plane I noticed that Jack was having a hard time getting his legs in the small cramped space behind the seat. Also, I noticed that the seats did not recline or move any way whatsoever.

After 

Our hotel

the bouncy landing, which I though had one too many bumps, and applause from many of the passengers, everyone raced off the plane. Literally. Many of the local Moroccans ran over the tarmac, followed by a few clueless tourists. When we got inside we found out why they were running. It was because of the line for the passport control. The officers were deadly slow at processing each person and you didn't want to wait in line for a long time. We were lucky waiting only 45 minutes because we were some of those clueless tourists who ran. When our passports were finally processed, we walked outside to get a taxi to our hotel. Since we were in a third world country again, we were going to have to do some bargaining! After going to multiple taxi drivers to get the right price (200 Dirhams) we all piled into a 30 year old Mercedes along with our driver who looked a lot like a “Jawa” from Star Wars, with his pointy hood and long robe. All he would have needed to complete the Jawa look, was glowing eyes. He drove like a Jawa probably would, really fast on small populated streets and with no slowing down for corners. When we arrived at our destination which was an entrance to an ally, he said we had to go left then right to get to our hotel. Luckily with modern technology,GPS, and a little help from the locals we arrived safely at our hotel, which had a door to the alley with a small sign beside it. We were greeted by the nice night guard, Muhammad. By that time, we were all ready to collapse so we went to bed to be well rested for the adventures to come the next day.

Barcelona

Barthelona ith awethome. Yes, that is how they say Barcelona here in this part of Spain .They turn all their “s”s into “ths”. It is because in the Costa Brava the part of Spain we were, in people speak Catalan not Spanish which has caused some confusing conversations. Anyways, we were in Spain staying in this popular area, relaxing on the beach for a few days until we go to Morocco. Before all that we had to go see the sites of Barcelona.

Walking around Barcelona I noticed that there were many Desigual, stores so many they were like Starbucks in Vancouver. They were on every corner. While walking around we saw the Basilica Segrada Familia which is a massive church that started construction over a hundred years ago by the architect, Antoni Gaudi and is still being built today. It is supposed to be complete by 2028 but judging from the plans and how much they still have to do, they will be cutting it pretty close to their deadline. It is a much more modern style of church than anything we've seen yet.

Naked guys and Leaning Towers!

Why does it seem that every old sculpture of a person shows them with no clothes on, especially the ones of famous warriors like Alexander the Great or Perseus? I mean, they are warriors, they go fight people, but why stark naked? Just yesterday I saw the sculpture by Michelangelo of Achilles holding his dead cousin but they were both completely naked. Isn't that a bit weird, holding your fallen comrade completely naked? I could understand if they were people who posed in front of an artist, but a warrior in action?  All of these sculptures I just talked about and more are in Florence where most of Michelangelo's work is.  After deciding that Florence would just be an expensive tourist town and we drove on to Pisa.

In Pisa we went to go see one of the most famous things in Italy, the leaning tower of Pisa! The tower , which is on a very alarming angle had about 1000 people trying to get the perfect picture. Most people were trying to get the picture to make it look like the person in the picture was pushing over or holding up the tower. We have also seen people holding the top of the Taj Mahal, squishing the Parthenon and holding Big Ben. Of course we were some of those people. It took many pictures trying to make my mom's and dad's hands line up to actually make the picture look half decent. After taking about even more pictures trying to get a good picture we said goodbye to PIsa and drove to Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus.

Rome!

The Fountain of Trevi!

As I said in my last post we are in Rome, and when in Rome do what the Romans do. Which is, drum roll......Go take pictures with famous things! We just did that. The first thing on our list was The Colosseum which of course was covered in scaffolding on one side and the line to get in practically wrapped around the entire coliseum. By the Coliseum we saw The palace of Victor Emmanuel which was built by the first king of united Italy in 1820.  We also saw the Fountain of Trevi which had about 1000 people crowding around it. Parallel to the Fountain we saw the Pantheon (not to be confused with the League of Legends Champion).  

The Colosseum!

St. Peter's

St. Peter's

The next day we got up bright and early to go to the Vatican Museum but my mother and I got lost and went to St. Peter`s Cathedral thinking that we could buy tickets for the Vatican Museum. Inside the cathedral it`s a huge room about the size of an airplane hanger with a massive dome to top it off. Under St. Peter`s the old popes have been buried, the oldest one which dates back to 86 A.D. When we came out of the cathedral we walked to the entrance to the Vatican Museum but there was a line that wrapped around the block that looked about 2 hours long. Since waiting in the line for 2 hours wasn't an option we walked to the castle where the pope would have gone when he was being attacked by someone trying to claim the title `pope` for himself.  On our way out of Rome we stopped at one of the many catacombs of Rome. The catacombs which consisted of 5 levels and 20 square km was where the Christians buried their dead. The information I got from the broken English of our guide was that the catacombs were active from the 3rd century until 8th century then they were forgotten for almost 1000 years. When they were dug out archeologists found about 6 million bones that mostly were from children, but for some reason our guide didn't tell us why.  107 steps later we were on the surface again and on our way to Florence where Michelangelo lived and where many of his famous work is.

Sigh why every time 

Smart cars and Road rage!

Just chilling

If I was someone living in Rome, I would start a Smart Car dealership. I would be rich in days. In Canada no one really buys Smart Cars because the are dorky and expensive, but in Rome it's a whole different story. There are Smart Cars everywhere. We once counted 25 Smart Cars in 10 minutes and the other cars that are on the street are almost the same size. If you don't drive a scooter it's either a Smart Car, Fiat 500 or any car smaller. There is some sense in buying a Smart Cars. For starters it makes finding a parking spot much easier because a Smart Car is about the size of half a normal car. You can double park with another Smart Car in a normal parking spot so both Smart Cars will be able to park in one spot. You can also park on the medium the middle of the road along with all of the scooters.  Another thing about Rome is that the drivers are not very nice and the cops are almost useless.

The streets of Rome!

Now, if you ever go to Rome and are driving around the corner and see a gaggle of male cops  just chilling in their vans don't be afraid. They are probably just drinking  espresso, reading a book or just talking. They may look scary and imposing but they are not going to give you a hassle or pull you over. Even if you break a rule of the road they will just sit there and keep on talking or reading their book. The male cops of Rome don't do much other than maybe occasionally pull over someone for going REALLY fast in a small street or something like that. But the female cops of Rome do much more on the weekdays. They are at almost every intersection with their whistle controlling traffic or inside their little booths. I would recommend  making sure that you're not breaking any rules when driving around intersections in Rome.

There is one more thing to say about Roman traffic. Everyone has road rage. It can vary from a person that just cuts you off or someone who just continuously  honks behind you if you're not driving fast enough.Everyone probably thinks they can cut people off because the cops don't care. But the aggressiveness of Roman driving does not affect us much because we have drove all over Central America and many other third world countries.

Oh whoa oh oh VOLCANO!

"Are we at the top yet?" Those were the words spoken by Bella over a hundred times as we climbed up Mt. Vesuvius. Yes, we trekked up the mountain that destroyed the city of Pompei nearly 2000 years ago. It was a very long walk up with a lot of complaints from Bella, though it wasn't that bad. The trail was steep but pretty easy to walk on probably becuase they send hundreds of fat and old tourists up there every day.  At the top we were greeted by a massive crater with steam seeping out on the side and many people sitting down. After walking the rest of the way around the rim, we turned and headed back down and this time there were a lot less complaints from Bella.

The next day we woke up extra early to beat the big crowds to see the ruins of old Pompei. I'm starting to think this early waking up before famous tourist sites is getting to be a tradition that isn't all that fun.  Here is some history about Pompei for those people who don't know. On August 27, 79 A.D. Mt.Vesuvius erupted gushing ash 20 kms into the air. Meanwhile the people of Pompei were just chilling out, going through the morning routine when it started raining ash. About 2 or 3 meters of ash landed on the town of Pompei suffocating and killing everyone in it. Then the volcano started gushing out lava down the side towards Pompei at about 80 km an hour burning everything and any survivers to a crisp. After all the lava and ash stopped, the town was completely covered in 5 meters of ash with the land around it a barren gray wasteland. In the 1600's old Pompei was rediscovered when

someone was building a road. After its discovery, archeologists unearthed as much of the old city as they could. They discovered that the ash had preserved the form of a person as they were when the ash fell and killed them. So now there are many molds of the people of Pompei as they died. We wandered the streets of old Pompei and after a lot of complainting because dad was holding out on the water and we were choking on ash (ROLF!).

My new best friend!