The ride down was easy and fast but there were so many yields you couldn’t go to fast. Don you would have loved the decent. I think you could only ride this road during this time of year since the traffic is non existent.
little town around the marsh was boarded up, except for the restaurant and the tourists office. The person in the tourists office spoke not a word on English, so we left to another of the towns on the cultivated nature preserve. (Growing rice is not my idea of a nature preserve) We drove through a couple towns, all the tourist information's were closed, so we went for a walk on a beach in the preserve. Unfortunately, the beach was insight of a gravel pit. That sort of put a downer on things, but we found four cuttle fish bones anyway.(Cuttle fish only have one bone a piece) We then had lunch on the beach, there were tables and we saw a diver going up and down(Or his feet anywa
y) in the same spot, it was rather funny. We then went to a stable for a ride it was fun, but there was a misunderstanding, and we accidentally told the man who only spoke Spanish that we wanted to walk the whole time!!! All three of us (not dad) had white horses. There was also the most beautiful horse I've ever seen there. He was a dark Pasafino stallion, he was almost perfect, except one hoof
was a little crooked. My horse and Emily's horse's were mares,, and Mom's was a gelding. After that we went home, then out it dinner, it being Mom's birthday and all. I enjoyed the Chinese very much. Josephine
the Science museum. The buildings reminded us of Gaudi - cool. The museum was very interactive and the kids had a great time. Today Mike and I are going to rent bikes for a few hours and the kids are staying back at the apartment to do homework!! Don't feel to bad for them, they would rather do homework than ride bikes! Crazy.
went on a walk of the modernism building for two hours. It was great to see some buildings from the late 1890's to the 1920's. There are some excellent examples of Gaudi work, as you can see!
little, disappointed with her meal she ordered some different items. There you go don't order stuff you don't know you never know what you will get. Always order what you know best. Tomorrow we might be going to the beach. That is all for now.
The St. Jerome trail took two hours, and it was very tiring, the view was very nice though, we went to the top of the highest hill/mountain thingy.
It was a good day, but I'm really tired. I also just figured out the color on this program
nt to, but in this one they had Octopi!! Which are Mom's favorite animals! They also have more sharks, I was kind of disappointed because it said there would be Nautiluses and Cuttlefish and I didn't see either of them! They also had penguins which were cool. They had tiny seahorses and larger ones, my favorite part was.... the octopi and the sun fish!!!!!!!
. (I think) Then we went to a market where there were a lot of different foods such as: Smoothies, Prawns, dragon fruit, and fresh coconuts.
Hola from sunny Spain! I've been sick for a few days but the warmth and sunshine has really helped. We are in a little town about half an hour from Barcelona. It's very dry here, they have only had rain once in 3 years, and mountainous but it is beautiful. There are cacti and flowers blooming everywhere and oh... did I mention dogs! We are at the top of the valley and there are many dogs in the valley t
hat bark at everything! A good science lesson about how sound travels.
read and played in the sand. At the bottom is the little house that we are renting, and a picture of Josephine and me doing homework on the balcony. It was a great day.
The crusaders defeated them because of the siege. There is more history but you are not reading this blog for history you are wondering what we are doing, right?
Oh another fact is that everything shuts down early now that there are not enough tourist around, drats.
The cave was amazing!!!! Yesterday’s cave was a reproduction (don’t know if Emy mentioned that) where as today we experienced the darkness, dripping stalagmites and cramped spaces, and or course the REAL THING. The paintings were 15, 000 years old and a real miracle that they are still there for us to experience. There were bison, deer and horses run around the walls of the cave. Many of the painting were also etched in and showed perspective. According to the guide it took many years before these painting were classified as works of art, but you can really see the skill needed to paint the animals on rock that look so life like. The second fortunate thing was that when we exited the cave at noon, the clouds had disappeared, there was blue sky and the temperature was 15C!!! It’s been about a month with no sun….hard for people from sunny Manitoba! Number three was a GSP miracle. We realized as we were driving to Carcassonne for the night that the cigarette lighter stopped working and our GPS said low battery. We can not live without our GPS – if our marriage is to survive we must have it! Mike figured it was probably a fuse so we went in to the next town to find one. We phone the Renault dealer and there happened to be one, it was open until 6 (another miracle since it seems that most places are closed at 4) and the GPS survived long enough to get us there. A service man fixed it in 5 min! The last fortunate thing is Carcassone, not the game the place. We drove up the hill and saw the fortress lit up – the girls shouted, “Cool”. It is a complete 12th c fortress with cathedral and castle and the youth hostel is inside its walls. Can’t wait for tomorrow to explore. 
There is also a town however we never made it there. Too much rain 
tons of people can see you?! We all laughed very hard as Mom pulled off her jeans. Of course none of us looked, that would be rude! After that incident we walked around for a bit and Dad left for Auschwitz. We went into St. Mary's Basilica and saw the biggest alter in Europe. It was huge!!! n the outside there were 12 panels depicting the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. On the inside there were 6 other panels a
long the sides and in the center the ascension of Mary to heaven. Then we walked back to the castle and on the way we m
et a knight and we took some pictures with him. Josephine stabbed him with his fake sword. It was fun! the dragon is a resident of Wawel Castel, he spews flames every 2 min!
Hello,
famous Cathedral, it was a jewel! We spent an hour in the Cathedral admiring the statues, altars and it's famous bell that weighs 14 tonns and is only rung on special occasions. Our cousin then arranged a guide for the Castel itself, where we learned about the rich and confusing history of Poland. Did you know that Poland was not on any maps for 120 years! It was a very rich country during the 14th century but many wars and occupations later, it was devasta
ted. After a quick lunch we headed off to the salt mines. It took a little longer than anticipated as we learned a new bus system and tried to figure out the right place to get the bus after being misdirected several times. The salt mines (source of Poland's great wealth in the 14th c) were amazing. It is now only open for tourists to see how the mine worked, the statues carved by the miners and only Cathedral that is underground. It also has a concert hall, bar and banquet room. You can even get married in the Cathedral for the small fee of 1000 euro and hour! Fortunately, there was a squishy elevator to take us up the 130 m back to the surface. We th
en headed back to Krakow to Miroslaw's apartment where he made us a HUGE Polish dinner! We were blessed today! 
Oct.27 Potsdam:
didn't get to go into the new palace. First we went to the kitchen and looked at all the different stoves and ovens (I think Daddy's favorite was the wine cellar.) We went into the castle and it wasn't as magnificent as most of the other castles we've seen. My favorite room in there was his library. (Frederick The great's) Then we went into the guest house
which used to be an orangerie, Mom's favorite room was the Jasper hall which was red. My favorite was a yellow room with metal birds, monkeys, and flowers on the walls and roof. After that we went into the chinese house which was a bit dissapointing all it was only a little building that looked chinese with little in it.
