The Science Park by Zander

we dont have any pictures becasue we dont have the equipment to get it on to the computer...

Today we went to the Science Park in Granada. I have been there twice but not with my grandparents. The park is really interesting there are lots of had on experiments, and a really cool exhibit on the T Rex. The reason that we went there was because Mia was sick and we needed something that was close to our house, and because we had planed a walk but nobody wanted exercise and a one hour drive. My favorite part of the museum is the T Rex exhibit, because the dinosaurs actually move, and make noise.

The science park is about a 15-minute drive, but with Gramps it’s a 20, when we finally got there after taking the scenic route, we found parking. Since there wasn’t any parking out front we had to use the parking garage underneath. What was really nice about the garage is that it is connected to the park, so we just had to walk up a ramp and there we were. In the entrance to the museum there is a lot of experiments. Out front there is a WWII fighter plane. We bought our tickets and went in. there are 5 main exhibits one on industry, medical service, human body, T Rex, and astronomy. There is also an outdoor section that has experiments, and a really small zoo. I don’t like the zoo because the animals are not treated very nicely. So with my grand parents we only went to the Industry, medical service, human body, and the T Rex.

The first Exhibit that we saw was the one on Industries. My favorite part of this exhibit is a sound room, when you go in you cant here anything from outside, and when you talk it doesn’t sound normal. The rest of the exhibit is wrecked cars, a broken computer, and some scaffolding that you could climb. It wasn’t very interesting for me because I have already been there. What was creepy was a plaque on the wall that told how many car crashes that there have been in Spain; while we were there was at least 5 crashes, people be careful!!!! What was really annoying is that they have speakers and when someone (usually a little kid) presses a button it makes really loud noise. It is usually in the form of sirens and helicopters. So I tried to get through that exhibit quickly because of the noise.

When we had thoroughly exhausted the Industrial section, we went to the human body section. This section I really like, there is lot of organs in jars, an infrared camera, and an x-ray bike. But what I really like is a contest; there is a machine that checks how calm your brain is. So 2 people are hooked up to it and depending on how calm you are a ball will move from one side to the other. The goal is to get the ball to the other competitor’s side; when I played with Gramps, he won. When we had finished the contest, I walked around and looked at the other exhibits. I thought that it was pretty creepy, because they had videos of people in surgery. That is where I decided not to be a doctor. But we had to drag Bippy away from the reproduction section so we could see the T rex exhibit.

The T rex exhibit is really cool; the dinosaurs move and make noise. There are also some bones but they are not as cool. What I really like is watching the T rex mutilate its pray, with full sound effects. There are 3 moving exhibits, 2 of them are with a T rex fighting and eating it’s pray, and one of them is some little animals steeling eggs from a bigger dinosaur. At the very end we get to guess if the T rex is a carnivores or a scavenger. When we were finished with all the exhibits, I was really happy to get going.

            Seeing the science park for the 3 times was actually a lot of fun, surprisingly. The first 2 times I didn’t see all of it. Particularly when I went with the school, we spent 30 minutes looking at some astronomy tools in the history section. I made sure when I went with my grandparents to steer clear of that section. My favorite part was playing the mind game with gramps, but I am still bummed that he won. 

THE RELAXING WEEK END AT THE BEACH RESORT

Last week end Bippy, Gramps,the kids and I stayed at a fancy beach resort in the small beach town of Marbella (mar =ocean bella = beautiful), Spain. I spent most of my free time on the pool deck or watching TV in our apartment. We left after school on Friday. I packed my bag because because I hadn't that morning before school. Gramps had some trouble driving to Zander's school because it was his first time driving in Churriana and there're tons of one way streets here. Once we got on the freeway we started to eat the yummy lunch Bippy and Mia packed us. Lunch consisted of a hugemungus sandwich, little toasts with delicious tomato sauce and mango juice. The drive was two hours long and when we finally found our resort, my butt was really really sore. Zander, Gramps and I got out of the car and checked us in.  We got a two bedroom apartment that was nice and spacious. Mia, Sarah and I shared the king bed in the master bedroom, Bippy and Gramps got the other bedroom and Zander got the couch. Sarah went swimming in the pool and I sat by the pool. On Saturday we went down to the cute beach town of Marbella. We walked around the old city of Marbella and the streets were lined with little shops. The streets reminded me of Italy because the streets were cobblestones and narrow and the buildings crowded around the streets. We ate lunch in a square that was packed with tables and chairs for the restaurants that lined the square. After lunch we drove back to the resort to rest and laze around. On Sunday we woke up late and watched TV for the better part of the morning then we packed up because we had to be out of the room by noon. When we were all packed up we walked over to the pool but it was so cold and gloomy out side that we decided to just drive back to Granada. I can't really remember what happened once got back but I asked Bippy and it turns out we did practically nothing. Overall, the week end at the beach resort in Marbella was a really nice week end and I had lots of fun at the resort.  By a really happy Kayley

Harry Potter books By Sarah

In our travels around the world I have been reading a lot of Harry Potter paperback books, and I’ve enjoyed all of them.

J.K Rowling had a whole series of books made up of a scheme of a boy named of course named Harry Potter who is a famous wizard that is at a boarding wizard’s school called Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. In Harry Potter, J.K Rowling describes very well the feelings, the place in or outside the castle of Hogwarts and the sound.

The main plot of the series is a good team {Hogwarts} against the dark arts witch who is Voldemort {Tom Riddle}. Tom Riddle was named after his father {Tom Riddle senior} who he killed with his grandparents blaming it on his Uncle Morfon. When Harry Potter was one, Voldemort broke in to the Potter’s house and killed Harry’s parents to get to him to kill Harry, but the spell backfired and hit Voldemort. Voldemort killed Harry’s parents because of a prophecy that said a boy born in July would kill Voldmort. In the end, of course, Harry kills Voldemort and Voldemort floated up in piece of paper!!!!!

My favorite part of the series is in the end of the second book, when Harry is alone in the chamber of secrets with Tom Riddle. That part is my favorite part of the series because there is a very interesting character that is a giant snake that lives for longer than a century. The snake is huge, very poisonous and has yellow eyes that kill if you look it straight in it’s eyes and if you see the reflection it petrifies you. The animals name is baskalisk. That is why that part of the series.

During our travels Harry Potter has been my favorite series, but unfortunately daddy won’t get me more than Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone {the first book}, Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets {the second book} and Harry Potter and the Half –Blood Prince {the sixth one} witch we found in the library.

First Week With Bippy and Gramps by Mia

          All of us kids had been counting down the days (and, when it got close enough, the hours) until Bippy and Gramps were going to arrive on the Wednesday two weeks ago. When they did arrive it was super exciting to see a familiar face that spoke our language (and wasn’t our parents or each other). We were also excited that our parents would be leaving for a whole two weeks to go on a cruise in the Baltic, (when they chose the Baltic over the Mediterranean for this cruise I seriously questioned their sanity. I mean, really, they have two weeks in the end of May/ beginning of June to go on a big, fancy cruise ship and they pick a sea where the weather is to cold to make use of the swimming pool?!) and Bippy and Gramps would be taking over. To make things even better was the fact that they had got a beach side condo at a resort in Marbella to hang out in that weekend. So, in short, we were all extremely excited.

          Our parents didn’t leave the second Bippy and Gramps arrived, though. There was an overlap of two nights during which Kayley and I were sleeping on couches in the living room. I had never thought I would be glad about the two extremely unnecessary couches that clutter up the living room, but I was glad they were there to sleep on. I know from experience that stone floors are really hard! Our parents left for Norway early Friday morning, and then the party started! On Friday after school we drove to Marbella and the resort. I had stayed home from school on Thursday and Friday because the rest of my class was in Gibraltar so I had gone grocery shopping with Bippy and we had a cooler full of food for our “siesta meal” (which is what we call the giant feast we have at around 4 pm because no one really eats much of anything at school). And we ate sandwiches and snacks on the car ride there. 

          The resort was amazing! The condo had enough beds for every one (that’s a huge thing for mistreated kids like us), and the added bonus of numerous flat screen TVs and complete kitchen. In the resort there were several pools, several restaurants, the beach a few steps away, and an overpriced supermarket (yeah, I know, why would you need a supermarket if you have several restaurants?). The weather had been perfect for laziness all week (about 90 degrees) and the future looked good. On Saturday we walked around in Marbella, which was nice, even though we picked the wrong restaurant for lunch. It takes skill to make a chicken Cesar salad taste gross. When we came back we lazed around for a bit and had the leftover sandwich from lunch on Friday for dinner. That first whole day was a complete success, even though it was a little colder and cloudier towards the end of the day than I would have liked.

          The second day was what made me angry. It rained (rained!!!) during the night and it was way colder than it had any right to be on a Sunday in the end of May. We tried to laze around outside for a while, but it got too cold so we just left. I just couldn’t believe that the one weekend we get to be in a condo on the Spanish Riviera just happens to be the one weekend that it isn’t 90 degrees out!! Weather is so evil. We drove back to Churriana and did some more lazing around (man, I just love laziness) before going to bed early enough so that we wouldn’t die the next morning when we had to go to school. 

A Penguin's Adventure by Sarah

Once upon a time there were to penguins living in a hole in the dunes of a beach. The boy penguin was Crazy. The girl's name was Tidy. One day Crazy planned a trip for his birthday to an unknown island. When he showed the plan to Tidy, she approved it. Crazy's birthday was on the 15th of February, and on that day, they went off to the unknown island. When they got to the island, they found out that the Island was called Paradise Island. The next morning, Crazy was jumping off a beautiful waterfall that was covered in moss. He acccidently fell on a rock in the middle of the river because of a loud growling coming from beneath him. The growling sound came from a creature that looked like a panther, but instead of fur, it had skin all over it. The animal was swimming in the river, and it had a crown of skin instead of ears and it had bones so it could stretch and close. It had a tail like a bird and wings that looked like the crown on its head. Crazy was so scared, that he fell of the rock and screamed like a baby. At that moment, six or seven of the creatures came up around him until he was trapped against the rock. His next idea was to scream "help, help" until the island heard. When Tidy and another penguin heard him, they followed his voice to the waterfall. Tidy was scared too, and she screamed and ran back to the place they were staying at and called for help. The hotel made an army of hotel workers and went out to save Crazy. When they got to the waterfall, Crazy and the other penguin were fighting the monsters with wooden clubs. With the hotel's help, they got rid of the monsters easily. After the fight against the monsters, they found out that the monsters were called Megamonsters and that they would defend the waterfall where they lived. At that day, when they fell asleep, they decided that they would be taking a boat back to their dune hole the next morning. So, the next morning, they woke up early, checked out of the hotel, and creeped out to the dock, hoping not to meet more of the Megamonsters. When the boat arrived with tons of tourists on it, they boarded and were off towards home. They got to their dune house at eleven AM, so they took a nap for several hours, undisturbed, with nothing to bother them. When they got up, they went down town and ate some dinner. With a peaceful life ahead of them, they lived happily ever after.

Current Events in Egypt by Zander

1 no pictures of Egypt, but here is me with a ass....

The Egyptian's are in the middle of a revolution with their old government. But they are not the only country in turmoil. Libya had a revolution very recently to over throw Gaddafi, the dictator, but now they are setting up a new government. Egypt had a leader much like Gaddafi, Mubarak, but he stepped down without a fight but set the military up as the government until the Egyptians get a new government in order. Egypt is in a difficult position they are trying to set up a government and it's turning into a catastrophe.

In Egypt, there was a dictator, Mubarak but when he stepped down, the country tried to form a democracy, but it is not working. When the Egyptians civilians started protesting Mubarak fled the country before it got to serious. The Egyptians wanted democracy. Now the presidential candidates are starting to campaign for a new government. But people from Mubarak's old government are running for the job. So there is a lot of uncertainties in letting them run again.

Like Afghanistan and Iraq, there is a party called the Islamic fundamentalist that have a good chance of taking control of Egypt. People from the fundamentalist are running for office. They are planning on basing there government on the Koran, because they want to " be the example of Islam to the world". I think that the fundamentals are pretty smart. Most of the people in Egypt are Islamic, so they feel strongly about the religion, so they will back them.

But the anarchists also have gone one more step. On the news, I heard that the people in Egypt have been burning down churches and trashing the Christian neighborhoods. There have been mass protests, brick wars, police using water canons, tear gas, and live ammunition to subdue the citizens. There was a nasty protest a few weeks ago. Egyptian protesters were marching to the main square in Cairo. When they got to the main square, there was some violence which sparked a brick fight. Protesters fought the police, climbed buildings and fought, while the people on the ground crouched behind sheets of mettle and threw bricks. Then the police moved in choppers, tanks, and water canons to battle their civilians in Cairo.

Egypt is in the middle of a Civl war. I am really glad that I am not there right now. People are fighting the police. People in the Christian neighborhood have had to protect there family with guns because they are targets for the anarchist. What really freaked me out was that we stayed really close to where all the riots were in Cairo. The two things that I think could happen next is that there could be another Civil war or the Islamic Fundamentalists will take power and start to spread their religion. In which case, life in Egypt will not get better for a while.

With the tension in Egypt and Middle East, I think that there is going to be some dramatic changes in relationships between Israel and the other countries in the Middle East. First the fundamentalists are taking control of Egypt, like they have in so many other countries in the Middle East. Israel is surrounded by Islamic countries. Islamic people and Jewish people are not on good terms in this area. Egypt is the only country that is friends with the Israelis, but if the fundamentalist take control, then that friendship might be a thing of the past. The Egyptians civilians have been hoping for a democracy. Egypt is really weak and they need to set up a government quickly, or there will be a lot of blood shed.

My new laptop by Kayley

My Laptop From School by Kayley

At the school I am now going to, San Roque, every fifth grader gets a small,green laptop computer. I'm in fifth grade and on my second day of school, which just happened to be the Friday before spring break, the secretary told me that on the Monday after spring break, I'd get my computer. That day, when school ended, the secretary caught me on my way out of the room and brought me back inside. Feeling confused, I went inside the class room again. It soon became clear that all she needed from me was for me to write my name on a white box, that I assumed, contained my computer.

So when Monday arrived, I packed up my things really slowly, waiting for the secretary to come and give me the computer but that didn't happen. Then I slowly walked down the three stories of stairs to get back to the ground and exited the bleak brick school. I found daddy at the park across the street from the school. I told daddy that I don't have the computer yet because the secretary didn't give it to me yet. Daddy was counting on getting the computer so he could get the WIFI in our rental house running so he wasn't happy when I told him this. After some arguing on my part, I grumpily went back into the school with Sarah. First, I checked my classroom to see if my teacher was still in the room, but she wasn't. So Sarah and I went to the office on the second floor. There was a group of teachers in there probably talking. One of them asked me what I needed and I told him that the secretary hade promised to give me the computer today. He told me that I needed to bring a parent back to the school at 6:00pm to sign some docs and pick up the computer. Then I told Daddy the news and we started walking home and the teacher who told me the times for the meeting, told daddy every thing and we went home.

Mommy and I went back to the school that afternoon to get my computer. I was feeling nervous because I might have to explain in Spanish and I was exited because I was getting a computer!!!!!! When we got to the office the secretary was hard at work on one of the computers. After nocking on the door frame ( the door was open) we stepped cautiously into the room. When she finally turned around and looked at us questionably and I told her that we came here to pick up the computer. Then she rummaged around for the form for mommy to sign for the laptop. When she couldn't find it, she called the principal to help look. They finally had to photocopy one of the signed docs and whiteout the signatures. With docs signed and my new laptop under my arm, mommy and I trotted out of the school.

The only problems I have with my laptop now is that the cord is weak and that I can't surf the web with it because the WIFI is too slow. The incident that showed how weak my cord is when we went to Morocco. My computer had died and, of course, I plugged it in at our rental house and left it there for four days while we traveled. When we got back, I tried to turn it on and it just clicked and shut down again. What I learned from that is that when I plug my laptop in is that I've got to make sure that I push the plug in really hard.

I have found that my minuscular laptop computer is the perfect size for me and although I can't do much on it besides changing the color if the windows and goof of on this smart board application. I enjoy having my laptop all the same and I'm glad that all the fifth graders at San Roque get their own computer.

Fiesta de las Cruces by mia

For the last week there has been a continuous mini carnival in the main square of our little town, the neighboring little town, and every other town or city in the entire country of Spain. We got Monday and Tuesday of this last week off from school (hence our ability to go to Morocco and Barcelona last weekend) because of the huge party that was being had all over the country.

The big weeklong party is called Fiesta de las Cruces, and it involves lots of dancing, drinking, dressing up, and every thing else that makes for a fun time. When we talked to our landlady, Carmen about it she said that it was actually a religious party, but now its just turned into a normal party (like pretty much any religious holiday). What they still do that keeps up the religious part, is build and decorate crosses. The one in our central square was covered with roses and around it everyone put big pots of flowers, decorative plates and other pretty things. They set it up on the big trellised platform, and the whole setup took up pretty much the entire area. It looked really nice with all the flowers everywhere.

Another part of the party in our town was a nice mini carnival complete with bumper cars, a throw up ride, a carousel, a bouncy castle, and giant cotton candy. This carnival was set up at the beginning of last week and is just being taken down now! There was also an outdoor bar and a stage set up in the square. Zander and I were walking to school on the morning after the biggest party night, when they had just taken down the bar and the square looked trashed!! There was all sorts of trash and "party residue" all over the place. We were both like, wow looks like some people had a lot of fun last night!

We walked to the neighboring town, Armilla, to check out their celebrations too. On the way we noticed that many of the restaurants and businesses had their own decorated crosses, either outside by the door, or inside somewhere. We saw some made of corks, bottles, and one out of cake boxes! The party in Armilla had two bars set up and pretty much the same carnival set up as Churriana, if not a bit bigger.

The cutest part of this party was the dressing up part. Everyone dressed up in those crazy looking flamenco dresses and put flowers in their hair. There were the most adorable little girls were running around all decked out in fluffy pink polka dotted dresses with matching shoes and earrings!! It was awesome. The little girls would go up on the stage and do little flamenco dances with other kids. The boys were all dressed up too, in button downs and hats.

We walked through the party a lot but we only went there to party once. It was kind of a bummer that we picked the one day that it rained as the day that we would finally enjoy the festivities! We had drinks and tapas and were going to go on bumper cars or something,but then it started raining and we decided to head home. After the party week was over there was a little artisan market set up along the street next to the main square. It sold all sorts of things, from jewelry to cheese, but we only walked through it once. There were stalls selling big hunks of cheese, stalls selling all sorts of different jewelry, pastries, spices, tea, and random wooden trinkets. I really liked the spices because they smelled really yummy and there was mint chocolate tea, which I have never seen before!

The Fiesta de las Cruces was a really cool holiday, very Spanish. The fact that it kept going for about a week was the best thing, because there aren't really any like that in the US. I also really liked the dressing up (so cute!) and especially the fact that it gave us a four day weekend! I hope there are lots more huge parties around here.

PS Two of the pictures are random because we don't have many of the party (though mommy did try to take pics of some little girls who were all dressed up, but we got her not to because that would be slightly creepy...)

Pictures:

Guess which one is of me driving!! That lasted for a fee minutes in an empty parking lot. We had to stop because we saw a cop. We learned that that me+Standard driving= lots of bucking broncos..... My car is going to be an automatic for everyone's safety!!!

The one of momma is at the Armilla party.

The lovely palm tree lined promenade is the famous marble walkway along the beach on Alacante. We had some good frozen yogurt there... :)

The Bad Stuff My Dad Does!!!

In the last year that our family and I have been traveling around the world, my dad has been mean and stingy for the family.

He makes the kids sleep on the floor even in cheap 4 star hotels. Every time there is a big bed in the two person hotel room, daddy, mommy, Mia,and Kayley share it and Zander and I get the sleeping bags and a foot blanket on the floort.

He lets Zander beat up Kayley and me. It's all his fault! He is to blame, because daddy beats up Zander to get Zander very mad. Zander know's that daddy can beat him up, obviously, so he takes his anger out on Kayley and me. I think that Zander should have leaned by now not to mess with daddy, because he chooses to fight with daddy and ends up on the flor shirking like a girl "OWY DADDY OWY".

A week or so ago, daddy came into Kayley and my bedroom to say something terrible to us. He told us that he would not let us read English books, until we were out of Spain. His plan failed, because I still read English. He said, and probably remembers saying, that he will not buy Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban until we go to London, England where we can have no problem finding the books. I would rather look harder and get them in Spain, so I could read it now.

Those are some of the most usual bad things that our dad does and the thing's that annoyed me the most!!!

SARAH!!!

2 day at Barcelona by Zander

1 pic. Sky line vew of Barcelona and Kayley is touching the top of the Sagrada Familiar

2-3pic. The Gaudi neighborhood public arias

What I looked forward to the most in Barcelona was the Sagrada Familia church, because it is the only cathedral that is still being built today. Gaudi is the most famous architect in Barcelona, but I thought that he was a little crazy because of the odd shapes of his church and complexes. I thought that his buildings look kind of like different sized drip castles. It was also interesting to see the Gothic neighborhood. When we toured of Barcelona we saw lots of Gaudi's work and some of the old roman town of the Gothic neighborhood.

An example of Gaudi's weird building is shown in his famous church the Sagrada Familia. All of the churches of his time looked like Gothic cathedrals, but he made a totally different one. His church looked like a drip castle made of stone. The reason that the church looks so weird, is because he based his design on a upside down model made of string and paper. I know this because I learned it from the Great Course. What made it look really odd was the colorful words all along the cathedral spires. There were different types of fruit scattered on the tips of the steeples. I think that fruit and buildings don't mix. What is really interesting was that Gaudi died about 100 years ago but the cathedral is still being built. We could tell because of the difference in the statues in the front and the back and there is construction equipment all over it. On the front, there are gothic statues; but on the back, all the statues are modern art. I thought the Cathedral was really cool because Gaudi tried something different from any of the churches that I have seen before.

After over indulging in Gaudi's works, we saw a different part of town. An amazing part of Barcelona is the old roman town/gothic neighborhood. The old town Barcino has some interesting shoppes. There were gun shoppes, and knife shops with weapons that shouldn't be there,like AK 47, and samurai swords. There were shops that sold weed, and t- shirts that say really funny things like dick jokes and sexual references. There were also lots of beggars and performers. There were musicians that play music on battered instruments on the streets. We came to a square with a big cathedral. There were about 10 muscular men doing gymnastics on the concrete. It looked like it hurts their knees. When they were done with the performance, they took off their shirts and asked all the woman for tips, which I thought that was pretty smart. Out of all the people, the girls had enjoyed the performance the most. All in all it was a pretty happening place. If you want to try some unknown substances it is either here, or near the SoHo hotel in Athens, Greece.

After our mind opening experience in the Gothic neighborhood, we went to a housing complex, the Park Gruel, designed by Gaudi. This complex, like so many in California, the builders ran out of money, so they stopped mid project about 100 years ago. The builders had completed a few houses and some communal buildings. What shocked me was how different they looked compared to all the other houses in Barcelona. They had really bright colors and weird shapes. They looked like miniature drip castles. It was a real pity that he ran out of money, because they occupied some nice real-estate and it would have been cool to live in one. I have to say, that I couldn't really appreciate the architectural feat, because I was really tired of being a tourist. But now I think that Gaudi did different buildings from other architects of his time and it would be interesting living in one of these candy land houses. But now it a public park( because the builder donated it to the city) that tourist and locals can visit.

After seeing the full Gaudi tour and some older Roman ruins. Seeing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was really amazing because Gaudi's unique design. My favorite thing was looking at the t-shirts in the Gothic neighborhood. After seeing most of the attractions in Barcelona I thought that we did not se all that we could in the town and I want to go back some day to finish up.

Our Failed Trip to Morocco

Our four day trip to Morocco failed because we couldn't bring our rental car to Morocco. Ever since mommy said we'd be going to Morocco about two weeks ago. I've had bad feelings about going to Morocco. I thought that Morocco would be like Egypt. Egypt was really dirty and the people would always be asking daddy for money.

There was a nasty surprise that awaited us at the ferry dock in Tarifa, Spain, that messed up our whole trip. The surprise was that we couldn't bring our rental car across to Morocco. Daddy knew that the rental car company wouldn't let us go outside the country with their car, but he hoped that the border control would let us cross anyway. At the dock, Daddy went to get information from the ticket people from both ferry companies while the rest of us unpacked the car. The guy that told us about the car was a really nice police man who could speak really good English. When daddy came back, he didn't talk much and he took the car to find a parking spot. When he came back to join us in line, the ferry we wanted to get on left.

We went to a bench to sit down to discus our options. Daddy told us we had two options: to pay for two rental cars and only use one, or pay for both ways on the ferry and just go to Morocco to get our passports stamped and get on the same ferry back to Spain. We chose the later and hopped on the next ferry to Morocco.

Boarding the ferry went unusually smooth for us despite the long lines. Once on the ferry there was little fuss over seating, and I got started on my extensive homework. Every one else didn't have homework except me. The ferry ride was quite long. I was distracted and listened to some fellow Americans next to us and tried to figure out which state they were from. I think they might be from New York. Also, I did my math homework.

At the ferry dock in Morocco, we got off the ferry. On our way to the ferry terminal, we turned around and were about to get our passports checked. The person who checked our passports when we got off the ferry also was checking us on the way back on to the ferry. He told us that we needed to get all the way into Morocco before getting back onto the ferry. So we had to go all the way trough the terminal and back again to the dock. On the way, daddy got asked for money by some guy who kind of told us which door to go through even though that door was the only door in the hall.

Back on the ferry, I started my language homework. I wanted to get it done because my language teacher is really strict. I saw someone win at one of the slot machines on the boat. The guy got handfuls of Euro coins. He was really lucky. On the three hour drive home really late at night, it was dark. I dozed off a lot and listened to Othello on Audible. Mommy and daddy had it on and I could hear it from where I sat.

I've had a bad feeling about going to Morocco, because I didn't want to go back to Africa. I'm glad we didn't stay long in Morocco because I thought it is probably like Egypt. Now that we're not in Morocco we can do more fun stuff now that we're in Spain. We decided to do the trip to Barcelona and Valencia instead.

By Kayley