Edinburgh Castle

Today we visited the Edinburugh castle in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This castle was built for King David the 1st in the 12th century.
It overlooks the whole city of Edinburgh and out onto the North Sea. It's tall, solid walls are lined with black cannons that were used for battles hundreds of years ago. It's cobblestone walkway, built in the 17th century, twists and turns around the old, beautiful buildings all the way up to the famous Scotish war memorial.



The Scottish war memorial was built on the 14th of July, 1927 by the Prince of Wales, and the Future King Edward VIII of England. He made this shrine to specifically honor all of the men and women who died in the 1914-1918 great war. The inside of this shrine is lined with books that hold the names of the thousands of people that served for Scotland. It also holds a small chapel with carvings along the side walls. These carvings were of Soldiers and Doctors and dogs going out to war. The carving says inspirational words about the soldiers. It is quite a memorable place.

Next to the memorial is St. Margaret's chapel.




St. Margaret's chapel happens to be the oldest building in the Edinburgh castle and the oldest building in all of Edinburgh.
It was built in the year 1130 and was originally believed to be built by King David I after his mother died of a "broken heart" when her husband (his father) died fighting The English in Alnwick. This chapel is quite small and plain but unbelievably beautiful at the same time. In the front of the church there is a small altar with the cross and beautiful gold and purple fabrics. Behind the altar there is a stained glass window of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.
**A quick fact about Saint Andrew is that he was crucified on an "X" instead of a cross. He wasn't crucified on a cross because he didn't feel that he was as important as Christ. **
This small chapel is still used today for weddings and baptisms.





Below the chapel there is a dog cemetery. A dog cemetery, in a castle? Yes it is unusual. It was built in 1814 for the army officers' loyal pets.
The weird thing about this cemetery is that it is built directly on top of the medieval constable's tower.

Overall this castle is absolutely stunning and very fun to visit as well.

You most definitely have to visit this castle when you go to Scotland.

-Marin-

Location:Edinburgh, Scotland

Dunfermline Abbey

Today we went to the Dunfermline Abbey Church.









The most famous part of this church is the tomb of King Robert the Bruce.

Here is a brief history about Robert the Bruce:

He was the King of Scotland from 1306-1329. He was one of Scotland's greatest kings. He fought for the independence of Scotland.

The only problem with this is that Robert did not have a large army. This was an issue because when his army took castles they had to destroy them otherwise the English army would just come and rebuild it, thus Robert would have to come back and re-destroy it.

Robert the Bruce's tomb was lost after his death until the city of Dunfermline found it in 1817 when the city was expanding the Abbey Church. They could only identify him in one way, he had broken ribs over his heart. This is because when Robert the Bruce died he had his heart removed by his friend sir James Douglas. Douglas did this in order to complete Bruce's crusade to build a united Scotland

His body was not the only one found in the ruins of the castle, they also found about 10 others, sadly they were unable to identify them so they are unknown but still are buried in the church today.

Robert the Bruce's actual tomb is made out of gold and purple marble. The tomb has many meaning to it, here are a few;





First, his sword is pointing down. This shows that he had finished what he promised to complete. He wasn't able to do this in life, but his heart did it in death.

Second, he has lion by his feet. This represents that he was a king or high ruler. If you were a knight or a lower ruler, you would have a dog by your feet but, as a king, you needed to show strength and power so he has a lion.

Lastly, Roberts crown is on his head which means that he is actually in the tomb. If the crown hovers it means there is no body in the tomb, it is only a memorial.

So, as you can see, the Dunfermline Abbey Church is built around Robert the Bruce. He is loved by all of Scotland and the people today still honor him and everything he did for his country.



Marin-

Location:Dunfermline, Scotland

Palacio Real

Today while we were riding our bikes in Madrid, Spain and we saw a huge, huge palace called the Palacio Real (the royal palace.) The current palace was built for King Carlos III. He wanted to live in the grandest most beautiful castle. He also wanted to put 50 large limestones statues on the top of the castle to honor many of the past great kings of Spain. This plan, however, never really went into action because of the king's mother. She was afraid that since the statues were on the roof and they weighed so, so much that one day she would walk out of the castle, the statues would fall off the roof, land on her and kill her. The castle has over 2,000 rooms( but only about 25 are open to visitors).




The palace has a statue of Carlos III in the front courtyard. It is made out of bronze. This statue was very challenging to build because Charles III wanted the horse, that he is riding in the statue, to be on its hind legs. This had never been done before, ever! So the artist of the structure, Velazquez, called the famous astronomer,Galileo, to help him. Galileo told Velazquez to make the front of the horse hollow and the back of the horse to be solid so the statue wouldn't snap in half or not be able to stand on its 2 back legs. When Velazquez finished the statue he brought it to The King and do you know what he said? He didn't think that the face of the statue looked like him. So he had the statue beheaded and put in the basement of the castle for many, many years until finally someone came and finished it.
This palace is very beautiful outside. It has statues of pots and people on the outside. There are gardens in front and around it with flowers and neatly trimmed bushes.

The current royal family of Spain, King Juan Carlos (and his family do not live here. They chose a smaller castle outside of Madrid. They thought this place was just too big!

When you go to Spain, I definitely recommend visiting this palace or at least walking through the gardens.

-Marin-

Location:Madrid, Spain

Madrid pictures

All is well with the Counters, no blog entries due to very little wi-fi available to us. Off to Scotland tomorrow, will try to update soon!

Location:Calle de Arrieta,Madrid,Spain

Catedral de Sevilla

Today we visited Catedral de Sevilla in Sevilla, Spain.



I thought it was cool because it is where Christopher Columbus really is buried. There are rumors saying that he has been buried in West Indies, Portugal, Spain, and Cuba. The truth is he has been buried in all those places and the distance his remains have traveled is almost as far as Christopher himself traveled. His body had been passed around all of those places, but now is in this cathedral in Spain. His tomb is very, very fancy. It has been lifted above the ground by four metal men, one on each corner of the tomb which represent the four kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Leon and Navarra.





A very important feature to this church is the Giralda. It was a minaret for the mosque and now is a clock tower for the church. Sadly, we weren't able to go up in it because of on-going preservation. Although, many clock towers in the United States were fashioned after it.





This church is cool for other reasons as well. This cathedral is the place where Ferdinand Magellan started and ended his around the world journey in 1515.

This church also has many elegant and beautiful features to it. For example, there is an over 100 pipe organ that is well decorated and has teeny tiny pipes and pipes longer than your car. I could only imagine how wonderful it would sound when someone actually played it, although we did hear a small snippet of the organ when we arrived at the church.

Like many large cathedrals, this one has many separate chapels or rooms off the main cathedral, some hold tombs or relics of popes or saints or art and mosaics.

Some even hold separate little areas to pray or sit and listen to the organ or just to think. One of the chapels held flags of the countries that Ferdinand Magellan passed on his journey.

A couple of interesting facts about this cathedral are, one; it is the third largest cathedral in the world compared to Saint Peter's in Rome and Saint Mark's in Venice. And second; it was a mosque before it was a church.

Lastly, in the back of the church is a garden where there are orange trees, fountains and benches. The fountains date back to when this church was still a mosque. They were used for ablolutions. An abolution is when a person who is Muslim, wash their feet, hands and faces before they go in to the mosque. This garden is also interesting because of the drainage system. The drains are open and carved into the ground, when it rains, the drains run the water down to the orange trees to water them.


This church is quite touristy but don't forget to stop by if you ever are in Sevilla.

-Marin-

Claude Monet's Garden

Today we went to Claude Monet's garden, located in Giverny, France.
If you don't already know this, Monet (1840-1926) was a famous painter who liked to capture different light in his paintings. He was also known as an Impressionist. Some of his most famous art pieces were done in his (Monet's) garden.
This garden has a river running through to a pond, beautiful flowers everywhere and a few spectacular small bridges.
This garden is called Monet's garden because it was a made by Monet himself. He planted the lily pads that delicately float on the water. He planted the flowers and weeded them too. He made everything so perfect.


It wasn't just a place to glance at flowers though, it was Monet's inspiration for many of his paintings. In fact, Monet's most famous painting (1897) is called "water lillies" or in French, "nympheas, effet du soir." Guess what? It was done here in the garden.
I personally thought that Monet's garden was really cool because it inspired me to do more paintings and take more photos.
Also Monet's garden is just an hour outside of Paris by train. Another cool thing is that Monet's house was up on the hill just above it with a flower garden in front.
If you ever get the chance to go to France, then definitely go to Monet's garden because it is absolutely, stunningly beautiful!






Marin-

Location:Giverny, France

Paris

Things I learned in Paris

* the Eiffel tower is exactly 1000 feet tall

* there are only three REAL gold things in Paris: The top of the egyptian obelisk in Concorde Place, the statues on the bridge representing peace with the Russians, and the Eglise du Dome.

* Napoleon Bonaparte lived and ruled in Paris but was banished to an island near Africa after he escaped the first one and recaptured Paris...

* One King of France named Louis XIV (also known as the Sun King) invented high heels to show off his legs .

*Napoleon Bonaparte was buried for the second time in a church behind Les Invalides near the military school in Paris. He is buried beneath the surface of the church with glass over his bones. You basically have to bow down to him to look at him. Here's the funny thing, a young man named Adolph Hitler (I'm sure you have heard of this terrible guy...)was a fan of Napoleons so one day he decided to go to the church to see Napoleons bones, Hitler liked Napoleon but thought he was even more powerful, so what he did was set up a series of mirrors so that he could see Napoleon but not have to bow down to him............wow.

*another fact about Napoleon is that he always wanted to be the highest/ best in everything. He went to the military school, was in the military, was a commander, was the ruler, then he fired all the other senators and people who helped to make laws and decisions, he made himself ruler for life, but that wasn't high enough for him. When the pope was about to crown him to be the emporer, he stole the crown from the pope and crowned himself to show that he was more important than the pope himself.

*don't drive in Paris! use the metro, your feet, and the RER trains!!!!

* if you stand I front of the Louvre and look over the gardens, you can see a fountain in line with the obelisk, in line with the Arc de Triomphe, in line with the le Defense arch.

Arc de Triomphe


* Paris is beautiful in the night time...

* the Louvre museum is really, really awesome but don't use the glass dome entrance, use the metro to get there and go under ground to save you from the hour long wait.

* the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 by a man named Gustave Eiffel



* the French had an extremely simple naming system, for example; Gustave Eiffel built the Eiffel tower. Ècole militare was the military school. Art de Triomphe was the triumphant arch. Very simple.

* Paris has its own reproduction of the statue of liberty. The interesting thing is that the statue of liberty was actually a gift from France to the US...

*the H&M in Venice, Italy is bigger than the one in Paris... Weird? :)

*the Eiffel tower is 3 times as tall as the space needle, a little smaller than the empire state building, and about 5 times as tall as the statue of liberty.

*the Eiffel tower lights up every hour for ten minutes until 2in the morning.

*the whole left wing of the Louvre museum was where Napoleon lived.


The Louvre

Location:Paris, France

Michelangelo's David

Today we went to The Accademia in Florence!

This museum is famous for the statue of David that as built in the year 1502, during the Renaissance in Florence, by Michelangelo . This story of David is popular and famous. David killed a giant named Goliath with a sling and a stone when he was only a teenager. Now you might think its weird that somebody can be so famous by just killing someone, but Goliath was not just a person on the street. This story is a biblical one so everyone in David's town was a believer in one god and believed in Christianity. Goliath belonged to a group of giants who didn't have the same religion as the people who were in the town with David. What Goliath's group did was stand outside the walls of the city and call people from the town to go out and fight them. Nobody in the city wanted to go fight the giants but David volunteered. David went out to the giants and took his stone and sling and he slung his rock, it hit Goliath, and killed him. In many paintings from the Florence Renaissance time period (1400-1550) there is David holding the head of Galaeith in his hand or in a bowl. The statue of David, though, is not of him holding the head of the awful giant, but of him before the fight. He is naked, looking courageous yet cautious. He is naked, to show every little bit about him, from showing how tense he is to also showing his strength. This statue stands 14 feet tall and is white, made out of a one slab of beautiful, breathtaking marble. The statue practically glows under the huge glass dome that stands over it.
Now the statue of David has some interesting parts to it as well. For example, his hands are very large, hairy, and muscular. His hands are like this because Michael Angelo wanted to show that David had strength from god. That he was strong and could beat Goliath. Also his hands are large because ethe statue was meant to Be put on top of the Duomo, this way the people below could see his strong hands from that angle. Another interesting thing about the statue was David's head. It is a little too large for his body also for the same reasons.

Today David is the most popular tourist attraction in the Accademia . People from all over the world come to see it everyday. If you get a chance to go and experience italy, you most definitely need to go to the Accademia and see Michelangelo's David.


This is a replica of David where the original used to stand in the Palazzo della Signoria before it was moved to the Accademia. It was moved to keep it safe from weather and one unfortunate incident of a desk flying out of a window and breaking off his arm....

-Marin-

Location:Florence, Italy

Mt. Vesuvius and the lost city of Pompeii

On top of Mt. Vesuvius, overlooking Pompeii




Steam vents inside Mt. Vesuvius's crater



In Pompeii Scavi, Mt. Vesuvius in the background


We recently visited the Italian city of Pompeii.
It was really cool because we were able to see old ruins that were perfectly preserved by lava and ash from Mt. Vesuvius.
Mt. Vesuvius exploded in 79 a.d. and is considered one of the most devastating events in ancient times.
The day this volcano exploded was just like any normal day for the men, women, and children of Pompeii. They went along there normal buismess, doing laundry, building, walking, or learning when a large earthquake hit Pompeii. They kept carrying on like nothing had happened. Little did they know that soon, many of them would die.
Within a couple of hours a large booming sound exploded from the volcano as a cloud of smoke rushed up from it.
Some people in Pompeii fled the city (by boat) because they were scared and nervous, but some thought that this event was cool and entertaining so they stayed in the town and watched this happen.
The people who hadn't fled the city were either back to their jobs or watching the volcano, when it began raining rocks. Not just little pebbles, but large softball-sized stones. These stones weren't blown out of the volcano, they were formed by hot ash that was hovering above the city. The ash had began to cool in the sky and turned into clumps that pounded down onto Pompeii.
But this wasn't the worst of their troubles.
The rocks killed and injured people, also it got so heavy on the roofs of houses and shops that it broke roofs down and crushed the victims hiding beneath them.
By now everyone left in Pompeii was under shelter or in their houses when a toxic gas from the inside of the volcano began to drift though the town and leak in and, unfortunately, kill the remaining people.
As you think that is the worst this problem could get, it's not.
With any volcano, there has to be lava.
As the lava speeded down the side of the mountain at over 110 km per hour, everyone in Pompeii had no chance.
Several years later, some farmers re-found the city of Pompeii one day as they were digging a well.
They uncovered so much of the city and found people's preserved remains from everywhere there.
In 1944 the volcano struck again, thankfully people in Pompeii had a better warning and idea of what was going on.
Today the wonderful city of Pompeii thrives. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people visit the ruins of Pompeii every day and the area surrounding Mt Vesuvius has a population of almost 3 million. Mt. Vesuvius is an attraction of its own as millions of people climb up to the volcano's summit every year to have a view over the beautiful cities of Pompeii, Herculeum, and Naples.

Marin




Apollo in Pompeii

Location:Pompeii, Italy

The Colosseum

Today we went to the Colosseum! It was really cool because we had a tour guide and were able to learn what really happened there!
The Colosseum was originally built by Vespasian and wasn't called the Colosseum, it was called Flavian Amphitheater. The name has changed over time. People began calling it the colossal, as in large and it some how ended up as Colosseum in the end. Another interesting fact about the the Coliseum is that it was originally given as a gift from Vespasian to the city of Rome as a gift and was meant for plays and performances, not for slaughters, battles, and hunting.
As I said earlier they didn't continue to use this arena for plays, as it was meant, instead it was used for hunting in the morning, mid-day human executions, and evening battles.
Now when you think of this arena, you probably think it's a bunch of bleachers with a stage or field in the middle, sorry your wrong, it is way more complicated than that! The seating itself could probably hold around 50,000 people, including the slaves and women; who sat on the top of the stadium, the men; who sat in the middle, the senators and important people; who sat in the "V.I.P" section, and the Emperor; who sat in his very own fancy, box seat.
The Colosseum also has a stage with 80 trap doors leading to underground compartments.





Now when you think of what they did in the arena, you should probably think about something along the lines of the "Hunger Games," except for this wasn't for food and it was real. The daily schedule for the events in the arena went like this;
MORNING- The Romans would hunt in the stadium. They used real animals, not trained or fake or anything. Real! And they would recreate where you could find the animal and what it would really be like to hunt it. For example, they would put a Siberian tiger in the arena. Next they would make it like a zoo habitat for the tiger. Then, well, they would put you in there with a spear or sword or knife and see who won. You can kind of guess how that went...

AFTERNOON- they would have the human executions. You would be sentenced to slaughter for stealing, murder, disobeying the emperor, etc.
Now, this wasn't your normal beheading or hanging you would usually hear about. The Romans decided to get creative. They would recreate the deaths of gods. For example, Orpheus. Orpheus was a god who played beautiful, beautiful music that could put almost anyone into a trance. This is sad for the man who was about to be slaughtered in the arena, here's what happened to him: One day Orpheus is walking along and is by a tree in the meadow, (the man in the arena is tied to a tree in the middle), when a lion comes out of the woods, but the lion falls asleep from Orpheus's beautiful music, (lion falls asleep), next a wild boar comes out, (boar comes out from the side of the stage), but the music makes him run by orpeus without a scratch, (the boar runs by the man), suddenly a bear comes out of the woods, (bear comes out from the stage), sadly for Orpheus ,and the man in the arena, bears are tone deaf. Therefore the bear kills Orpheus, (and mauls the poor man tied to the tree in the arena).

EVENING- in the evening there would be Gladiator battles. There were men (sometimes women) gladiators that fought in the arena to the death.......sometimes. It was an interesting thing though because, for example, let's say that one gladiator has the sword (ormwhatever weapon was popular at the time) to the other gladiator's throat, he won't kill him, he will look up at the Emperor and the emperor will give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, decide if he should kill him or not.
This was the daily life of the Colosseum, hope you enjoyed! :)



Marin

Location:Largo dei Librari,Rome,Italy

My family and I visited my friend Maddie and her family in Ankara, Turkey. Her parents, Dan and Lara work at Bilkent Laboratory and International School and Maddie and her brother Forrest are students. They have lived in Turkey for 6 years!






Here are some things we did:

We visited a region called Cappadocia. We stayed in a town called Goreme. Cappadocia is unique to Turkey because many of the houses there are built into the rocks. If you don't understand what I mean, then think of large stone mini-mountains with doors and windows built into them.



Many of these unique houses are abandoned, But people do live in them. It is nice to live in these houses because you really don't need air conditioning because you are in a cave and caves are cool because of the rocks surrounding you.

Another place we visited in Turkey was Derinkuyu, the Underground City. This was built/dug in Turkey as early as 7th century BC! Later in history, Christian refugees used these to keep safe from the invading Hittites and later the Persians. The invaders were trying to attack the Christian people because they didn't believe in the same religion and the same god or gods.




We also visited a Mosque. This is was the first time my family and I had been in a mosque. A mosque is a place of worship for the Muslim religion. It is a place for people to go and pray. There are five calls to prayer each day. This mosque was in Ankara. A mosque we went to in Istanbul was called the Sultanahmet Camii or the Blue Mosque. More on this later...




-Marin-

http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City
http://www.goreme.com/goreme-open-air-museum.php

Location:Cappadocia (Kapadokya)

The Cape of Good Hope, South Africa

Today we went to a place called "Cape Point" or "The Cape of Good Hope."
This place is on the most southwestern tip of Africa (Cape Agulhus is the Souther most tip and is the closet you can get to Antarctica without being on a boat or on a plane.)
One of the cape's most famous attractions is the lighthouse on the top of the hill where you can look over the cape and the ocean.
They now have a new lighthouse on the bottom of the hill close to the water because the old lighthouse, (the tourist attraction), is to far up on the hill and too far inland. This caused ships to think that they had plenty of room to go around it, but then they would crash into the rocks or land that was still in front of the lighthouse.
Another fun fact about Cape Point is; one side of the cape is the Atlantic ocean, and the other side is the Indian ocean.
If you look really close when you're there then you can just barely see the color change in the two oceans.
If you ever go to South Africa, this is a must do!





Old lighthouse:



-Marin-


loveyamissyaseeyasoon
-Mårįn-

Location:South Africa

Amazing South Africa!

Things I learned on Safari...

-- South Africa has "The Big Five" considered the most dangerous to hunt on foot: cape Buffalo,rhino, elephant, lion and leopard. We saw 4 of the 5. The leopard hid from us!

-- Rhino poaching is a large problem, in South Africa. Since 2006, when a Vietnamese Cabinet member claimed that some concoction made of rhino horn cured his cancer, rhino horns have become very valuable. Therefore, poachers scout out rhinos and return to steal the rhino 's horn. They shoot the rhino with a tranquilizer dart. This dart causes the rhino too fall over and fall asleep. (Many think South African vets need to be involved because the tranquilizer is only available to them. Then the poachers saw the rhino horn off. Unfortunately, the poachers are greedy and take all of the horn instead of cutting just a little bit. They want all of the horn because it is worth 2.2 million Rand (8 Rand per 1 U.S. dollar) per full grown rhino horn. The rhino could maybe survive the loss of the horn if a bit of it was left to regenerate (it is made up of compressed hair and a lot like human fingernails.) Unfortunately, the wound will ultimately become infected and kill the rhino. The other way the rhino could possibly survive is if the poachers used the tranquilizer reversal because laying on one side for too long basically paralyzes the rhino and it can't get up back up again. One ranger told us that at the current rate of poaching, South Africa could lose all of its rhinos in two years!


-- Termite mounds are every where in south Africa a cool fact about them is that 2/3 of a mound are underground and only 1/3 above ground. Another fact is that the mounds can get up to 2 meters high ( 6 ft.) !!
Fun Fact the termites air conditioning is more advanced than humans it always stays at 27 Celsius.

-- Many baby Girrafes don't live through birth. They usually don't live because when mother Girrafes birth their babies they don't sit down or ly down, they do it standing up. This means the baby has to drop about 2 meters onto the ground. Ouch!




-- On a safari you will see many footprints. One way to tell if the print is a doglike animal Or a cat like animal is at the back of the print there are either 2 or 3 lobes. A dog, like a hyena, has 2 lobes and a cat, like a lion, has 3 lobes. Another way to tell the difference is a cat (unless it is running) won't have claws out. A dog always will.



-- Giraffes never put their head on the ground! One reason they don't is because when they are sleeping, if their head is on the ground, they are vulnerable to predators. So instead, they fold their legs underneath themselves and their head stays straight up when sleeping. (They only sleep less than one hour per day.) The other reason giraffes keep their heads up is because their heavy muscular necks are hard to get off the ground once there.

-- Giraffe skin is thicker than rhino skin. This is because giraffe's blood pressure in it's legs is 3 x that of a human!

-- In the unlikely event of a lion charging you... This is what you should do: if a lion is staring you down fiercely and snarling, something is wrong. If it charges, do not make a retreat. Instead, take one step forward and clap loudly. This will confuse the lion because, all of its prey normally runs away. The lion may retreat, run around you, or charge again. Repeat the above as necessary. The lion may think that you're, in fact, a threat. After the lion backs away and loses interest or leaves, you should slowly do the same. However, always step left or right, not directly back as to avoid stepping in your own poo. (Thanks for that one Alistair)




-- there are two different main kind of elephants, the Asian and the African. The way you can tell them apart is by there ears. African elephants have ears that are the shape of africa. Asian elephants have round ears.

-- Do you no how many chicken eggs are in one ostrich egg? There are twenty- two chicken eggs per ostrich egg!

-- Did you know that hippos can actually get sunburned? They stay in the water to protect their skin from the sun! Fun fact: hippos can stay underwater for up to five minutes. Hippos are actually extremely poor swimmers! They don't swim when they are in the water, they run on the bottom!!!!



-- So you might want to know which is the most deadly of them all in Africa? None of the above, it is that nasty little insect, the mosquito!

Location:Port Elizabeth, South Africa