Finally home

Well that was harder than expected, as it turns out a lot of places in Turkey, Italy and Greece make it really difficult for you to connect to the internet, and with so much going on with the trip I didn't really have time to make regular posts, so I suppose now that i'm at home I should quickly go over everything that happened in Greece and Italy.

After we left Turkey, we flew to Athens and drove to our hotel where we would be staying for two nights, it was a nice place and it had a view of the Acropolis from both the roof where we ate breakfast and from our rooms. The first day was mostly relaxed, we walked up to the Archaeological museum and had a look at the artefacts taken from Tiryns, Mycenae and Pylos, where we would be going in a few days. The day after that we had a long walk around the city where we saw the changing of the guard, Hadrian's Arch and of course, the Acropolis. Now I hadn't quite expected that i'd have to walk all the way up to the Acropolis, so I was a little thankful for all the walking holidays i'd done with mum and dad before, because a lot of the less experienced travellers in the group seemed to take the walk a lot worse than I did. We looked around for a while before we descended and moved on to the Agora, and then to lunch before heading back to the hotel.

The next day we left Athens and met our new tour guide for Greece, Helen. On a long drive down to where we would be staying near Mycenae, at a town called Tolo, we heard a lot about the mythos surrounding the areas we were driving through and about Tiryns, the site we visited on our way to Tolo. After a spectacular night in our very relaxing hotel in Tolo, we drove back to Mycenae and spent a long while looking around the site and the museum, which was quite useful considering it's one of my main topics for the HSC. We then drove for the rest of the day down to Pylos, where we spent the night. Unfortunately we could not see the palace at Pylos because it had been closed, but we did see a medieval fortress which had been built by the Francs and used during the Turkish occupation of Greece, it was right on the ocean and was quite a spectacular site, especially considering it was so well preserved, as it was used for a long time past it's construction.

The rest of the day was mostly spent driving to the port where we would be catching the Superfast ferry over to Italy. Our tour guide Helen had been excellent in providing useful information about the historical facts and Mythos of the sites we visited, and our driver had done a brilliant job of getting us around quickly and safely in somewhat chaotic streets, so Mrs. Costi had me and Erin thank them on behalf of the tour, before we said our goodbyes to them and went to jump on the ferry. The ferry was a great experience mostly, unfortunately however Jake did get sick again here, but he recovered fairly quickly in Italy and was feeling perfect for the rest of the trip. Other than him being sick the ferry was quite enjoyable, a nice relaxing change from most of the running around the rest of the trip offered, even in the morning there wasn't a great deal considering we had to wait until the ship had docked before we could do anything.

When we arrived in Italy, we got off the ferry and jumped onto another bus, this time without a tour guide as we made our way to Naples to visit the archaeological museum, here we saw a number of mosaics and other artefacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the sites we would be visiting in the next couple of days before Rome, and then got back on the bus to make our way to Sorrento, where we would be staying for two nights. After getting relaxed we went out for dinner and as I'd only done so previously close to the border of Italy in Switzerland, I had the chance to try REAL Italian food, and I was certainly not disappointed. After this it was mostly being dragged around while others did shopping before we went back to the hotel to get some rest for Pompeii the next day.

Catching the train the next morning to Pompeii was an interesting experience. The ride was pretty much like any other train ride apart from the spectacular view, it was the buskers that were the most interesting part. Jumping onto the train before it departed, a band of roughly five men began playing loud songs for everyone to hear, and honestly they weren't that bad, some of the people in the group even tipped them before they moved on and began playing on the other side of the train. Arriving at Pompeii I could tell what kind of day it would be from the groans I had become somewhat accustomed to from the others in the group, as had become the catchphrase for our trip; it was leg day, or walking day. For me it was a little different however, as in my group with Mrs. Costi I had been stuck with a map of the site and told to navigate and lead everyone around, it wasn't that difficult as the map was fairly clear, and eventually we made our way to the different sites and finally the amphitheatre for lunch. After this we saw the sites which Mrs. Kerr's group had been looking at before we left and made our way back to Sorrento to rest our (everyone else's) sore feet.

That night in Sorrento was much the same as the previous one, and the next day we set off for Herculaneum, another site which had been destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius, and one that had been buried under roughly 20 meters of ash and lava. For a town placed under that, it was surprisingly well intact, and it was so well preserved there was even second stories of buildings and wood remaining from roughly 79 AD. After looking around the site in small groups and learning about the temples or mosaics on the walls of houses which told different intriguing stories, we headed back to the bus and made our way to Rome, our last stay on the trip. That day in Rome we saw one of the biggest sites to see, the Colosseum. It's something I'd always wanted to see up until this point, but I was still absolutely blown away when we saw it, to me it reminded me that no matter how many times you can look at a place in a picture, there's nothing quite like seeing it with your own eyes, I ended up having that feeling a lot in Rome.

The next time I had it of course was a little while later on the way to dinner when we visited Trevi fountain, and of course, threw a coin into it. That night we had time to wander about the area around Trevi, taking pictures, shopping and getting gelato if we wished, and this time I actually did some shopping there, picking up a painting for myself along with a few other trinkets. After that we went back to the hotel and slept to get ready for the next day which again would be leg day. Our first stop on our last day was the Vatican, and we had quite a surprise when we got there, we learned that the Basilica, what we'd planned to see, was closed, but we got to see something a little better, the pope. Driving around the square and waving to everyone, we actually ended up rather close, at one point only about ten meters from the pope himself, not quite an experience I figured I'd have when I left on the trip. After this we made our way to Piazza Navona where we ate lunch before we moved on to the Pantheon and back to Trevi for a bit of last minute shopping, then it was back to the hotel for the final preparations to come home.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful in terms of things we saw, it was all the usual routine for me, go to the airport, go through all the checks, jump on a plane to Dubai, get off, get back on, and then the long haul home. I was quite lucky on that flight though to get quite a lot of sleep, and when I made it home I wasn't that tired, which helped with jet lag. Now I've been relaxing at home for a couple of days and it's only starting to sink in that I'm both glad to be home but upset that it's over at the same time. I had such an incredible experience seeing all these places, and the fact that I got to experience all this with friends made it even better, my trip to Turkey, Greece and Italy with school was a fantastic journey, and one I won't forget for a long time.

The Rest of Turkey

After leaving Izmir we began to make our way towards Cannakale, near Gallipoli and our last stop before crossing the dardanelles onto the peninsula. While we were heading there we stopped at Troy, little more than rubble now, both from the fact it's so ancient and from Heinrich Schliemann's terrible excavation. Walking around the site, we were told about the story and what was and wasn't true, and about the many different levels of the city, before taking some silly pictures inside the replica trojan horse, of course. After this we moved back to the bus and got onto it, before this point Jake had been quite sick and vomiting, but he was getting much better now, which was good to see.

Getting to Cannakale, we checked into the hotel a bit later than expected and had dinner at the hotel before we went out for short walk to get some money and to see the Trojan horse used in the movie 'Troy'. After that we made our way back and just settled in for a fairly uncomfortable night's sleep. The next morning we got up and got our luggage down to the lobby, placing it into the bus after breakfast and getting on the ferry over to the peninsula before heading towards the memorial area and Anzac Cove. Seeing the memorials, the cove and cemetaries was a very moving experience, considering I have so much family history with the first world war, and even with Gallipoli. We spent just about all day here and then just drove to Istanbul, where again we would be having two nights.

Our first night in Istanbul was fairly uneventful, just getting settled and going out to have dinner in a nice restaurant, before taking some night-time pictures of the blue mosque, which we would be seeing the next day. After that we went back to the hotel and slept, getting up the next morning and setting off for the Tokapi Palace. We had free roam in the palace and I first went to the Harem apartments with Erin and Lia, it was absolutely spectacular, the walls were all covered with some sort of tile or decoration, and there were many vibrant colours of gold, blue, green and red everywhere. After moving through them slowly and taking in all of it, we continued to look around the palace until we had to move on. Returning to the blue mosque, we took some pictures of it and Hagia Sophia, unable to go inside due to our time, we moved on to the Roman Cistern and looked around inside, again it was quite beautiful, and a nice cool change to the hot weather outside.

After visiting the cistern and having a nice lunch, we came to the big part of the day, the Grand Bazaar. We were split into groups of six or seven and given free reign around the bazaar, with a set meeting point and time two hours after our entry. Being placed in a group with Erin, Kaylee, Lia, Jake, Belinda and Bec, I wasn't sure if i'd really buy anything, but figured I would try considering I wouldn't need any of my TL beyond this point. After looking around and haggling with some of the stall owners (which was really quite fun) I managed to spend all my cash on three items, a journal, a new leather wallet, and of course, a turkish fez. The others brought a number of things, art, clothes, accessories, if you wanted to find something to buy, you could get it at the Grand Bazaar.

Leaving the Bazaar, we went back to the hotel to relax for a bit and shower before we went out for dinner again. This time, we were given 100 TL to a group of three and told we could eat anywhere we wanted within a certain area, but again had to meet at a set spot at 9PM. Although we were in groups of three, all of Year 11 decided to eat together, as did Year 10, and it was a really fun and relaxing dinner, quite tasty too. We held off from dessert though, as the whole group got dessert from a nearby place all paid for by Ms. Costi after our meals to share between pairs of us. Once we'd enjoyed that, it was just a relaxing walk back to the hotel where we were told to get some sleep for our flight to Athens in the morning.

Day One - A bunch of cats

After a long and relatively tiring trip on the plane, followed by a rather relaxing stop at the Copthorne Airport Hotel in Dubai and another pair of flights much shorter than the first, we've finally arrived in Izmir, our first proper place to stay on the trip. Arriving at the airport with Mum, Dad and Simon, it didn't take long to find the wall of school students from both year 11 and 10, with the teachers trying desperately to keep track of everyone as they met up and spoke to eachother and their parents. After everyone had shown up and i'd spoken to my friends, I said my goodbye to Mum and Dad as they went to check in, and soon did the same myself, before moving through security. The process was nothing new aside from the fact I was now going through it without my parents, but i'd gone through it so many times it was all just second nature, not that it's really that difficult anyway.

Getting to the gate, we moved off after a short while to get dinner, where I ran into mum before we had to head to the gate to start boarding. Getting onto the plane I saw mum and dad both getting settled, the last time i'll be seeing them this trip unfortunately, as I didn't run into them in Dubai. After the long haul trip, we got off the plane at Dubai and moved through the absolutely colossal airport to a bus which took us all to our hotel. Time there was split between breakfast, swimming in the pool and making sure I hadn't lost anything by checking my bag (Good news is, I hadn't). After our time there was done we moved back to the airport on the same bus and boarded a flight to Istanbul. This was a much shorter trip, only lasting four hours before we arrived and had to move to the domestic terminal to get onto our last flight to Izmir.

The flight was incredibly quick and it was nice to get a short nap in considering how little we'd all slept. Arriving in Izmir, everyone was exhausted as we got our bags and moved outside to our bus. Driving through the city, we got to our hotel and 'enjoyed' the dinner we were given before we had the chance to go up to her rooms properly and pass out in our beds, only to be woken up by a wake up call at around 8. Getting ready and going downstairs much happier than the night before, we had breakfast and then moved onto the bus to head to Ephesus.

When we arrived, we looked around the ruins of the ancient city, and learned about the uses and reasons for different buildings, overall it was a gorgeous place and an incredibly interesting part of the day, despite how much walking around was involved with it all, along with getting acquainted with the huge population of cats living in the site. After leaving Ephesus we moved on to a carpet factory which the previous group had visited, getting there we looked at the process for making Turkish carpets and we tried some Turkish apple tea, which is quite possibly the most delicious drink I have ever had. Ever. Along with the tea, we took off our shoes and stood on a number of different carpets unrolled for us, feeling the varying kinds of carpet that could be made. After this incredibly relaxing part of our day, we returned to the hotel for a quick swim and then dinner.

Tomorrow we are going to Troy, looking forward to it!

Here we go again...

This time last year, I was getting all giddy and excited for a trip with my family to the US, and a massive trip it was, driving all the way across the country in what would (unfortunately) probably be my last holiday with my parents, because this time around, i'm stuck with my fellow students and "friends", yay. Now, sarcasm aside, I am incredibly excited, as are many of my friends going with me to Europe this year as part of the Ancient History trip to Turkey, Greece and Italy (Three new countries for me!). Just tonight, we went to the last meeting and got our tickets, it's almost painful to think that there's still 22 days left, it feels so close, AND so far.

Of course, my parents won't be far away from me on this trip, they always find some way to subtly stalk me. They're going to Italy at the same time, and in fact, will be on the same flight as us from Sydney to Dubai! So of course, there won't be much change from the routine, getting a lift from Simon to the airport with mum and dad three hours before the flight, except i'll be saying my goodbyes right away and going to meet up with Erin, Dan, Kaylee, Jake, Lia, Tram Huong, and everyone else who's just as great!

I could probably go on for hours about everything that I want to see and do while i'm overseas with everyone, but I don't want to bore the hell out of my readers, considering I want you all to come back and stick to reading this blog. So for now, i'll just say that I am incredibly excited, I can't wait to see new places, I can't wait to try new things, and most of all I can't wait to spend every single day of this trip with some of the most fantastic, wonderful people I know and may ever know!

All good things must come to an end

Vegas really has everything, whether it's Jack Sparrow casually checking his phone, or two playboy bunnies taking money for photos, you can see it at Vegas. But both are far from the best thing you could see if you came to town, the best thing you could see is Cirque Du Soleil's "Love". The show is done to the music of The Beatles, and if that didn't convince you, I can easily say that it is the best thing i've seen in the whole holiday, and i've seen a lot in this trip.

We're staying in the venetian hotel, and we're definitely in the nicest room we've had for the whole holiday, it's large and comfortable, and doesn't smell like smoke like all the other parts of the hotel. The most interesting part of the venetian is the shopping area, where there is an actual canal in the middle, where you can go on gondola rides, and the roof is made to look like the sky, as if you were actually walking through venice. It looks great as you walk along the canal, looking at the shops, and it's a sudden change as you go into any restaurants or clubs, they are all dark with lit up walls and music, much different to the atmosphere outside.

It occurs to me that this is likely the last post that i'll be able to make, seeing this is the last place we are staying, and the last place where I know I will have access to the internet. Although I am quite sad to see such an excellent trip come to an end, I am also glad to be finally coming home, I have been missing my friends, and my family and would love to see them again. This is probably also the last holiday I will go on with my parents, seeing I will be going to Europe with school next year, and then schoolies after that, and once I leave school I won't be going on holidays with them any more, and it really was an enjoyable final trip to go on with them.

Not many people can say they have done what we have this trip, when we reach Los Angeles, we'll have driven over 5000 miles from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. We've gone from the tropics of the Florida keys, to the swamps of the everglades, to the deserts of Texas and the high mountain forests of Arizona, the scenery and the kinds of people we see have changed again and again as we've gone along, and it really has been a spectacular trip which I will remember for many, many years.

We've still got more to see though, tomorrow we'll be going to the Pawn Shop seen in the TV Show "Pawn Stars" (which if you have not seen it, you should have), and Santa Monica in Los Angeles before we get to the Airport for our flight home, I can't wait to see everyone again and tell them all about this long, fantastic holiday.

Flagstaff Arizona

Today we left Tuscon and began our drive to Flagstaff, a city quite high in the mountains of Arizona, just outside the University of Northern Arizona. Our first stop on the way there was Montezuma Castle, a "town" built in the side of a cliffside by Native Americans back in the Medieval ages, and where the Native Americans lived for a very long time. It was an interesting site, as the buildings were basically modern apartments, but built so long ago and into a cliff.

We also saw the Red Rocks of Arizona as we went toward Flagstaff, the area where these are common has an odd history, again and again it has gone from an area of desert to sea, and then back again, the huge mountains are red sandstone at the base and as they go toward the tip they become limestone, and then even basalt. The site is spectacular and some of the mountains really are beautiful. 

It's a rather large change in Flagstaff, we've gone again from massive deserts to tall forests, and the temperature has been quite low here, which is the exact opposite to the thousand degree heat which we've been getting often on this holiday. Tomorrow we'll be going to Las Vegas, where we'll have the last night of the holiday, drat.

Tuscon

This morning I got to sleep in again, something which I am very happy about on this holiday, considering it has been so rare. I was able to get a good sleep without any distractions in the morning because I am in a separate room to mum and dad, so when they go down to breakfast in the morning, I can remain asleep without being disturbed.

After I eventually did get up and had the breakfast mum and dad brought up to the room for me, we left the hotel and went to the Pima air and space museum nearby, where they have the SR-71 stealth plane, which was used first during the cold war, and went to altitudes so high, that the pilots actually had to wear a space suit.

We looked around the museum at many of the planes they had there, such as the C-130 Hercules and the Air Force One jet used by Kennedy and Johnson. But there weren't just planes, but also helicopters such as the Huey and the UH-60 Black hawk. They had an indoor area known as the "Space gallery" with a few simulators to try and displays.

The highlight of the museum though was the boneyard tour, we got on a bu and were taken to the nearby Air Force base, and then began to drive through the massive storage area for all kinds of planes used by the U.S Air Force, we were told that the boneyard had 4000 planes, and seeing the size of it, that wasn't hard to believe.

After we left the museum we went to the nearby Titan 2 Missile Silo. The Titan 2 is a nuclear missile, and the most powerful one ever deployed by the United States, it could wipe out an entire city. We looked around the facility on a tour, and even got to simulate a launch, I was made the commander and had to launch the missile, though I didn't actually launch one (Next time).

We then went to the Saguaro National Park, which is filled with Saguaro Cacti, these are the cacti which are shaped in the cliche positions, going straight up with slightly curved branches. They have a very long life-span and can grow to up to 50 feet tall, as well as living for over 100 years. We drove around their 5 mile scenic route and took a few photos before heading back to the hotel. It was a long day, but a very enjoyable one.

Into Arizona

So we left Alamogordo this morning and first drove to the nearby White Sands national monument, and missile range. White Sands is a large area of sand dunes which aren't really Sand, but something called Gypsum, which crumbles to make what is basically white sand. We looked around the monument and were surprised to find three large hot air balloons, we waited for a while but unfortunately they didn't take off, and we left the park after exploring for a little bit.

We then started to drive toward the town of Tombstone, of course getting stopped twice by Border Patrol, and even once by a police officer, because dad had been speeding a bit, not deliberately i'm sure (I hope). But everything was fine and all the people who stopped us were very friendly, and quite interested to meet people from Australia!

When we arrived in Tombstone, we looked around the town a little bit, at the old Western buildings and stores before we went to see the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", a recreation of a very famous gunfight that happened in the town of Tombstone between three lawmen and Doc Holiday, and a group of four cowboys, it was very loud, but also very entertaining. And after seeing that we went onto Tuscon, we have two nights here and we'll be looking around tomorrow, it should be fun!

More of New Mexico

We started this morning after leaving the hotel by going to Carlsbad Caverns, a massive cavern system of limestone which has been preserved as a national park. The caverns are absolutely massive with huge formations of limestone, some looking very interesting. The main part of the park where you walk around inside the caves is about six-hundred and fifty feet under ground, and you can enter it by an elevator or by hiking down the natural cave entrance, we took the elevator like all good lazy people.

After we left Carlsbad, we started to drive to Alamogordo - where we are staying tonight - and we stopped on the way at Roswell, a town famous for a UFO crash which happened there. Everything in Roswell is alien or UFO themed, and even the street lights are decorated to look like the heads of Aliens. While we were there we went to the "International UFO museum" (Yes, it exists) and began looking around there.

After leaving Roswell and going back on the road to Alamogordo, we went through the Lincoln National Forest, and stopped to hike around for a bit, the scenery was quite an interesting change, to have gone from fast deserts to huge forests, high in the mountains was an interesting change. It was a bit cool, unlike down in the city where it was fairly warm, and it was good to actually see some fall foliage. We're going into Arizona tomorrow, and we'll be staying in Tuscon for two nights, it's hard to believe we only have 4 nights left after this one (and fairly uspetting).

Suddenly New Mexico

And suddenly we're in a new state! I missed out on making a post yesterday, we didn't have internet access where we were staying, well, we did, I just didn't really want to walk up to the restaurant with my laptop at night to sit and make a post, then walk back to our room. Nothing much happened yesterday anyway, what we had planned to see in Big Bend was blocked off due to the heavy rain which we had the night before.

Today we had a look around Big Bend at the things we could, and even saw over the border into Mexico at a few places, hard to believe that America and Mexico are separated by just a small river. After we left Big Bend we didn't really stop as we drove to Carlsbad, we had planned to go to Fort Davis, but that was also closed, we've had great luck for the past 2 days, as you can tell.

Tomorrow we'll be going into the caverns here at Carlsbad and going further into New Mexico, we won't be going to Albuquerque unfortunately, at least not unless we make a wrong turn somewhere.

San Antonio

After a long drive today we arrived in San Antonio, the site of a famous American landmark, the Alamo, where Davy Crockett and about 100 Americans fought and died defending a fort called the Alamo from close to 5000 Mexican soldiers. it was interesting to see such a well-preserved building in the middle of the city and was quite interesting. We also saw quite a few US Air Force members walking around in their dress uniforms, clearly there had been a parade or something on nearby, I saw about 25 different Air Force members just walking around, which was a little bit of a surprise.

We also saw the River walk, through San Antonio is a rather large river which they had planned to divert through tunnels, but instead made a pathway along either side with restaurants, shops and even a theater, it is quite beautiful and was much cooler than the hot streets at around lunch time. We'll be heading on to Big Bend national park tomorrow, and will be spending the night quite far away from civilization, hopefully i'll get some good pictures there!

Go for launch

I didn't update the blog yesterday, and it's not just because I forgot (which I did, but that's another matter). Yesterday we did nothing but drive really, we didn't stop to get out and look at anything on the way to Houston from New Orleans, so there was nothing particularly interesting to talk about in my blog yesterday. Today however, we went to NASA, and had quite an enjoyable day there.

When we arrived we first decided to go on the tram tour, which took us first to the building and the room where the original mission control was, of the apollo missions all the way to some of the space shuttle missions, which only ended recently. We then went to the Astronaut training facility, to see many of the training modules and mock-ups used by Astronauts to simulate life and work in space, and on board the International Space Station (ISS), we next went to a massive hanger where one of the Saturn V rockets was housed, these rockets were used on the Apollo missions, from Apollo 11 all the way to the final moon landing, Apollo 17.

When we got back to the main area we looked around the museum with many artifacts and even some moon rock samples from different missions, and watched a short film about all of the missions NASA has undertaken, such as Skylab and the most recent Endeavor missions. It certainly was an entertaining and interesting day today, and I look forward to going on to San Antonio tomorrow!

More N'awlins

Finally was able to get a good sleep in this morning, much later than I have been able to on any other day of this holiday, until about ten in the morning, a few hours earlier than i'd have liked, but still, it's better than nothing. This morning, we went down to Cafe Du Monde to have Hickory-Smoked Coffee and beignet, which are french doughnuts. The coffee was fairly normal, but the beignet were delicious, and it was certainly a very enjoyable breakfast. 

We had a look around the areas we were staying in, going down to Bourbon street first. Remember how I said Duval Street was the Vegas strip of the Keys? Well, Bourbon street is the Vegas strip of Louisiana, it wasn't the most appealing place in New Orleans. After that we went to the museum which had exhibits about Hurrican Katrina, and Mardi Gras, which were fairly interesting. Later we went to the French Markets and had lunch, which for me was Alligator on a Stick, which was delicious. We're heading into Texas tomorrow, to Houston, hopefully we won't have any problems!

New Orleans

We entered Louisiana today, and I have now been to 25 of the 50 United States of America, i'm half-way there! When we got to New Orleans, we went straight to the National WWII Museum, and began looking at the exhibits. The exhibits were much like those at the Australian War Memorial, and many things that I had already known, but the most interesting part was a film shown every hour called "Beyond All Boundaries" Produced and Narrated by Tom Hanks. It was fascinating and I actually learned quite a few things I had not known about the war.

The film only focused on the Americans in the war, due to it being part of the National WWII Museum, and talked about things like Pearl Harbour, the Normandy Landings, their battles in the Pacific and the planned invasion of main-land Japan, which would have been the largest military operation in Human History. Hearing about the Americans plans in the invasion, it was clear that without the atomic bombings of Japan, the Japanese may have been completely wiped out.

We have two nights here in New Orleans, and tomorrow we will be looking around the city at all of its sites, looking forward to it!

Mississippi

We drove back into Mississippi today and followed the river down to the city of Natchez, stopping a couple of times on the way. We've been following Highway 61, also known as "The Blues Highway" and have stopped in a few famous blues towns, it's easy to tell you're on the Blues Highway with street names like "John Lee Hooker Ln." It was easy to tell we were in mississippi due to the fast cotton plantations which we could see on the sides of the road, some of them going on for what seemed like miles.

After a while, we came to the city of Vicksburg, where one of the biggest battles of the Civil War took place, one which altered the course of the war completely. Abraham Lincoln once famously said "Vicksburg is the key, and we can not win unless we have the key in our pocket". Vicksburg was a city contolled by the Confederates, and was their last point on the Mississippi river that they could transfer supplies across to their other states, if the Union took it, they would cut off the Confederacy.

Ulysses S. Grant had been assaulting Vicksburg numerous times, and always failed, but only once had he been told by Abraham Lincoln himself that he needed to take Vicksburg, he devised cunning plans to distract the soldiers in Vicksburg so his own men could sneak around and begin to attack from the rear, it succeeded, but the attacks that the Union made during the siege of Vicksburg often failed, as they were repeatedly pushed back by the Confederate defenders. Eventually, the Confederate army had no choice but to surrender, as they were running low on supplies, and disease was spreading through their ranks.

Tonight we are actually staying on an old cotton plantation which has been renovated as an inn. We are staying in one of the rooms which used to be the slave quarters, it's much nicer now than it probably was back then. We're heading on to New Orleans tomorrow and we'll be back on the Blues Highway!

Memphis

Finally was able to sleep in a bit this morning, instead of getting up at 7 like I have everywhere else, which made me much less grumpy this morning than usual. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and went to Graceland, the mansion where Elvis Presley lived, died and is buried along with other family members. There, we were able to walk around the mansion, but not the area upstairs, we could see his car collection and his two custom planes, the Lisa Marie (named after his daughter) and the "Hound Dog II"

After leaving Graceland we went to the the Civil Rights museum. The museum was previously the Lerane Hotel, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, and the building he was shot from has also been converted, however the place where King was shot, and the room he was shot from have been preserved as they were. It was a rather odd feeling, to have now seen where he stood during one of his most famous speeches, and now to have seen where he died.

After the museum, we came to our new hotel, the Peabody Hotel. The hotel is rather famous due to the fact that it has a group of five ducks who live on the roof of the hotel, and march into an elevator at 11 AM every morning to go down to the lobby and march into the fountain there, where they stay until 5 PM, when they march right back into the elevator and up to the roof, it's a very interesting sight. Tonight we ate dinner at B.B. King's Blues Club and were treated to some very good live blues music as we ate, it was a good start to the blues part of the trip, which will be continuing very heavily until we get to New Orleans.

Atlanta to Memphis

It was a long drive today! After leaving Atlanta, we started on the road all the way to Memphis, Tennessee, going through the states of Alabama and Mississippi on the way. While on our way through Alabama, we went to the city of Birmingham, and a place called "Vulcan Park" where a huge statue of the Roman god of Fire and Forge, Vulcan looks over the city, due to the heavy mining that used to go on in and around Birmingham.

We didn't really have many stops after Vulcan, but there was a lot of beautiful forest and scenery during the drive, even though I ended up falling asleep for almost two hours in the car! (Those SUV seats are just too comfortable!) We have two nights in Memphis, and we will be seeing the sights tomorrow, starting with Gracelands, where Elvis Presley was born, looking forward to it!

Stone Mountain and Atlanta

Leaving Savannah today, we began to drive up to Atlanta, stopping at Stone Mountain on the way. Stone Mountain is sort of like a smaller, grey Ayers Rock, except in the mountain is a large "Sculpture" carved by the same man who carved Mt. Rushmore. The carving shows three confederate generals, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson.

After arriving in Atlanta we checked in to our hotel and went to the "World of Coca-Cola", Coke was originally made in Atlanta by a pharmacist and there is now a lot more products than I thought there ever was. There are over 60 products of Coca-Cola world wide, and we could taste every single one. Needless to say, I had a bit of a sore stomach afterwards, we even got a free bottle of "Original" Coke. Starting on our drive to Memphis, Tennessee tomorrow, but we will have to go through Alabama and Mississippi, so we may not make it all the way there yet.

Leaving Florida and Savannah

Well today we left Florida, and I can now add a new state to the list of ones I have visited, Georgia! We drove for a long while through Georgia and have now reached Savannah, which is actually where the park in "Forrest Gump" is, that part of the movie was not filmed in Alabama. The park bench that Forrest sits on is not even a real park bench, nor is there one where the park actually is, however there is a replica in the visitors center.

On our way out of Florida, we stopped in the town of St. Augustine, the oldest town in the entire United States of America, originally settled by the Spanish. We visited the Fort there which was still fairly well preserved, and had a short look around the old part of the town, before heading on out of Florida and into Georgia. We're going on to Atlanta tomorrow, where we'll go to "The world of Coca-Cola", which should be very fun, and give me quite a sore stomach.

Disney World

Well we arrived at Disney World yesterday and were almost immediately told we were the "Family of the Day", as this part of the trip is also celebrating mum and dad's 30th anniversary. We relaxed at the resort we are staying in - the Beach Club Resort - for a few hours before going to the Magic Kingdom for "Mickey's not-so-scary Halloween party", where we watched fireworks, trick-or-treated, and of course, went on rides.

Today we got up early to make it to Hollywood studios in time for opening, and we rode "Toy Story Mania" right away, after getting a fastpass to do it again later. After we rode it once, mum and dad went to ride on the "Rock-n-roller coaster" while I went and did "Star Tours", the best ride in all of Hollywood Studios as you can probably tell. After that we all did Star Tours again together and then went back to do Toy Story once more.

We came back to the resort after a while to relax, go to the arcade and swim. The pool is supposed to be the best of all the Disney World Resorts, and it is not surprising, there's quite a large water slide and the pool itself is massive, with hot tubs and a small area called the "lazy river" where you can just drift along in the soft current. I was just about to go on the water slide when a very loud thunder crack went off, and the pool was closed, they don't run any risks here. Anyway, we're going to Epcot in a few hours and we'll be there for dinner, as well as quite a few more rides!