Hank: Thailand

Barf bags and beaches Thailand was pretty amazing. We stayed on an island called Koh Lanta which is west of Krabi in southwest Thailand. I actually did not pay much attention to much of the stuff there because I was sick but the stuff I did see looked cool. I now have a beach on an island in Thailand to add to my list of prime puking locations. My mom found us a great room...
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Nadine: Tree of Life Children’s Village, Zambia

"Tree of Life", it does not tell you what it is, though personally I think that it is a fitting name for the orphanage. A place where children brake out of their buds and blossom. The Tree of Life is a large property made up of a valley and a large hill located outside of Lusaka, Zambia. There are 35 houses right now and five more in the making. The unique part about Tree of...
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Hank: Tree of Life Children’s Village, Zambia

Tree of Life is a really cool orphanage. It is located just outside of Lusaka, Zambia. It rescues kids from very bad situations in Zambia. The Tree of Life people then school the children and put them in houses with twelve kids and two house moms. The houses are either only boys or only girls but school is coed. The houses have all different ages of children living in them. A house could have a...
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Hank: South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi National Parks, Zambia

  I FOUND MY NEW HOME WHEN I AM A MILLIONAIRE.  I am going to live in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia where I will serve as an apprentice to our guide, Manda. I can be the guy who walks around carrying the tea and cookies for the guests when they go on walks and driving safaris. We stayed at Mfwue Lodge, which is located inside the park. You could actually see many...
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Nadine: South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Elephants, and crocodiles, and leopards, oh my! That is what I thought while we were in South Luangua. We stayed at a lodge called Mfuwe Lodge. It was extremely cool and our guide was awesome. The guide's name was Manda. He kind of resembled a nature book; he knew all of the scientific names for the animals that we saw from the baboons to the birds. The food at the lodge was also great. My...
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Nadine: Mallorca, Spain

Mallorca was a very fun place. There were a lot of beaches and cafés. We stayed in two cities while we were there. The first city we stayed in was called Palma and the second one was called Soller. Palma was a walled city. It had this giant cathedral in the center of town. The cathedral had a pond in the front that had swans in it. The architecture of the cathedral was absolutely amazing....
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Nadine: Going to see Matilda on Broadway

We started this trip by visiting our cousins Noel and Lily in New Jersey for two days. While we were there, mom and I went to see the broadway play Matilda. Going into a broadway theater surprised me. My expectations were a large theater with a couple of stories of seats. It was completely different. It was a small theater with only two stories of seats. The bottom story must have sat about five hundred,...
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Hank: Galapagos Islands

The Finch Bay hotel on Isla Santa Cruz is like paradise for the average American tourist which can either be a good thing or a bad thing. In our case it was a very good thing. It had a pool and a nice beach. You can go on excursions every day snorkeling and hiking or you can just choose to relax. We chose to work our selves ragged by riding to other islands each day...
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Hank: NE Ecuador Amazon region

Last weekend we went to the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. We stayed at Sani lodge, a small lodge built by a jungle community called Sani community. It was payed for by an oil company called Occidental in exchange for exploring for oil on the Sani tribe's land. The Sani community took a big risk letting the company look for oil on there land because instead of a lodge they could have asked the oil...
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Nadine: La Mariposa Spanish School, Nicaragua

I have been looking forward to this part of the trip for months. I might have been sad when I had to leave my mom, but when I got here I knew that it was all worth it. There are beautiful plants and flowers and everybody is so energetic. There is not just plant life, but there is also a lot of animals. All of these wonderful things are at the Mariposa Spanish School in...
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Hank: Agios Ioannis, Greece

The best beach in the world is the Agios Ioannis beach out side of hotel Eden. You don’t even need to go under water. You can see the bottom just as well from out side the bluish green water. We swam and swam and swam. The last morning we got up very early and went to watch the sun rise. It was very pretty. Instead of sand the beach had small pea sized white pebbles....
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Hank: Vourvourou, Greece

While we were in Vourvourou we met our friends the Seremetis’. they took us to a crepe place the first night where me and my dad got a chicken, mushrooms, and olives crepe. It was delicious. Me and my dad went on a hike with them which took three hours. It was really fun but I was very tired when I finished. One evening me and dad and Nadine and George, Laurie (the parents) and...
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Nadine: Athens

Athens was a very cool town, We went on a train called the happy train, that took us to all of the famous places in Athens, there were a lot of them. The places were the Parloment, the Acropolise, the Parthanon, Adrion's Arch, the Temple of Zeus, and the mountain guards.     All of these things were very cool, and starting from the beginning, I will describe each of them. We will start with the...
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Hank: Georgia

Georgia: Georgia was amazing. We were there with our friends Natella, Max, and Katya. They and their family were so nice and we were able to stay in Natella's brother's apartment. Her brother's name was Bachuki and he and Natella took us to so many wonderful places and fed us amazing food. My favorite food was the dolmas that we had at a vineyard in the mountains that Natella's cousin took us to. They were...
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Nadine: Rome

There are many things to talk about when it comes to Rome, but there are only five things that I will talk about in this blog and they are the Coliseum, the house that we stayed in, the giant wall, the trains, and last but not least, the garden. All of these things are very interesting, and starting from the beginning I will tell you about all of them. The subject I will start with...
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Hank: Krakow

Krakow is a great city and reminds me a lot of Austin. It has about 1,000,000 people and has a big population of about 100,000 students who are attending the many universities. My favorite thing was the Wieliczka salt mine. You could actually wipe your hands across the wall then lick them and you would taste salt. The coolest thing down in the salt mine was the underground cathedral. It is the biggest underground cathedral...
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Nadine: Auschwitz

There were a lot of things in Krakow and one of those things is Auschwitz, which was not a very happy place, but it was very interesting. The places that the people lived and suffered in were the opposite of lugjerious, they had straw mattresses that were on the the floor or on three bed bunk beds, and the bunk beds wiggled around a lot, so if you were on the second or third bed, you...
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Hank: Sweden

Sweden: Sweden is green and wet and fresh and as most people reading this are aware, Austin Texas is not. All the people are really nice. It is really hard to sleep the first few nights you get here because it never really gets dark in the summer. When it is midnight here it is about as bright as 8:30 pm in Texas. We saw a baby moose which was really cool. It was standing in a ditch and at first we...
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Kurt: Our trip plans

We plan to travel overseas much of the next twelve months. Hank, Nadine and I departed Austin on June 9, 2013, flying to Europe. Sarah will join us in early July for parts of the trip. We plan to travel in Europe, South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. We will try to keep a somewhat flexible itinerary. If we hear about a great place to visit, we may change our plans and go...
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