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 Parloment, the Parloment was very big and it always had guards around it, it was tan and in my opinion, kind of dull.
Next is the Acropolise, the Acropolise was covered in incredible things, like the caves where the Greek gods used to live, and of course there was the Parthanon on top, which is the thing I was going to talk about next.
The Parthanon was very cool in many ways, even the collums were cool. Most of it had been destroyed, but the rest of it was amazing.
The next thing I will talk about is Adrion’s Arch, Adrion’s Arch is a magnifisent sight. It is a giant arch, with a door way like structure on top of it.
Now for the next thing, The Temple of Zeus, the temple of Zeus used to have many collums, but there are only 15 remaining. My guess is that the temple of Zeus used to be a grand sight, but now it is only ruins.
Now for the last subject that I will talk about in this blog, the mountain guards, the mountain guards were very interesting, they had these funny shoes on that had pom poms on them. They also had big long guns, that had bayonets on them, but that is not all, they also walked really weird, they would walk reguraly with one leg, and they would bend the the other, then they would straiten there leg in the air, then they would finally put there foot down. This being the last thing I will talk about in this blog, my Athens Blog is officially over.
Batumi Rocks
The sound of Batumi is a street musician playing Hotel California on an accordion.
The smell of Batumi is salt air.
The taste of Batumi is fresh tomatoes and cucumbers with Khachapuri (cheese bread).
The feel of Batumi is a collision of East and West, Communism and Capitalism, old and new, war and peace.
I have never been in a city more in flux. Even the architecture is like liquid. One building is called “The Bottle.” Another looks like it’s twisting, another is undulating, yet another is melting. Their fountains dance as the huge ships move in and out of the port.
Many thanks to the Tevzadze family and their friends for an amazing time in Batumi!
Hank: Athens
Athens: In Athens we went to the Parthenon and climbed the Acropolis. I liked it. Nadine poked herself in the eye. My dad also had his birthday in Athens. We ate at a delicious restaurant where our waiter was a guy in his early seventies and we called him cowboy beeslayer because he liked cowboy movies and when a girl got up from her seat because she was scared of a bee he ran over yelling “do not worry!” and he smacked the bee really hard with a menu. It was funny. He also said that my face was very clever. My favorite thing was the Happy Train. It was a little train with a happy face on it and it took us everywhere around Athens. I also got a really cool slingshot so now I can do damage from a distance. I had a dream one night that I was shooting rocks at the Parthenon and that is what compelled me to get the slingshot. Our first hotel room smelled like fish. A complex mixture of cod and sardines. An intoxicating smell that filled your lungs with a foul stench.
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 also so kind that they invited us to celebrate Bachuki and Natella’s father’s birthday where they welcomed us. One of the coolest things was swimming with dolphins. YES DOLPHINS. They even set that up for us. My dolphins name was Daisy. She jumped and spun and let me ride her around the pool. You could even pet her like a dog as long as you did not touch her blow hole or eyes. It was fun like eating a sesame role bun. Bachuki’s apartment was near the beach boardwalk and the town square. They had a small soccer field of sand on the boardwalk and I got to play soccer. The beach which was on the Black Sea was rocks so you could not really body surf. But it was great any way.
Nadine: Georgia
Georgia was very fun, we went to the beach a lot and one of the coolest things that we did was, we swam with dolphins. The dolphins bellys felt kind of like rubber, it was very cool, and most people think that you only swim on top of dolphins, but we got to swim under them too. That was not the only cool thing about Georgia, we also got to go to go to a birthday party for Natella’s Dad, Natella is the person that we were staying with. The party was very fun and every body was very nice. The final thing that I will talk about in this blog is the wonderful beach. It was not a sand beach, but instead it was a beach with rocks on it. I did not get why it was called the Black Sea because it was very pretty, the only reason I would think it would be called the Black Sea is because when it is night time, you can not tell the difference between the sky and the ocean. This concludes my Georgia blog.
Hank: Rome
Rome. A wondrous place of beauty and floral hills. Just kidding. That is definitely not how I like to rite. Do not fret my loyal blog viewers for I have not yet changed quite that much on this trip. (Yet). Rome was very cool though. We did not stay in Rome but about an hours train ride out of it. The people we stayed with were so nice and they even took time out of there own day to show us around the country side. The mountains are a really dark green color and the small towns are beautiful. We went to the Pope’s former summer residence which is in a very small town called Castel Gandolfo. It over looks a pretty volcanic lake that many other towns sit on. Our hosts took us to a wonderful pizza place where I had a pizza with mushrooms, and sausage, and cheese OH MY. The pizza had really thin crust. We went to the colosseum. It was really cool but our guide liked to hear himself talk and dad did not think that he really knew what he was talking about due to an old Japanese man who seemed to love asking our guide really tough questions in which case the guide would just avoid the questions and keep on talking.