Silver's Book of Travels (WIP)

If you love to travel, we'd love to hear about the places you've been. Mountains, oceans, rivers, deserts, Stonehedge, Red Rocks, Grand Canyon... recommend your favorite travel destination and post your pictures!
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Silversong
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Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:40 pm
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Location: Somewhere over the rainbow (if the rainbow is in Oregon)

Silver's Book of Travels (WIP)

Post by Silversong »

Woo-ee, I've been a lot of places! Little bit of bragging ;3

I'll list off each location in bold, with the things I remember about it in a bulleted list below. Things on the same trip will have a note. These should all be in chronological order.

5/7 Continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa

Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA (Mesa Verde trip)
- Kivas, pits in the ground that fascinated me
- Cliff Palace, a city set into the cliffs
- Juniper trees
Four Corners (Mesa Verde trip)
- Four states meet at a big round platform you get to stand on

Cuzco, Peru (Peru/Equador/Galapagos trip)
- Much altitude sickness; threw up more than once
- Horseback riding in the mountains. It took me three attempts to get to the freaking office because of my altitude sickness, but D'Arvit, I was going! First time, I barely got off the bed before falling back again groaning from nausea. Second time, we were just around the corner from the place when I gave it up and had to stagger back to the hotel. Finally, the third time, I made it! I was so excited XD I remember we stopped by caves, too, at some point on the ride.
- Very steep, uneven cobblestone streets
- All the dark-haired, dark-eyed natives wanting pictures with the white-blonde American girl, which freaked us out to no end O_o
- My grandpa was supposed to go with us (finally, the first time he agreed to come on a trip) but died of lung cancer only months before... he smoked.
The Galapagos Islands (Peru/Equador/Galapagos trip)
- Giant tortoises! Almost sat on one XD They have such loooooong necks!
- Equator passes right over the crater of a volcano, which we saw but did not climb

Carlsbad Caverns, Colorado, USA
- Wicked cool caves
- Fascinating rock formations
- Tornado of bats
- Saw something across the cave while waiting for the bats to emerge

Athens, Greece (Mediterranean cruise)
- Parthenon
- Saw the olive tree Athena allegedly created to win the city in the contest against Poseidon; it still stands in a corner of the ruins! You can't touch it, but I pretended to lean on it when Mom was taking a picture and she thought I actually was XD
Rome, Italy (Mediterranean cruise)
- Got lost in the Colosseum (Okay, no. That was not how it happened. I turned around to take a picture, turned back around and my people were gone. I was ticked. I did not move. It was not my fault. XD We found each other all right).
- Arena where chariot races were, outside Colosseum
- Ruins out where we have street dividers
- Cobblestone streets
- Aqueducts (big, big, BIG aqueducts)
- You could spend three weeks in Rome and still not see half of the city. The place is huge. I mean, you think New York City's big? Having seen both from the air, the Big Apple's got nothin' on Rome.
Cairo & Giza, Egypt (Mediterranean cruise)
- Pyramids look much more impressive from farther away. The closer you get, the smaller they are.
- Intended to climb the Pyramids, but went around wrong side and ran out of time >.<
- McDonald's within sight of the Pyramids...
- Armed escorts for the tourists
- Sphinx
- Got to see the King Tut exhibit in the Museum of Cairo, thank you very much, don't need to wait till it's visiting Portland
- Only there a day
Jerusalem & Bethlahem, Israel (Mediterranean cruise)
- Jerusalem divided into sectors for different religions... I remember being really irritated that people couldn't just get along and tolerate each other, even in the Holy City of I think four different religions. I remember going into a building that I seem to remember was a church, literally divided into four quarters, and only tourists were allowed to cross between.
- Only there a day
Istanbul, Turkey (Mediterranean cruise)
- Big yellow line down the street and sidewalk marking the border between Europe and Asia; standing straddling the line
- We visited the Spice Market, and more than anything, I wanted Turkish delight. It really does exist, and it's to die for. I wanted one specific kind, orange, which I'd had once before, and we had to wait for a long time while the guy in the store helped everybody else. Once everyone else was gone, he came to me and asked me what I wanted, and when I asked if they had orange, he said he didn't - but he knew who did. He was so sweet, he ran down to the store that had it and got it for us, then let us pay him back. (We also got other kinds, but I really had my heart set on that one.)
- Only there a day

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA
- Thirty-one different animals sighted. The mule deer were so tame, they'd let you walk within feet of them. Mom made my aunt get within a couple yards of a bull elk for a picture.
- Saw an Eastern bluebird for the first time
- The guy who first discovered the Grand Canyon apparently said, "No one will want to come see a big hole in the ground." Haha!
- You truly can't appreciate the Grand Canyon from pictures. It's just not possible. It's incredible. It blows your mind the first time you see it, and you have to stand there staring at it for at least five minutes before your brain can even comprehend what your eyes are telling it.
- Swam in the Colorado River. Gods, that's cold water! Worth it just to say I've done it, though.

Copenhagen, Denmark (Baltic cruise)
- Funny (read: amusing only in hindsight) story. So, our plane from Portland to New York decided to be fifteen minutes late. Then, the plane we were supposed to board from New York to London died. We had to change planes, which meant a different terminal. Now, we were directed to a terminal at one end of the airport, so we went down to that end. We were then told that the actual terminal we needed, departure at I believe 11 something PM, was at the other end of the airport. So we ran down to that end, only to find that we'd missed the plane. Want to guess when the next plane to London left? 2 AM. Leaving us exhausted, famished, and about ready to put the nearest object through the wall. We (finally!) arrived in London... only to find that even if we got to Dover, where our ship was leaving from, we would have missed the cruise ship by about twenty minutes. (I think at that point I almost literally put my fist through the taxi window.) We had to hop another plane to Copenhagen and wait two days until our boat got there so we could catch it. (On the bright side, Copenhagen was worth every second and I'm glad we had extra time there. If I had to choose one place to live besides the US, I think I would pick Copenhagen, Denmark. The people are great, and the school system is fantastic too.
- Much biking (other people, not us; I never learned to ride a bike...)
- Much walking (everybody)
- Cobbled streets
- Ripley's Museum next to our hotel (meh)
- Many statues, largely of Greek myths, surprisingly
- Big fountain in the square in front of our hotel, on a platform the railing of which included sea creatures (I never figured out whether they were fish, sea dragons, heraldic dolphins (dolphins in heraldry have scales, for those who didn't know) or some combination of the three)
- Huge clock tower on town center
- The people are so amazingly nice! So much nicer than Americans... or anywhere else I've been, for that matter. And they all speak impeccable English!
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