Ebeltoft Assorted

This is actually being written in the United States! I have several posts ready to put together, but I was not able to get online, so I have finished the videos offline and also written while on the flight home.

It is great to hear from my friends in Whitefish Bay. I would still like to get a picture of you to put up on the blog so that others who look at it can see who you are! Here is a link I found to your school: http://www.wfbschools.com/schools/richards/ Let me know if that is the right link.

I was glad that you knew I had posted a QR code! There is a message for you in it. Were you able to use a reader to find out what it says?

This video just shows a few things that we did with our friends in Ebeltoft, Denmark that I thought were interesting. We went to a wild animal park. They have lots of animals there that we do not find in our part of Texas! At the park we saw reindeer, arctic fox, polar bears, wild boar, and musk ox. You see me feeding the reindeer! It rains a lot in Denmark during the summer. The double rainbow is one of the benefits of the rain. One other thing that they have a lot of is wind. The video shows some of the huge windmills that capture wind energy. It would not do them a lot of good to depend on solar energy because it is often overcast and raining, but they have plenty of wind!

I wonder how their longitude and latitude compare to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin and Austin, TX. It is fun to look at Google Earth and put on the Grid to compare. In Austin we are at around 30 degrees North, Whitefish Bay is 43 degrees North and Ebeltoft is 56 degrees North!

Visit to Ebeltoft, Denmark

I have been spending the last few days with some friends in Ebeltoft, Denmark. It has been a very enjoyable time, but too short. Tomorrow I will post a few pictures of beautiful things I have seen, but today I want to show you something really unique that I have learned about Denmark. The Danish people are very proud of their country and flag. On birthdays they put the flag on the table and also put a flag on their door and many flags lining the road up to their houses to celebrate. My friend, Andrea explains this in the video and shows you some of the flags!

Ending the London Visit

This morning at 4 am in London it was raining. I know that because took a Taxi to a bus and now I am on a flight heading to Denmark. This is one of the strangest flights I have had. We had to pay to get our boarding passes printed and it was really expensive! There is advertising everywhere. There are posters on the baggage compartments and there are recorded advertisements for things that you can buy on board: food, drinks, duty free stuff, gift items, special items for today's flight and even lottery cards. This picture of a courtesy phone illustrates the quality of my experience this morning.

My visit to London should not end with such a discouraging note, so I will end this post with a few pictures of things I saw:

First a few pictures of London bridge. I was thinking about the song "London Bridge is Falling Down" so I thought I would put up a picture of it. I had forgotten that it had been purchased several years ago and it is in Arizona now! Here s a link to an article about it in Wikipedia. This pictures are of the bridge in Arizona and some children playing the game and singing the song.

Then there are a few pictures of Oxford. It is a very famous University town. We went there for a one day visit. It is very cute and small.

Observations in London

I have been trying to figure out how to find out about everyday life here in England. It is not easy because I do not have a guide like I did in Greece and I am doing more tourist things and being where tourists are. You can go to plenty of other blogs if you want to see things I have seen as a tourist like the Tate Modern Art gallery, the Thames River or the church called St. Martin in the Fields where I made a bras rubbing of St. George and the Dragon. None of that is really everyday life.

So you will just have to make do with the few observations that I have so far and maybe I will find other things in the next few days before we leave here for Denmark.

Today I have a short video of things that I have seen. First I have noticed that even though this is a big city people have really nice flowers around their houses. Also, people drive on the wrong side of the street AND there are lots of double decker buses all over town. Today I also saw something that was new to me. There was an M and M store and I have never seen so many M and Ms!! I tried asking one of the girls working there if she could tell about everyday life on a short video, but she is not allowed to do that at work. Oh well... I hope you like the video.



I am thinking that maybe you are not taking me seriously when I ask you to send in videos or pictures of your everyday lives, buy I really do mean it. What did you do on the 4th of July? Did you see any parades? If you don't live in the USA what do you do in the summer time? Do you have playground? Do you take ballet lessons?

Happy Fourth of July

My last visit with my guide was this afternoon. I asked her about celebrating the Fourth of July. She is learning about United States history from her Dad and from many books. She wanted to show me her books, so that is what the video today is about. Did you know that yesterday (Friday) was Canada day?



What did you do on the Fourth of July? Can you have Fireworks in your town? In Austin, Texas we are not allowed to do fireworks this year because it is too dry.

My guide would like to see you. I am wondering if you can send me a picture that I can post in the blog or you could make a short YouTube video!

On Sunday, July 3 I am traveling to London by taxi, train and airplane.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Sunset in Corinth

We are about to leave Greece, so I thought it might be appropriate to show you a sunset I enjoyed here.

More Questions- Festivals

I am now back at Corinth for one day. Luckily for you (and me) I got back to Corinth in time for their annual festival called Panagiri. I asked someone at the hotel about holidays and festivals. She said that there are LOTS of holidays and festivals, but especially mentioned that each town has a special festival for a saint special to their village. For Olympia it is the saint's day for Mary and is in August. For Corinth it is the saints' days of Peter and Paul and it was yesterday! We just got back from Olympia in time for me to take a little video so you can see and hear a little of what it was like.



My guide answered your questions this morning and it is sad to say that I have to say good bye to her today. Tomorrow we head for another country. We leave Greece around noon to go to London, England.
What holidays do they celebrate?

My guide's favorite holiday is Christmas because she likes to decorate the tree. All Greek houses have Christmas trees.

We were also wondering about Greek children:
What are their schools like?
They have to find their own things to play at recess. There is no playground equipment.

What do they study in school?
In first grade they do math (even multiplication, but no memorizing. They learn how to read only in Greek and then in third grade they learn how to read in English.

What games and sports do they play?
Kids here like to play soccer and basketball.

I hope you have a great 4th of July! It will be interesting to be in England since that is who we gained independence from. I wonder what they think about it?

We are enjoying following you on your adventure in Greece. How long are you staying and where will you and the Professor go next?