Travel Tuesday with Quidditch_Turtle #1 (and probably the last)

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted for months, I was going to post last week, but was too busy with birthday stuff. Anyway, I'm going to write about our family vacation to Arizona over Christmas break last year.

We found out that we were going on Christmas Day, and had three days to pack. We left on December 28th, and boarded a train. It took us two days to get to Flagstaff, AZ. We stayed there for two days, and traveled two days back to our home town. We spent New Year's in a hotel sleeping because we had to get up early to board the train in the morning! Here are some photos:

Here is our seats on the train!

 I'm pretty sure these were taken from my seat of the train in Colorado.

These two were taken from the train when we were in New Mexico.

This one was in Albequerque later that day.

First day in Arizona!

Subway, pueblo style :)

It was fun driving on Route 66 because we were comparing what we actually saw with what was in the movie Cars. We all laughed when we passed a tire shop (AKA Guido and Luigi's)

Another mountainous view from the rental car

This was in a state park that we went to.

Some lava rock formations in the state park

An icy lava rock formation

I just thought this was so cool.

A view of the Painted Desert from a big pebble-hill-thing.

Another view of the Painted Desert from the road

Some Native American ruins that we explored

Another lot of ruins

Day two of our Arizona adventure!

The Grand Canyon

*sigh* 

Another amazing view

I cannot believe that these people would put their trust in an animal... a donkey, to be more specific.

Funny-looking rock face

Just another view of the canyon

A little surprise we came across while hiking; gives it character, don't you think?

This is where we hiked down to; we went back up from here.

This  is a little blue bird that kept flying around Ooh Aah Point.

Met this guy at Ooh Aah Point... he stole our pretzels.

Took this picture at a rest stop on the side of the road a few miles from Grand Canyon National Park, which is where we were hiking

This picture, and the next few, were taken at the same rest stop. I had a setting on my camera where it enhances the color of the photo.

You can see the Colorado river in this one

Another rest stop photo

A pretty sunset taken from the train on the way back. I don't remember where this was.

Well, that's what we did in Arizona! I had A TON of fun! Hope you liked the pictures!

Quidditch_Turtle   ^  ^

                                U

Hey, hey, hey! CHUCKLES here! And this is my first Travel Tuesday! My topic is traveling to school today (the first day). Of course I cant tell you what my school is because that is personal info and you know our policy here! I will in fact be doing this post in a very different way than other times... I will be writing it in first person in almost like a book format. So lets get started!

I woke to a ringing bell that I soon realized was my alarm clock. I pulled my pink blanket off me and walked into the kitchen. After my mother had woken up I got ready for the day and ate a delicious breakfast of peanut butter and Nutella on waffles.

Soon a long, yellow vehicle pulled up to the driveway and I hopped on. What surrounded me were loud noises, windows, brown seats, and lots of people. Plunking down on a seat I attempted to read a book, it was called The Thief Lord, Banana_Elephant borrowed it to me. The noise in the vehicle had distracted me from reading.

Later we stopped at a plain, brick building and several people got off. We then drove a few minutes to yet another brick building labeled SCHOOL. The rest of the noisy people shuffled off and so did I. Walking into a long boring hallway inside the building I spotted my locker right next to Banana_Elephant we then headed off to our first class, Science, where we then found Quidditch_Turtle.

After that I traveled to Band then Social Studies, Math, Study Hall, Lunch, Language, Literature, and Art. I enjoyed each and every class. Between all of them I learned lots about my teachers and other people in my class. At lunch I made a new friend.

And there is a funny story to this too, Banana_Elephant and I accidentally went to Gym instead of Band and ended up walking shamefully into the Band room with our gym teacher.

So guys that was my first day of school this year I hope this was interesting to read. See ya!

Fantasic Fantasy Ways of Worldly Travel!

Sorry, I just had to LOL. Being Banana_elephant and all, I just had to.
Okay, so there are actual ways to travel. You know, like walking, running, by car, by train, etc. What really fascinates me are the fantasy ways of travel. I'll give you a list of some of my favorites.

This is probably my favorite way of fantasy traveling, seeing how it's also from my favorite sub-genre of science fiction. Airships are fantastic to look at (um, of course) but in Steampunk, they're pretty useful. Okay, if Steampunk airships were ever made, I'd just want to fly around in one and pretend it's the Victorian era.

This one is pretty cool too. Flying carpets. We all know the magical flying carpet from Aladdin, but just think how cool (or uncool) that would be to have one. Just think, having one in front of the door would be really nice to just hop onto and open the door. Although, it would be kind of inconvenient if you didn't realize you'd bought a magic carpet and then angered it by using it to wipe you feet...

 

Of course I can't forget dragons! Imagine having a pet dragon and being able to fly around on it all day (okay, not all day but...) and making it breath fire on everything. Okay, maybe not the fire part due to safety issues but dragons are pretty darn cool looking.

Another cool one are Pegasus (pegasi, pegasuses... what the heck is the plural...). Riding around on a flying horse would be pretty boss if I do say so myself. As long as they don't hit you in the head as they fly past, you should be completely fine.

I think we'd go all Percy Jackson if we had flying shoes, you know? It'd be nice to get out of traffic jams, go around people that are walking way too slow, easy way to get to Paris, and many more pluses, you know?

You know, now that I think about it, it's probably a good thing these things don't actually exist (well, as far as we know). There's a reason why fiction is so dangerous.

Sorry if this post was boring, I've been having trouble thinking of things to post. Hopefully next week I'll have something a bit more interesting to talk about. Banana_elephant out!

Banana_elephant's Top 5 Things About Travelling

Seeing how I haven't traveled since last week or can think of anything to talk about, I thought of a solution. There are some things that I just really like about traveling, and I will tell you about them below.

1.) The Sense of Adventure
Because of how much I read, and seeing how most of the stuff I read is Science Fiction, I naturally how a sense of adventure. The unknown excites me most of the time (unknown waters scares the pants off of me), and I really like to discover stuff. I wish that I could be Indiana Jones for a living, if you know what I mean (no, I'm not saying that I'm Harrison Ford).

2.) Foreign Languages
No, I have never been out of the country. That doesn't mean I can't love different languages (it's still part of traveling after all). Some of my favorite languages to listen to someone speak are French and Italian (next to English of course). Sure, it bothers me sometimes when I don't understand what people are saying (due to my need to know everything), but it just sounds so beautiful. In fact, today I started learning Italian, and am getting the hang of it quickly.

3.) Scenery
Oh goodness, not far where I live are these gorgeous hills. There's this highway that you go over, and it's just so beautiful all the time. In the summer it's just sooooooo green, it drives me crazy! In the winter it looks like Narnia before the great thawing thing or whatever (it's been a long time since I've read the books or seen the movies). During the fall it looks like a giant war occurred in the skies. Strangely, during the spring, it looks like something apocalyptic. Trust me, it's beautiful.

4.) The Car Rides
For some reason, I love long car rides where I don't have to do a thing. I can get in a little bit of sleep and read a little bit, but most of the time is spent listening to music. It's just great to have your ear buds in and the music up high, almost like you're alone in your own universe.

5.) Meeting New People
For my swim meets, I have to travel a lot. Like a LOT, a lot. Most of the time I meet someone that is in the same event as me (swimming the same stroke and the same distance, also your same age group and gender, if you didn't know). Actually, I met someone last year at a meet, and now we're pretty close friends. I see her at a few meets a year, and we both freak out whenever we see each other. The last time I saw her we were actually in the same event, the 100 fly.

I hope you enjoyed this week's post. Honestly, I've been having lots and lots of writer's block lately, including from the novel I am trying to write (ergh). Anyways, see you guys next week!

Banana_elephant's Very First Travel Tuesday!

Hey everyone, and happy Tuesday! I warn you, I don't travel very much at all, so most of my Travel Tuesdays will be taken from deep within my head. Truth be told, I've never really strayed far from home because one, my mum doesn't like airplanes and will never fly in one. Two, my family is always busy, running around to get everyone where they need to be. Anyways, my first Travel Tuesday will be about my trip to my cousin's house over the Fourth.
We left on the third of July at around five o'clock with everything in tow. I'm not much of a sleeper, but I was more tired than I thought I was. I probably slept for two hours! My cousins live about five hours from where we live, but they actually used to live much farther away.
It was quite cold in our vehicle because my father (I think it was him) had the AC blasting on high the whole ride, so when we arrived I was wearing my older brother's red sweatshirt that he gave to me. I will probably never hear the end of the ugly sweat shirt from my dear cousin who I will call Gymnast (because she is a gymnast).
Gymnast is technically my younger cousin, but only by three weeks. We look like twins, our faces are nearly the same, our laughs are equally hilarious, and we both act quite stupid when we're around each other. If we really were twins, Gymnast would be the more fashionable and slightly denser one. I, on the other hand, would be the total geek who is a bit of an outsider.  We hardly ever see each other, but I know her like my right hand.
Anyway, because Gymnast has a single bed, we slept on our sleeping bags in the living room downstairs. They live on a lake, and the room we were sleeping in had a door that went down the short path to the lake. Being as dumb as we are, we mad the decision to read scary stories from scary story Instagram pages.
Bloody freaking bad idea.
The two of us didn't sleep very well in the fear of being attacked by some crazy paranormal creature, and that was how day one ended for me.
In the morning we woke up, at some donut muffins for breakfast (yeah, be jelly), and then went swimming. Neither of us put sunscreen on, so when we went kayaking for two hours, well... Gymnast was a bit tan (because she got the good blood in the family lol jk) and I got sunburned. Like bad man.
We went boating later, had a campfire, then watched fireworks on the pier. One of their neighbors hosts a firework show of the Point, so they were really close and totally awesome.
My other cousin brought a toad inside and put it in the doll house, probably just because he's a boy and likes to tease us girls. Man, the toad was so cute.
Oh yeah, and we decided to read more scary stories.
Day three, we caught fish in the lake with just a net and some Gold Fish. Once, I caught two at a time. Also, we went kayaking again and nearly tipped over because of the wind. yeah, taht was not fun at all.
Well, we left at four thirty, even though we were supposed to leave at four. My brother and my other cousin went fishing and stayed out too long. Boys will be boys.
Thanks for reading my post, and I'll see you guys next Tuesday.

Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood #5

Hello and welcome to Travel Tuesdays! I'm not_luna_lovegood and this will be my last Travel Tuesdays until December. And SURPRISE! I still have severe writer's block! I've actually been looking forward to this day because I have more than a few ideas for Whatever Wednesdays and not very many for Travel Tuesdays. So today I will be talking about a trip to Chicago, Illinois that I barely remember because it happened a long time ago!

We went to Chicago with my grandparents and I'm pretty sure we stayed there for about four days. One of the first things I remember doing there was going to the Rainforest Cafe. If you're familiar with the Rainforest Cafe, you know that there are these robotic animals all around the restaurant that scared me half to death when I was little. But nowadays, I probably would have found them kind of cool. I also held a snake there! I remember being really scared at first but it wasn't that bad.


The Rainforest Cafe

Another restaurant I remember visiting is the Cheesecake Factory (my current favorite restaurant), but I only remember the visit because I was being very whiny because I didn't like anything off the menu (I used to be a vegetarian).


The Cheesecake Factory

When I was little, I used to LOVE American Girl dolls, so we went to the American Girl Place. It was definitely my favorite part of the trip then! The thing I remember most is when I got my picture taken with the Girls of the Year. I remember it because it turned out to be disastrous! There was this girl who kept staring at me because I wasn't cooperating and the naive, six-year-old version of me kept on thinking she wanted to be my friend when she was probably thinking, "What a whiny little brat". Now that I think back on that memory, I realize that she was probably right!


The American Girl Place

Another place we went to was the Shedd Aquarium, and it was awesome. I want to go there again because I love the ocean! The beluga whales (you know, the white ones?) were my favorite part. I even got a beluga plushie there to remember my trip. I do wonder if they had narwhals there, though. I love narwhals!

 
On the left is the Shedd Aquarium and on the right is a beluga whale plushie (I chose not to do a real picture of a beluga whale because to be honest, the real ones I found on Google Images are slightly terrifying!)

And that's all I remember from my trip to Chicago! I know what you're thinking: I used to be a whiny brat back then. And you're right. But in my defense, I was like six when this happened! That's a wrap for Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood and I will see you next week Wednesday for Whatever Wednesdays!

not_luna_lovegood

Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood #4

Welcome to Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood, and today I'm going to talk about fictional places I wish were real because I can't think of anything else to write about.

The number one place I wish was real, but sadly isn't, is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, from the Harry Potter series! I would LOVE to go on the Hogwarts Express, get sorted into my house (I'm pretty sure I'd be in Ravenclaw), learn spells, make new friends, play Quidditch, go to Hogsmeade, and basically have the time of my life at Hogwarts! Hey, I would give up Internet privileges to go to Hogwarts, and I can't go a day without using the Internet. At least we have the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.


Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Another fictional place I wish was real was Camp Half-Blood from the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series. I would love to spend my summers there, making new friends and maybe joining some quests! I would also love to play Capture the Flag with everyone! I wish I was a demigod so I could go to Camp Half-Blood.


Camp Half-Blood

I also wish Neverland from Peter Pan was real for a lot of reasons, the first being the fact that it looks so beautiful in the Disney version of Peter Pan! You can also go on adventures, and meet fairies and mermaids! But the main reason why I wish Neverland was real is because you don't have to grow up there! I want to stay a kid forever!


Neverland

The last fictional place? (I'm not sure how else to describe it) I would like to visit in is the TARDIS from Doctor Who. I actually don't watch Doctor Who (but I'm probably going to start watching it sometime soon) but I know a lot about it from CHUCKLES and Banana_elephant, so I know what the TARDIS is and it sounds so cool! I would get to travel throughout time and space, which I think just sounds so freaking awesome!


The TARDIS

I'm aware that this is kind of fandom-ish but I can't think of anything else to do for Travel Tuesdays so bear with me now. I'm not_luna_lovegood and I'll see you next week on Travel Tuesdays!

not_luna_lovegood

Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood #3 (aka I HATE WRITER'S BLOCK!)

Hello, welcome to Travel Tuesdays with not_luna_lovegood, and may I just say, I have absolutely no idea on what to write about. My family has been really busy lately because my brother is involved in baseball so we haven't gotten the chance to do any little trips, aside from little things like the mall and the zoo. I have writer's block, so I guess I will just show you some famous landmarks made out of Legos, because who doesn't like Legos (except for when you step on them, ouch!)?




The Eiffel Tower, located in Paris, France. You can actually buy a kit to make this!



The Great Pyramids of Giza, located near Cairo, Egypt. Too bad there isn't a Sphinx to go along with it.


The Taj Mahal, located in Uttar Pradesh, India. Just think of how much time and effort it would take to build this!


The Great Wall of China, located all over China. I found a lot of different designs for the Great Wall in Legos when I searched it on Google Images, but this is the most complicated and interesting to me.


The Acropolis, located in Athens, Greece. Look at the detail!


The Colosseum, located in Rome, Italy. This looks pretty realistic if you ask me.


     
The Statue of Liberty, located in New York City, United States. I also added the Statue of Liberty Lego person for no reason other than the fact that I wanted to.


Stonehenge, located in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. Another very realistic Lego monument.



Big Ben, located in London, United Kingdom. This is actually the one at the Legoland theme park in Windsor and I'm pretty sure it's not actually made of Legos. But it was too cool not to include, so that's why I put it here.

Which Lego monument is your favorite? Tell me in the comments below! That's it for this week's Travel Tuesdays, and I'll see you next Tuesday!

not_luna_lovegood