Hey everyone! Hope you all are having fun out there doing whatever you do at camp.

Just as a random update, I'm feeling sick. My throat is kind of in pain, sometimes crackling, which makes me sound like an old granny, according to my friend. *shrugs* Who knows? Maybe I do. Plus, I think I either have a cold because my nose is stuffed up, or my new-found allergies are acting up. *sigh* I knew having a family full of people allergic to a million different things was bound to affect me sooner or later. Nooooooooooooooooo *fades offf*

Oh, and on top of all of THAT, I am totally drowning in homework, assignments, and tests or quizzes all due this week or the beginning of next week. Unfortunately, this week is a very busy thing for me, what with all the church activites I joined in to help out and my Saturday class lessons. Ugh. No wonder I'm sick D:

Lol so I hope that wasn't too pessimistic to read. I'm really not THAT bad,.....well sort of. Hope everyone else is enjoying themselves immensely. And that the weather is lovely. The weather up here is horrid. It's mostly gray, either cloudy or raining, it's still GRAY!! And the temperature is slowly dropping. We're heading near the zero point soon :(:( Time to put on my fall jacket soon then.

Well, I'll be hopefully seeing you all back again next week, probably with tons of fun stories to tell and record. By then, maybe I'll be okay.
Andge

School's going to start next week for me. I already received my schedule for the school year and all the courses I will be taking (though I'm thinking of changing some :P). So what have I been doing this whole summer break? Basically lazing around, reading as many books as possible, writing my stories (well, a little bit, not as much as I was hoping for earlier ._. lol being lazy has its consequences), gaming with my bro, hanging out with friends, and just chilling with my friends online!

Oh, my bad! I totally forgot all about the HUGE amount of movies I've watched with either my family or friends or just all on my lonesome :):)

And right before we all get too busy with things to do, can you please visit my book website at www.bookwormsunite.piczo.com? It would be much appreciated! If the homepage sidebar looks....a bit odd, please tell me here. I've been to fix that and I'm not sure if it's okay yet. Thanks a bunch!

this is andge -- out

Summer's nearly over! :( I am tres sad. I have so many things still left undone!! Anyway, sorry if I haven't been around in the past few weeks. I was earning my community hours for highschool and just enjoying the sun and hanging out with my friends while I still have time. This weekend, starting on Friday, my family and 5 other close families will embark on a little camping trip! :D I am tres excited! Oui oui. I hope to post a little something about that soon once I come back, and tons of pictures!

And I know I promisd to post some pictures up from my Europe trip here, but it seems I just didn't have enough time to. Maybe someday I will show you guys some awesome sights that I visited in those beautiful countries! :)

P.S. whoever has Facebook is one lucky person. Wish I could post up pictures faster that way xD

Enjoy the rest of summer! Nice weather outside here, though even a bit too hot for me up in Canada.
Andge :)

After suffering from severe jetlag these past two nights, I am finally BACK in North America! All I can is, it's good to be home again where everything's familiar, like the groggy weather outside recently. So this is my account of my Europe trip the past week. Hope it's not too boring :P

My family left on Saturday, July 18 at 9 pm on a plane headed for Europe. (Coincidentally, we left on my cousin's birthday AGAIN this summer. We've been doing this for the past 3 summers. ALL coincidentally landing on this date) It was a very tiring and aching 8-hour flight but we landed at Barcelona, Spain early Sunday morning at 10. The time change was DREADFUL! I suffered terrible jetlag then as well though I tried to sleep as much as I could on the plane there.

We had booked a Mediterranean cruise trip this summer that sailed from Spain to Italy and France. On Monday, it was a full day of sailing as we headed to our farthest destination. Tuesday, we docked at Naples, Italy. It was GORGEOUS out there, with the old buildings and the cool trees in that climate. I took tons of pictures those first few minutes. My family booked excursions for us every day so we could visit the cities by tour bus and a local tour guide to help explain and show us the cool sites in the towns. In Naples, the highlight was driving to the old city of Pompei. I'm not sure if you heard of it, but it was an old city that was destroyed in 79 A.D. (or so I was told by the tour guide of the day). I took tons of pictures of the broken walls of buildings there and it was kinda scary to see these statues of people, REAL people, that were turned to stone from the volcanic eruptions that destroyed Pompei back then. There was one of a very pregnant women. My mom took all the pictures of those. It was too weird for me to keep looking at, although I could post up the pictures later if you want them. That day was really busy and full of walking. The worst part was getting extremely carsick. We had to drive around the mountains to reach Pompei and there were tons of twists and turns in the road due to the mountain's rocky walls. And I was already pretty seasick on Monday. Let's just say the driving turned me REALLY green and I felt like throwing up a lot.

Wednesday, we sailed to Rome (aka, Roma)! A full day of exploring the ancient city. I took tons of pictures there, especially in St. Peter's Square. Apparently, the Pope lives there, in the huge cathedral, St. Peter's (S. Pietro, known in Italian). It was kind of odd to see so many souvenirs in the gift shops with the pope's face on it O_O. Anyway, we only had a few hours to explore this beautiful city due to the long trip on the train we had to take from the docks to get to Rome. Although the scenery of the outskirts of Rome were absolutely BEAUTIFUL! All the countryside scenes, lush green grass with fields of plants growing and quaint houses here and there amidst the rolling hills. Oh and a few horses and cows here and there in the fields. I may be a city girl, but I'm a country lover at heart :) My family also visited the Colosseum there. It took us an hour to wait in line to get tickets at the counter to get in. I loved the view of the Colosseum. I'll definitely have to post some pics of that place here later. I'm sure you'll love it too. We had to climb so many steps to get to the top floor of the Colosseum to get a better view than just the main floor had to offer. Lol my mom was totally out of breath by the time we reached the top while my bro and I were still in tip-top shape!

On Thursday, we went to my most favourite place yet. Pisa! Where the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa is! I had to do a project on Italian food to make a menu for my Food & Nutrition class this past year and for my cover, I drew the tower. It was so AWESOME to actually see the famous building myself with my own eyes instead of just looking at pictures on google. It really isn't ALL that slanted but I heard it's been moving a bit more lately so they had to strengthen the base more. Too bad I didn't have the chance to actually go up to the top of the tower and look down. There just wasn't enough time to do that. The funny thing of this day was how my mom and bro got lost in Pisa while my dad and I went off to go look at other stalls outside the walls of the centre of the town where the Leaning Tower is. She went the wrong way somehow after she left the walls and couldn't seem to find the way back to the meeting place where our tourbus people were to meet shortly. She panicked so badly but my bro stayed calm and started praying that my dad could find them in time to get back onto the bus. Fortunately, probably from my brother's prayers, my dad was able to find them a bit away from the meeting place where I was pacing while waiting for them to come back before everyone started leaving for our next stop. Thank God for that! Then, we headed on to Florence (known as Firenze). My mom was extremely excited about visiting this city because her name just so happens to be Florence :P. Mainly, the tourguide just set up a meeting place and gave us 3 hours to roam around this city. It wasn't near enough time to visit many of the famous buildings there so we just went shopping. There were tons of brand-name things sold in this city, though we didn't buy any. Lol the trip itself already cost quite a bit, no point in making it any more expensive. It was fun and I got to eat some real authentic Italian pizza there :). My bro loved it! He's always loved pizza anyway.

Friday, since it was nearly the end of the week, my dad booked a half-day tour instead. We moved onto France by now, leaving Italy behind. Much to my chagrin, we didn't get to visit the famous Milan, although I guess there wouldn't be all that much to do there except shop for designer things, which probably wouldn't be all that much fun for too long. Anyway, we went to Nice that day (pronounced Neece). We didn't do much walking or exploring that day, just driving through the different places in the tourbus. We drove through Monte Cristo, Monaco. It was really a very small country. It would've also been a very nice view from the mountains up there. HOWEVER, there was a huge foggy mist covering the tops of the mountains that morning so we had to leave without taking any of those picturesque views on my camera. Though it was really cool to be driving down this twisting road with no other car on sight on the edge of the mountain with fog surrounding us on all sides. Kind of spooky and cool at the same time! Like something you would see in a movie. Apparently, that road was once used in a movie for a footage of an escape out of the city on a day with fog, just like ours. Nice was full of beaches and just drove through there was well, watching all those happy beachers lying back in the sand tanning themselves in the sun. Me, I prefer not to do that. I'm not really a beach girl, if I do say so myself. Maybe it's a good thing I live up north where beaches are really rare :P. I'd probably go crazy if all my friends wanted to go to a nearby beach for fun every day. The highlight of this day was stopping at this beautiful quaint old town of Eze (not pronounced "easy" by the way :P). The buildings were made of stone and the tourist stores were like part of the stone. You enter into this hole in a wall big enough for people to walk through standing up straight and inside is a room but it's surrounded on all sides by stone. Kinda cool. Too bad I forgot to take any pics of that while I was there. The view from in this town of Eze was breathtaking! It sits on the top of a mountain and it took my mom and I some time to walk up the road from where the bus dropped us to get to the town. But the climb was definitely worth taking! Too bad my bro and dad missed it. My brother was hungry and wanted to eat so he got the chance to eat authentic French fries. Wish he saved some for me. I never got the chance to get any :(

On Saturday, our last day of the trip, we went to our last stop in Marseilles, France (pronounced Mar-say). There was a lot of shopping on that city by the water and the docks were LOVELY! My mom especially loved it and took tons of pictures. This is where the very famous Notre Dame cathedral is, lying at the top of a hill that overlooks the city. We got a chance to go there. Boy, was it a hard climb. About a hundred steps from the bottom of the hill to the top to reach the cathedral. The view was particularly amazing up there as well! And the architecture of the building was just AMAZING! It took a lot of straining on my neck to take a picture of the highest point from just standing under it. And there was a real drawbridge that could be rolled up to keep people out when it closes. I took a picture of that if you would also like to see it.

Anyway, that was my trip. Hope it wasn't too hard to read and that you find these cities as amazing and intriguing as I did. Although I guess it would be harder for you since you can only see them through my words and descriptions. I hope you get the chance to visit these beautiful European cities someday in the future. It will definitely be worthwhile! Now, before I close off this long (hopefully not too boring) post, please read below some cool or interesting things that intrigued me in Europe.

• A rock got stuck in my shoe (there's this hole at the bottom of my running shoes and it was made like that as a design) from when we went tromping around Pompei listening to the tourguide speak over on our radio systems so we could all hear him among the heavy crowds. And since it was stuck there and it would be hard to get it out, the rock became a free souvenir from Pompei :P After I get it out of my shoe, I will wash it and write "Pompei" on it in black marker lol and stick it on my desk along with all my other souvenirs
  
• On the drive to Pompei on the mountain, whenever our bus rounded a corner of the mountain, the road would be extremely tight-fitting to get through to turn because it's very long. So the driver would beep his horn right before turning to warn off any cars that might be about to turn the corner as well. It was really fun, beeping at all the cars around every twist. Once in a while, a car wouldn't be able to stop on time so then the whole line of cars after the 1st one would have to slowly back up to make way of our huge bus that would easily crush them if they didn't :P Lol the biggest car wins
  
• In Europe, it's common to see people driving a Ferrari or Lamborghini. My mom and I saw one in our climb to Eze and my mom took a pic of me standing next to it. Lol the owner of the car worked in the store where the car was parked next too and I saw him keep a close eye on me as we took the picture xD
  
• The intersections in Europe confuse me. Sometimes there're up to 6 different roads you can choose from and some roads seem to twist back to the way you came from but yet it's a different road that we hadn't taken previously. Even now my words are confusing. Lol if you don't get this point, it's okay, 'cause I'm having a hard time getting what I'm saying myself. The intersections are just way more different than what I'm used to in Toronto.
  
• And finally, what I probably find the MOSt intriguing, is the fact that so many people drive a motorcycle and/or bicycle/scooter in Europe. My mom said it's probably because it doesn't snow there so they could drive those things all year around, unlike the conditions where I live. On the same road, you could find like at least 15 motorcycles/scooters either driving that road or parked somewhere along the road. It was truly INTERESTING to see so many at one time. I normally don't see a single motorcycle, even in the summer, much except once in a while. I just found that EXTREMELY fascinating!

And now, I shall have to go soon since dinner will soon be arriving along with my parents :) Mmm, I can already taste those Korean noodles lol. Hope this wasn't too boring for you to read and if you want pictures, just say so beneath!

Andge, signing OFF
*footnote for K: As a final point for you, yes, you're right, by the way. Hope you enjoyed hearing about that Spanish dude *winks* ;)

I'm going on a TRIP!! Yipee! lol. I'll be leaving tomorrow at 5 pm (thankfully not 5 am like we had to do once) to get to the airport and then onto our flight at 8. My family will be spending some quality family time together in 3 European countries for the next week or so. If you don't see me around, you'll know why ;) Hope everyone's had a good summer so far. I sure have. Tons and tons of books and games to keep me busy on the weekdays and having fun with my friends on the weekends. See ya when I get back to Canada! Lol, most likely with a tan. And hopefully not with a sunburn....good thing I don't burn easily. Anyway, chow! xD

Andge out.