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Posts by dellasquiggles

Jun 18

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A Close Encounter with Cheetah Cubs

Before we got to Kwara, we heard that there had been a mother cheetah (with four cubs!!!) in the area. We spent all our game drives channeling our happy cat thoughts in hopes of spotting her. We were on our last game drive and about to give up when out tracker, AT, called from his perch on the hood of the car, “Cheetah!” Our guide Tom veered of the track toward a small termite mound with a furry head poking through the bushes on top of it. It was the mumma cheetah and her cubs sitting in the early morning sunshine! There were only three of the cubs on the termite mound, the fourth missing. They were as small as a house cat, with fluffy silver tufts of fur on their backs. I could have died, they were so stinking cute.
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Apr 17

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A Book Party with Big Brother Mouse

My brother and I love to read. We can’t imagine a world without books! We were amazed to learn when we were researching Laos as a place to stop, that some kids in Laos have very little access to books. Some have never seen a book before! Big Brother Mouse is an organization here that works to publish books in the Lao language (translations and original stories, both) and then bring them to kids in rural villages all over Laos via one of their Book Parties. We decided as a family that we wanted to sponsor one of these book parties, and since we were planning to be here we got to attend the party we sponsored to see all the kids get new books!

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Apr 15

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A Term In New Zealand

Now it’s my turn to tell everyone about my adventures at school in Mt Maunganui, New Zealand, where I spent term one at Mount Maunganui Intermediate! Read more

Jan 3

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Beautiful Bali

It is my strong belief that the Balinese have a festival for everything. If it isn’t a festival, then it’s a set of rituals, offering givings, dances and decorations for everything from the knives in your kitchen to getting married. Lucky for us, we got to see Galugan, a Balinese festival, in full fling along with the daily offerings that make Bali’s culture so beautiful.

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Nov 7

Cappadocia and Dubai

Well, Della and I had hoped to post about Cappadocia, our last stop in Turkey, before we left but that didn’t happen before we were sucked into the (hot) whirlwind that is Dubai! So this will be quick and dirty because we expect Sri Lanka, our next stop, to be equally as intense.

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Oct 2

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I Don’t Love “Love Locks”

I first became aware of the phenomenon of love locks during our trip to Paris in 4th grade (spring break 2013.) A “love lock” is any kind of padlock that two people write their names on. They lock the padlock to the bridge and throw the key into the river as a sign of their love’s permanence. Here is my brother and I on the Pont des Arts, a bridge with a ton of locks.

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Sep 15

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Cooking Class in Rome

We decided “When in Rome, cook like the Romans do!” so my mom signed us up for a cooking class with Chef Andrea at Cooking Classes in Rome. (Miles and my dad went to the Explora kids museum for the day instead.) Read more

Sep 4

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We’ve made it through our first week!

As difficult as it was, we have made it through our first week of travel. It was a rough landing at the Barcelona airport, but now we are back on our feet, enjoying ourselves. Sadly, school has started. Now every afternoon, me and Miles assemble for four or five periods of learning. Yay.

Some highlights from our first week:

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Apr 13

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Practice Makes Perfect

Even though our Big Trip starts in August, for spring break we went to France for two weeks with a stopover in Iceland. We were in Paris for a week and then went to Royan, a smallish town outside of Bordeaux (Bore-doe, yes, I know it sounds weird) for a week, where we shared a house with friends. To finish it off, our family went to Parc Asterix, a French amusement park based on the comic books Asterix & Obelix, as the grand finale.

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