World trip 2024

From Lucca we drove to Cinque Terre on the Italian sea side. We took a rental car along a long and windy road. Cinque Terre means five villages. In Italian Cinque is five and Terre means village. The five villages are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. We stayed in a hotel in Monterosso for three nights, and we visited Riomaggiore. In Cinque Terre there are no cars allowed so we had to park far away and walk with our suitcases by hand to our hotel.

We spent lots of time at the beach. While diving in the very clear water, I found a octopus. It tried to get my face but it missed.

The beach at Monterosso had stones instead of sand so we made dams out of big rocks at a little stream running on the beach. We made a really good one that blocked so much water we had to make a little outlet for the water to go through. Some boys from Germany helped us with the outlet. I do not know their names because they spoke no English. I only know that they were German because Papa could tell that they were speaking German.

One day we took a ferry boat along the five villages and we got off at a village called Riomaggiore. It was supposed to have colourful houses but they looked like they needed a paint job because the paint was peeling. We left soon after we got there.

We had pizza for lunch one day. Papa had a really yummy lemon pizza. It had no tomato base and had ham and lemon juice on it along with slices and rind of lemon. While Papa had the pizza he also had a lemon beer!

We had a nice time in Monterosso but was it was not as good as all the hype.

We now are on the home stretch, because now we go back to The Netherlands, then back to England, Vancouver, San Francisco, Fiji, then back home to Gundaroo.

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When I woke up today Mama told me that England had won and would face Spain in the grand final of the Euro Cup. We had breakfast and left the house quickly because we had 09.15 tickets for the Van Gogh museum.

We then walked to the Van Gogh museum. Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter. He was the guy who cut of his ear and shot himself.

He painted Starry Starry night, Sunflowers, and The Bedroom. He also painted lots of paintings of himself so that he could practise painting people because models were very expensive back then.

When we got to the museum we had to wait a little while for Ange because she had to do a quick work call.

In the museum there were lots of his paintings. On the first floor there were all his self-portraits. At a desk we got a treasure hunt where we had to find certain pictures and describe them. At the end you got a prize.

We looked at all the floors. We saw the original sunflowers and lots of other originals.

There was an extra exhibit that showed some more of his paintings including the Bedroom. One of his paintings was painted outside during a storm so there are little grains of sand in a painting.

I managed to complete the treasure hunt and got stickers, tattoos and a postcard with Pikachu as one of his paintings.

Ange bought me a Playmobile figure of Vincent Van Gogh painting the Sunflowers.

We then went to the Hard Rock Café for lunch. I had a Messi burger and received a stress golden soccer ball. Ange had some nachos and Papa helped her finish them because there was quite a lot.

We then walked slowly back to Ange's house, stopping every now and then to look at shops. Ange bought me a rubber duck from the Mama Duck Shop. It looked like a Viking so I called him Erik the Ducking.

We then had to pack to go back to Oma and Opa.

We said goodbye to Oscar, Ange, and John and got onto our train.

We arrived back in Wageningen about an hour later and Opa drove us home.

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