Giulia's Continental Adventures

               France We spent a week in France. The first place we went was Toulouse for two nights. We stayed in a hotel across from the river, though we could not see it out of our windows. In Toulouse we went into two Christmas markets and rode a giant Christmas tree twice, once with dad and once with Owen. On the ride you sit in ornaments that you can make go up and down. We also discovered chocolate covered marshmallows 😀. Next, we stayed in Bordeaux for two nights. Bordeaux was my favorite place on this whole trip. I do not know why. The hotel was amazing. It had mario kart 2, pool (with cues), air hockey and darts. But when we left the hotel for the first time, we heard lots of honking. We did not know what it was but then my brother looked over a ledge and saw a bunch of motorcycles but we still did not really know what it was until we went into town and saw a bunch of Santas on motorcycles! It made me happy and very excited. There were hundreds of them.    The last place we

              Trains  We left Valencia to go to Barcelona and then France. We travel by trains that are mostly fast trains. Most of the time we do schoolwork on the trains. I have even done a few math tests on a train.  All the trains are different, some have Wi-Fi, some don’t, some have comfortable seats, some have good views, and some have reclining chairs. Most of the time the scenery is farms but sometimes we see mountains. Unless we are in a tunnel which happens quite often. There are all different kinds of farms: animal farms, orange farms, tree farms, dairy farms, vegetable farms and fruit farms. Sometimes there are abandoned houses or scorched houses. It looks really cool. We have been on trains for a total of two days, ten hours and thirty-two minutes. We have been on 31 trains and gone to 29 different places so far. The longest train we took was five hours long from Innsbruck to Venice. The shortest train we took was from Florence to Pisa which was about an hour long. 

  Bioparc  We went to the Bioparc in Valencia. The Bioparc is like a zoo but with a lot more animals and some cafes.  When we got in, the first thing we saw was the flamingos or as they are called in Spanish flamencos. They were not as pink as flamingos I had seen before. I think they had a restricted shrimp diet because they were mostly white and the chemicals in shrimp is what makes the flamingos pink. We saw a lot of animals but one of the best was the meerkats (pictured below.) They were super cute, and fluffy looking. They were running around and digging tunnels. There was one just sitting on one of the high rocks watching the giraffes and birds. The type of bird was called the sacred ibis. It is called that because it was the sacred bird of the ancient Egyptian god of knowledge, Thoth.  There were also gazelles. The meerkat liked to look out and when we came back later he was still staring out but in a different spot. The way they sit is super cute like they are humans. They sit