Europe Adventure

We recently got back from an Adventure in Europe. We first packed, then we drove to a bus station. At the bus station we parked and got on the bus to Boston. We got off at the airport and discovered someone had taken our bag. We went to terminal E and took a Aer Lingus flight to Dublin that lasted about 5 hrs & 20 minutes. We did not have that one bag, but the bus company was searching for it. In Dublin we took a taxi to a fishing village , saw a castle there and ate at a cafe. We had about 4 hr layover so then we took another taxi back to Dublin airport. The currency in Ireland was Euro's but they drove on the left side of the road. So they had a bit of English culture left from the time Britain ruled Ireland. The taxi drivers did not really like England and one played a Irish rebel song when we asked him his favorite Irish music. We took another Aer Lingus flight from terminal 2 to Inverness Scotland. That flight was only an hour and a half. In Inverness we got a Mercedes rental car that turned off when you stopped ! We drove towards Skye after we got some food from a market. There were sheep and green hills everywhere!

 We stopped on our way and hiked up a hill and had a picnic on it. There were many small rivulets running through the hills too. We saw plenty of sheep on our way to Skye. We stopped at some castles like Eileen Donan and Urqhart

.  We also went to a town called Strontian, where strontium was discovered. In Skye we slept in a cottage, and explored many places, including Portree ( the capital ), and the fairy springs                  

next to the Cullens ( a mountain range ). Then we went down to Stirling, and saw Stirling Castle. After this we went down to Edinburgh and the surrounding towns. We saw Edinburgh Castle

and went to church in DalKeith. We also went through a flower field ( around North Berwick )                        

. We hiked up a The North Berwick Law ( or just the Berwick Law ), in North Berwick , it is a hill that has a whale's Jawbone ( now a replica , added in 2008, after one rotted away , and was removed in 2005 )  on the top. It also has ruins of an Iron age hill fort and military bases of many wars, including the Napoleonic and WWII. I got lost on it but, We found each other later. After this we had a Flight booked for London, but when we stopped on our way to the Airport , Our Sister's lip got slashed on the concrete. We went to the airport , and they told us that we should get it stitched, ( by the way the medical agent there was not very helpful ) But they couldn't do it, and there was a hospital 7 miles away or so. So we went to St Johns hospital and waited forever in the emergency room. Then after some more waiting in a patient's room, there came a facial surgeon and he stitched our sisters lip up. We had missed our flight from Edinburgh airport, and drove around, after getting some food at Tesco's, to find a hotel to sleep for the night. We went to hotel one hotel, they said no, then another ( that they recommended to us ), that said no , and another ( that they recommended to us ) , that said NO. But , finally we found one that said yes! and we slept there during the night. There was a deal if you book flights the day before them , before midnight, then they are cheaper. Our dad booked our flight to London , like 2 minutes before Midnight. We slept there that night, and then had a Breakfast there , for they had breakfast served there. That day we flew to London, we had lost some time, so we did not go to Oxford. But we took a bus tour of London, and saw Big Ben's tower              

, Parliament , and other buildings. We then flew to Bergerac, France, and then drove to Beynac.

There we slept in an old ( about medieval ) stone cottage of the hill that had the castle. The Cottage was refurbished on the inside for modern needs. We explored much of the Dordogne

, and some of the castles around it, I got my Sword in one of the Castles.

After this we drove to Paris in a rental car we had gotten in Bergerac airport. We lost a wallet at one of the tolls, but finally, after some 6 hours, we made it to Paris. In Paris we explored

, and saw Notre Dame

 ( there was a statue of Charlemagne near it, and many pigeons  ) , The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower

( I touched the base of this one ). From here we flew to Dublin, and after a 2 hour layover ( that was delayed some more ), we flew to Boston. It was great to be home, and we had a great time in Europe.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was a king of the franks. He was born on April 2 742.He died on January 28 814 at the age of 71. He Became king of the Franks in 771 . He wanted to turn his people to Christianity. He also wanted to make them more civilized and learned. Before the franks had settled down they were a barbarian tribe that attacked Rome. He was crowned roman emperor at 800 Christmas day. This seemed ironic because he was a frank. But he had build many buildings and made people go to church. The pope that crowned him was called Leo III.Charlemagne Fought many wars . Here are some of them

Lombards
The Lombards were people that had land in northern Italy and the alps . They wanted to take over the Papal states. Where the pope lived . The pope asked The Byzantines for help. But they did not have enough armies.So the pope asked Charlemagne for help . Charlemagne brought his army down and took over the Lombards .

Saxons
Charlemagne  fought the Saxons.
A tribe north of him and took them over.

Moors
Charlemagne's armies  fought the Moors to.
The Moors were a Muslim people that lived in Spain .
Charlemagne's armies took over a resolvable amount of cities and expanded his land .

Charlemagne used a lot of Calvary and foot soldiers in his battles. Leo III and Charlemagne were friends Because Leo III crowned Charlemagne and Charlemagne defended Leo III. He had a sword called Joyeuse. He fought with it a lot . But he also helped his people become Christian and hired people to teach them to read and write .He Also turned his People the barbaric franks into more civilized people. He forced his Conquered people to become Christian . Towards the end of his rein his country was attacked by danish vikings

Sources : Khan Academy, Wiki and the story of the world volume 2 medieval ages  .

Basil II

We've been learning about Basil II and the Byzantine Empire.

It was the Empire after Rome fell in the East. The capital was Constantinople. It was a big empire for over 300 years and then it shrank til only Constantinople was left as the Ottoman Turks destroyed it an that was the end of the Byzantine Empire.

Basil II was the Emperor during the peak of its power. He conquered Bulgaria where my ancestors are from. I like his name though because in Redwall there is a character named Basil Stag Hare.

Today we conquered Jerusalem on Civ IV from Basil and we were the French in the Middle Ages. We are also at war with the Vikings. The middle ages it seems like everyone was at war.

The Gupta Empire

In the Middle Ages, the Indians were all tribes until a man named SkandaGupta came and started uniting all the tribes and kingdoms and started the Gupta Dynasty.

This was during Golden Age of India when everyone was doing great things like math, writing, medicine, astronomy.

After the fall of Rome the Byzantine Empire and the Indian Empire were strong against the barbarians. Then the Huns attacked the Gupta empire and SkandaGupta led his people against them and beat them but just barely.

They lost so many people fighting the Huns that the Indian people became poorer and the empire fell apart and the Golden age ended.

Christianity in Britain

Before Rome fell, Christianity spread to all of Europe.

After Rome fell, even though the Roman Empire was gone, there was still Christianity in many places that the Roman Empire ruled over. One of the places that Rome ruled over, close to Britain, was Gaul.

One day that Pope was walking near there and he saw 3 slave boys, but they had blonde hair and in Gaul it was very odd to have blonde hair, most had dark hair. When the Pope asked the slave trader where the boys came, he told them they came from the island of Britain. So the Pope asked the slave trader if Britain was Christian and the slave trader said they hadn't even heard of Christianity. The pope asked what the boys people were called.

They said they were Anglos. The pope thought they looked more like angels because of their blond hair. Then the pope bought the boys so they wouldn't be slaves. Then he fed the boys and took care of him and sent them to school to learn about Christianity. Then he asked Augustine to take the boys back to Britain and to teach the people there about Christianty.

When Augustine arrived there the king of the Celts heard about their magic powers and came down and said he wouldn't let them enter his palace until they told about their powers. He was afraid they would cast a spell on him.

Augustine explained that he didn't have magic, just Christianity and he taught many of the people in Britain became Christian.

KNIGHTS time.....

We have been studying the Middle ages and read many stories about knights and heroes of the Middle Ages. We saw how homes were build, how roads were make battles were fought. Robin Hood legents, Richard the Lion Heart, King Arthur and so many more. Here are some pictures that I drew out of my imagination:















I even helped my Mom take some pictures of some knights with seen through a magnifying glasses and different angels. I LOVE to take pictures. One day I did it for 4 hours in a row. It was so much fun. Then the battery needed to be charged and I had to wait for it to take more pictures. It was great to capture everything around me. Here are some of the pictures I took of the knights:














I LOVE the middle ages. I learned about Don Quihote as well and watched a movie about him. Interesting.....