Part 12: Other stuff and then going home

I didn't have gelato every night. Just one night I had a regular ice cream.

Here is some of my favorite food that I ate in Macedonia:
Tortellini
Pizza
Eel!
Little fried fish called Plasica that your eat whole

Plasica

So on the last day I fell in the lake with my clothes on. It was cold. I did not want to do that.

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The next day no one was awake except us. We were up so early to get a taxi ride to the airport. We flew to Vienna. We rode bikes around and looked at stuff.

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So when I went home I got to ride the airplane to Toronto and then I stayed at the airport for a while then took a 45 minute trip to Detroit.

And that's The End!

Part 11. Some last questions

My class was wondering a few things again:

1.       Why is it called the Bay of Bones?

Archeologists (scientists who study old things) found old stuff in the bottom of the lake and lots of animal bones. That's why today it is called the Bay of Bones.

2.       Do people still live in the Bay of Bones? If so, did you meet them? Do they still use bows and arrows for hunting? Has any part of the village been updated?

No they don't live there anymore.  The buildings at the Bay of Bones were rebuilt in the modern times as a museum for people to visit and learn about the way people used to live. The original buildings were from between 1200 and 700 BC.

Part 10: A visit to the Bay of Bones.

I went to the Bay of Bones. The Bay of Bones is a 3300 year old village on Lake Ohrid.

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The village is built on piles out in the water. Piles were a support for the platform and houses were built on the platform. The houses are made of mud and sticks. The roofs are made of thatch. Thatch is sticks and grass. The people slept on hay and blankets made of fur and animal skins.

The bear skin was comfortable and warm

I am working on my realistic fiction story about a boy who lives at the Bay of Bones. His name is Alex Mark Patrick. He is resourceful, responsible, helpful, creative, and inventive. He likes snails and swimming too. He hates the winter because it is too cold and he doesn't have a fur blanket. He has a hat, some fox fur, blond hair, fur clothes, and bare feet. He's small. He is 3 feet tall. The problem is he doesn't have warm clothes. He needs to kill a bear, but his brothers won't let him because he's too little. He decides he is going to kill a fox so his brothers will let him hunt a bear. It is hard to kill a fox because foxes are very smart.

Here are some adjectives to describe the setting: Cold, bright, sunny, heard howling wolves, birds chirping, heard waves, smelled fire smoke, cooking meat and fish. Could hear animals, people, and waves. Fire crackling, and wind.

1. My character is resourceful because he proves that he can kill a fox and he invents a bow and arrow.

2. My character is responsible because he takes care of his weapons.

3. My character is helpful because he kills an animal for someone else. He shares and delivers meat.

4. My character is inventive because he invents a good bow and arrow.

Here are some animal furs

I'm sitting in front of a bear head and next to an oven used for cooking.

Part 9: Answers

Questions from my friends in Mrs. Tyranski's 2nd Grade Class:

1.       What’s your favorite part about the trip so far?

I have ice cream every night. My favorite flavor is hazel nut. They call it "lešnik".
 
2.       What was your favorite restaurant?

My favorite restaurant is Leonardo Pizza because they have tortellini and it's my favorite. They also have very good chicken fingers.

3.       Have you been shopping or have you bought anything?

 I bought my Mom some earrings for Mother's day.

4.       Are the prices more expensive in the US than they are in Macedonia?

Yes they are. Ice cream only costs 25 denar which is 50 cents. It would cost about twice as much at Dairy Queen in Michigan.

5.       What does the money look like?

Here is a picture of the money. It has pretty colors and pretty pictures. It seems like you would be rich if you had 1000 denar, but really it's like $20 in the US. Usually our dinner is about 1000 denar.


6.       Do they have the same toys in Macedonia as they do in the US?

Not really. I went to someone's house, but she didn't have many toys. Many people live in small apartments so they don't have a lot of stuff. They play outside a lot and swim and play basketball.

7.       Did you get to go inside the big church?

Yes I did.  I saw lots of pictures of people like Saints. They were lots of pretty paintings surrounded by gold. I'm not allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have any to share. The paintings are very old, and camera flashes will cause the paint to fade.

8.       Why did the gladiators kill each other for fun?

The gladiators did not think it was fun, but the people watching them thought it was fun. Kind of like watching wrestling or football today.

Part 8: In the Lake

This is a picture of me jumping in the water.

 Anyway, I went to go swimming in Lake Ohrid. I got to play with someone in the water. His name was Philip.

Philip and I are jumping in the lake

He could speak just a little bit of English. He can count to ten in English. When he counted to ten he pulled me into the water. The water was very clear. It felt like I have blubber because I didn't think it was cold. I did feel like having a brain freeze one time.

This is how clear the water is.

My friend Philip thought my sun glasses were goggles and tried to use them to see under water.

Part 7: Going to the Fortress

So we walked on the fortress (Samuil's Fortress). Samuil was the Emperor of Bulgaria around 1000 years ago. I saw a dungeon. I went inside a fighting turret. They would shoot arrows out of the hole at enemies. Me and Dad pretended to fight zombies with bows and arrows. After we left the fortress we went to a bar and Dad and I had a Fanta and Mom had water. At the fortress, Mom didn't want to come down with us because she is terrified of heights.

 

This is a picture of Dad and I pretending to fight off zombies.

Part 6. The Crazy Cab Ride

Crazy Cab Ride!

Friday we went to visit Struga, Macedonia. We tried to find a bus but we couldn't so we took a taxi. There were six people in the taxi. I sat on Mom's lap. It was crazy. I didn't have to put my seat belt on. I should have if I was in America. We saw buildings and stuff and I got my feet wet in the lake and threw rocks in the lake. We met a man. He said his family was in America but he was not allowed to go back. That made me sad. He has a son who is 8 years old like me.
I had a plan to sneak him home. shh!!1

Part 5: Bonus Jokes and Food

Some weird joke

I said Knock, Knock! 

Dad said ,Whose there?

And I said, THE DOOR!!
Food:

The pizza here is better than the Michigan kind of pizza. It has a lot of toppings. I like the mushrooms. Sometimes it comes with sour cream and red sauce that you can pour on top. I had chicken fingers. I ate them all and I still wasn't full so I wanted some ice cream. It's called gelato. It costs 25 dinar for a scoop in a cone. That's about 50 cents in US dollars. They have cookie flavor, strawberry (I haven't tried that yet), vanilla, and snickers. Mom and Dad eat lots of salad and I get jealous because I'm hungry. Sometimes I will eat an olive, but I am still hungry for a big food. I also eat a lot of omelets with cheese and ham. My favorite drink is orange Fanta. It's like orange juice + orange soda. For breakfast me and Dad go to get donuts from the bakery.

Part 4: A visit to a Greek amphitheater in Macedonia

We went for a walk from our apartment to a Greek amphitheater. It was made in 200 BC. That's over 2200 years ago.  It's unknown how many people the theater could hold because it was so old part of it broke. When you say something it sounds like this for example "E" e e. It echos! The Romans used to have gladiator fights. They fought other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. The killed each other for fun. That's weird. They don't do that anymore today. Now they have plays and concerts there.

sources: Theater of Ohrid and Gladiators

I played with some boys. I chased them and pretended I was the bad guy. When I got them I pretended to eat them.

For Aunt Natalie (balcony art): This picture is about a calm plateau with flipside trees (trees with square leaves) and bushes and big hills. Also mountains and an explorer.

Part 3. Macedonia

We woke up in Vienna, Austria. We,  took another airplane to Skopje, Macedonia.

We drove a car to Ohrid, Macedonia (about 2 hours). Yay! Finally here. We are staying at the "Apartment Alex". Our room is #47 and our building is pink. I have a balcony. I have art time
outside on the balcony.

I drove a boat and talked on a radio. Here is the boat I drove:

(Editor's note: this actually happened, Jamie drove the boat for about 1/2 hour while the real captain talked on the phone)

I threw rocks.

A cat tried to eat our snack.

We saw a very old church. They don't know exactly when it was built we but do know what its name is.
St John at Kaneo

Part 2: Vienna

When we landed we got on a bus and when we got off the bus we got a taxi to the hotel. The hotel name was Hotel and Palais Strudelhof. Then I wanted to fall asleep so I did. Don't ask me how I wanted to take a nap: because I didn't sleep for a day. When I woke up I thought it was the next day.  Then we went for a walk to a playground behind the castle palace.

Then we saw some really old buildings. We walked on the Vienna Ringstraße, which means "Ring road". Before there was the road, there was a wall to keep bad guys away. The wall was built in the 13th century. They tore down the wall and built the road and the buildings in the 1850's.

Here is a picture of me in the volkgarten (people's garden). I just wanted to play and didn't want to take a picture.

Here are some pictures of the buildings.

Here I am being eaten by a (pretend) lion.

Bonus: What do you call a cracker on fire?

Answer: A firecracker. Ha ha!

Day 1: Airplane

So we traveled all the way to Frankfurt, Germany, all the way across the ocean! I had zero sleep. We left in the afternoon and landed in the morning. We had to stay in the airport until our flight to Vienna, Austria. I zoomed around on the escalators that go flat. (Not the up and down kind). Then we got on another plane and went to Vienna, Austria. It was a one hour ride.