The Peterson Pack on the Move

My family and I were lucky enough to spend the last five months traveling the world. I am going to tell you where the countries are located, what language they speak, what food they eat, if anything was different, uncomfortable, or weird, what book I was reading, any interesting stories, and if I would recommend going there. French Polynesia is a large grouping of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. In French Polynesia they speak French and Tahitian or their island languages. The food is mostly fish but there is also chicken for lunch, fruit, and awesome pastries for breakfast. My favorite thing was the pastries. I mean, who doesn't want a good French Pastry? On Rangiroa, the first island we went to, our host gave us a pan filled with fresh delicious tuna, which her husband caught that day. To go swimming we had to go across someone's yard full of coconut trees and run to the other side because the coconuts above our head, hanging down from the trees, might fall on us. At nigh...

My family and I visited Dubrovnik and Kotor. I will tell you about Dubrovnik. On the plane leaving Sri Lanka, my mom realized that our tickets transferring us from Paris to Dubrovnik were for May… but at the time it was early April. So, we had to quickly rebook new tickets while waiting for our luggage in the Paris airport. Luckily, it was much easer booking new tickets in France than it would have been in Vietnam.  If any of you guys want to fly from Paris to Dubrovnik this May, we have 4 free tickets available.  When we landed in Dubrovnik, we took a taxi to the gate of old town.  It felt like a very posh car after spending so much time in the small, broken down tuk tuks of Sri Lanka.  We didn’t drive into Old Town with the car because no motor vehicles are allowed in Old Town Dubrovnik.  This was great and felt very calm after the busy streets of Sri Lanka. When we parked, we were right in front of a gelato shop and it was torture to walk past.  As we wa...

                                                                                                                                                chapter 5                                                                                           Early the next morning I woke everybody up. I told  the girls to all wear headdresses and sprinkle fern seeds in their feathers. I told the boys to...

We drove in an old broken down van from Ella to Udawalawe. On the end of the drive we saw four elephants from the road. We walked up to the first one we saw and noticed other tourists feeding it bananas through the electric fence. Feeding wild animals is very bad. We thought one of the tourists was going to get zapped by the fence but unfortunately, it didn't happen. The next morning we woke up very early, at 5:00 am. We got into an elevated pickup truck bed to go on a safari. We drove into Udawalawe National Park. At first we saw storks, jungle fowl, hawk eagles, serpent eagles, kingfishers, peacocks, hornbills, fly catchers, and bee-eaters, which are all birds. The jungle fowl looks like a small rooster with a big beautiful crest. It is the national bird of Sri Lanka. The flycatcher, kingfisher, and bee-eater are brightly colored tropical birds. The flycatcher is blue. The kingfisher is also blue. The bee-eater is green. We also saw several crocodiles basking in the sun at a mudd...

The cramped space of a tuk tuk  Tuk tuks are small three passenger vehicles with one front wheel and two back wheels. They are used as taxis in Sri Lanka. You can fit four passengers if someone sits on someone else’s lap. Even with only three, it is still very packed. They are open to air where doors would be on a car or truck. They are very wobbly. You don’t get car sick because of the breeze. The drivers communicate with each other about turns to move and where they are going with hand signals and horns. The colors of the tuk tuk in Sri Lanka are tan, blue, red, green, and black. But it is not just the color that makes a tuk tuk a tuk tuk. You also need funny bumper stickers, buddhas on the dashboard, lights on the bottom, and slinkies hanging from a mirror. Some tuk tuks take you a very long way. It’s impressive that they can go up and down very steep hills. Once we had to get up a short but steep driveway. The driver said, “one people out,” and Papa got out. The rest of us thou...

My family and I are in Sri Lanka. The towns we have been to so far are Colombo, Kandy, and Sigiriya. In Colombo, we landed and stayed the night at a hotel a few minutes away from the train station so we could have enough time to get our tickets the next morning. When we got onto the train we were very hot and we did not know if we were allowed to open our windows. Eventually a deaf person came to the window and started pushing it up so we knew we could open it.  Then the person came into the train and asked us to donate money for a school for the deaf. It was very strange. The train had to stop at some stations along the way so the hawkers took their chance and got on board. Hawkers are people that sell stuff. The were selling food wrapped in banana leaves, water, and soda. Our ticket only went to the town right before Kandy so we took our first tuk tuk ride to go to Kandy. We hung out at the hotel/home stay for a while and swam in the pool. In the evening we walked around the Kand...

 Chapter 4 I woke up and quietly crawled out of the hut that I share with my dad. Next, I grabbed some cooked fish and ran to the creek. On the way there I spotted some fern shoots. I walked over to them, checked for bugs, and grabbed them for later. Then I kept running.  Finally, I got there and spotted Moona. Panting heavily, I said, “I think….. I know…..how ……to make them…. stop fighting.”  “How?” Moona asked.       I said, “We are going to trick my tribe into thinking your tribe is magical and can defeat my tribe easily. Or we talk to your chief and have her and my dad have a meeting.”      “Wait, hold up. Your dad is your chief? That makes you basically a princess!”      “Yes, I know, but it makes it really irritating to sneak off,” I said.      “Okay. If we talk to my chief and arrange a meeting, then won’t my chief tell your dad that we are friends?” Moona said.      “Yes, she would, ex...

Location: Temple of the Second Emperor in Nihn Bihn. The creature next to the human is a unicorn   You’ve heard of a unicorn, right? A horse with a horn on top of its head? Yes, course you have. But have you heard of a Vietnamese unicorn? It is more of a lion with horns. It has a luxurious coat with a great big mane, a big tongue, and two scary eyeballs. It also has two short spiked horns that look a little like an antelope or goat.  It’s pretty funny. We have seen these "lion goats" on various occasions, but the funniest time was the first time. It was at a water puppet show in Hanoi. The show started with humans, dragons, frogs, fish, and phoenix, which all looked normal by American standards. It was quite a surprise when we saw their "unicorns" for the first time. For a while I thought they were some weird looking dragon, until Tre looked at the booklet and it said “Unicorn Dance.” Everybody thought the unicorns looked so weird. On other occasions, like at the se...