I picked up Aunt Laurel. My mom said good-bye 3-5 times. We finally got on the plane. We got free stuff. A big chair and dinner. We also got to watch a movie. The T.V. came out from the arm. I watched the movie Batman forever. I had a sundae and then slept.
Got off the plane and got luggage. We got a taxi. My Aunt Laurel chatted alot with the taxi driver in French. We had alot of traffic because France had a transportation strike. Oh No! We finally got to the Hotel. We had the same room as my brother Peter did when he went to Paris. The hotel was fancy. Aunt Laurel and I took a nap. Then we ate lunch.
After that we went for a walk or you could say we went shopping. I bought presents for my family. We left the presents at the hotel and went for a boat ride on the river. It was far, and we had to walk. I slept for the whole ride. Then we went to dinner. We ate at a fancy restaurant, and went to bed late. It was about 2am but that was only 8 in New Jersey.
Aunt Laurel and I had breakfast in bed. We went to Notre Dame on a little island in the middle of Paris. It was dark. We ate couscous for lunch/dinner at a moroccan restaurant. It was hot, cold and good. We walked to the Louvre. There was alot of traffic. The Louvre was closed because of the strike. We took pictures and saw the glass pyramid.
As we were walking home, we saw the largest toy store in France. We bought UNO in French. Then we went to a puppet show to see if there was a difference between France and NJ. They spoke in French. Then we went to the ice cream store, but it was ALSO CLOSED because of the strike. So we went to another ice cream store, and I ate a sundae.
Then we were walking home, and we were trying to find a taxi. When we finally found a taxi after more than a half an hour, it took another hour and a half to get back to our hotel. I slept in the taxi. When we got to the hotel, we packed up first, and then went to bed.
We got up early because we rented a car. Then we had breakfast. After that we put our luggage in the car. Aunt Laurel and I were stuck in traffic. It took us 5 hours to get to Brussels. We went to Brussels because we had to pick up my Uncle Harry. It took us 3 hours to get out of Paris because of the strike and only 2 hours to Brussels. I slept half of the way. We got there at 4:45.
The restaurant we were going to is called Comme Chez Soi. It was fancy. Aunt Laurel and I got all dressed up. We played Uno before leaving our room. We got to the restaurant and Uncle Harry called us. The food was good, very good, especially the lobster bisque that my Aunt ordered, but I ate. When we were done with our 3 courses, I had a Sundae. We waited for Uncle Harry, but he never came. The chef gave me a cook book.
We went to the hotel and watched TV and played Uno until 1AM (7PM NJ time). Uncle Harry got there and we went to the center square of the city. We also saw a famous boy-going-to-bathroom statue that was a fountain. We got back and went to bed.
We got up very late, around 12:00. Today we were going to Brugge. Then we heard music it was a parade! Uncle Harry and I ran out to see it! We took pictures. There were Two boys playing the drums. We came back to finish packing. The parade was still going. So I put on my rollerblades and rollerbladed behind the parade with my Uncle Harry and Aunt Laurel.
We finally came back to the hotel and packed our luggage in the car. When we got to Brugge we ate dinner and tried to find a hotel. We finally found a hotel. We also got a room by the canal and we were the only ones that had our own fire place. After that we went to bed.
Today was a big day. We had a big breakfast. I had one little pot of chocolate milk and one little pot of hot chocolate. The dining room looked like the olden days.
I was upstairs because Aunt Laurel and Uncle Harry were checking out. I came down stairs. Aunt Laurel found me. She said, "Have you seen Uncle Harry?" So we were looking all over for him. We went by this big wooden cabinet and we saw his bag. Then we heard somebody talking in the wooden cabinet! We opened the door and it was my Uncle Harry stuffed in it and there was also a phone that he was talking into.
We packed the car and went to the train station to get new tickets from Brussels for the overnight train because of the French train strike. When we went to get new tickets we couldn't get tickets because the Brussels station had a fire. Just as we were leaving the station, the ticket man ran after us to tell us the computers were working again. Thank goodness!
Then we ran off into the center of Brugge to sightsee. We went to the center square and we were about to climb the belfry when suddenly I got a stomachache! But I climbed the 366 steps anyway. At the top there was a big humungous music box the size of the whole room that played the big bells in the tower with hammers. They played a song every 15 minutes.
Next we took a carriage ride. Then we were going to go to a museum, but it was already closed. It didn't matter because I had a stomachache anyway. We were walking to the hotel when we saw a lace shop. We went inside to look for a present for my mom. We were making the the saleslady crazy, but she was still nice. After all that, we didn't get anything. On the way back to the hotel we went in another store. We were looking for presents for my mom and my two sisters when suddenly I saw a fantastic pillow made of Belgian tapestry. It was for me, nobody else! It had a wonderful white and gray kitty cat on it. I would have loved it even more if it had had a black and white cat on it, but it was good enough. My aunt and uncle bought it for me for a souvenir.
Finally we got in our car and left town. On the way out of town, we stopped at a stand that sold Belgian french fries. Eating them made my stomach feel better.
After a long drive, at last we drove into Paris at 11:30. But, it took an hour more to find our hotel. The streets on the way were so skinny that Aunt Laurel had to get out of the car to help Uncle Harry turn one of the corners.
Our hotel was called L'Hotel, which means The Hotel in french. I liked it right away because of the weird spiral staircase that went six floors up to the top of the hotel. Our room was real pretty. It had lots of colors and was filled with fancy antiques. We had a suite, and we took the table out of the dining room to make it a second bedroom for me.
I woke up late. It was snowing. We could see the snow really well from all the windows to our terrace on the top of the hotel. My Aunt Laurel said this was the first time she ever saw snow in Paris.
My aunt's nephew Benjamin had already come from the airport before I woke up. He flew from the USA to join us. He was fun to play with. Benjamin is 29 years old and has a beard.
We all got all dressed up for a fancy restaurant. We found the restaurant with the car. The restaurant was La Tour D'Argent, which means silver tower. We had a three course dinner. I had lobster bisque and duck. From my seat I could see the Notre Dame cathedral on the river Seine with the snow falling. We ordered our dessert and went down to see the wine cellar.
The wine cellar is in the Guiness Book of Records because it has more than a half a million bottles of wine in it. That's more than any other cellar in the world. Some of the wines go back to the 1700's.
After dessert, we then drove out of Paris going on all small steets because of traffic from the strike. It took one and 1/2 hours to leave the city. We had to drive to Brussels to catch a train to Berlin. There was no train from Paris because of the rail strike. We got to Brussels with 1/2 hour to spare.
The train came, and Benjamin, Uncle Harry and I picked up all the luggages and handed them to Aunt Laurel on the train. We got in our cabin. It was kind of small. It had six bunks, and a good view out the window. Benjamin said that this car was at least twenty years old. We made our beds. You could only go to the bathroom when the train was moving, because the toilet flushed directly onto the tracks. I asked Benjamin if we were in Germany yet, but I said "BenGERMAN" by mistake because he was speaking German. After that we ordered some food and a drink and went to bed in our bunks.
We were still in the train when we woke up. I looked outside and there was snow. Then everybody else woke up. I told them they missed the view. We all got up and got a small something to eat. Then I asked Benjamin if we were in Berlin. He said," Yes." I screamed, "BERLIN!" We talked a little and then we heard somebody talk. He was saying that we will be arriving in ten minutes. I helped get all of the luggage down. Suddenly the train stopped. We got off the train.
Since we had so much luggage, we got one of those carrying things, a cart. We had to wait a long time for a taxi. We had to wait for a station wagon. All the taxis were Mercedes, but they weren't big enough for our luggage and us.
When we got to our hotel, the owner showed us our room. Aunt Laurel liked it this time. There were two nice big rooms. There was lots of grandma stuff, like big old-fashioned furniture. The bathroom was huge.
Since we got there in the morning, they gave us breakfast. After that, Uncle Harry and Benjamin went to get tickets because we were going to see the ballet of the Nutcracker. They got this man who was their taxi driver and speaks English to give us a tour of the city. He showed us a market, the Christmas fairs, checkpoint Charlie, and the wall from World War 2 (that was about 12 feet high). The wall had pieces taken off, and now they had it behind a fence because it was almost all torn down. I went rollerblading in No Man's Land. I went to a market of Russian stuff and got a gold necklace watch and a tiny piece of the wall.
Then we passed a fair that had a ferris wheel. I wanted to go to that, but I couldn't because the tour was still on. After the tour we went to the fair. When I went there I rode on the Himalaya, a fun house, and also a rollercoster. It was cold so I couldn't go on the giant ferris wheel. We ran to the ballet.
The ballet was pretty. Aunt Laurel and Uncle Harry slept in the in the first half, but Benjamin and I didn't sleep in the first half. In the second half Uncle Harry and I got locked out. Aunt Laurel came to get us in. There were two songs that I knew. They danced alot and there were some scary parts, but I didn't close my eyes. There were flashing lghts and then it would be dark. There were young dancers, 21 and under. One of the dancing girls and one of the boys were my age. The dancers were really good. They didn't make a mistake.
After that I went home because we were all tired.
I woke up and I saw snow. We were going to go to the fair today so we wanted to dress very warm. We were going to plan on going to the opera, museum, the oldest restaurant in Berlin, and Quazimodo, a German jazz/rock club. We went to the museum first. I was bored because I wanted to go to the fair, but Aunt Laurel wanted to take pictures. We saw Egyptian things. We were almost at the end when Aunt Laurel stopped us. She said , "I want to take a picture," but I didn't want a picture. It took 10 minutes before I wanted to take the picture.
We walked to the fair. There was so much traffic and no taxis because of the snow. We were walking faster than the cars. When we got to the fair, we rode the ferris wheel. In the ferris wheel we took pictures in every spot. It was cold up there, but we didn't get as long as a ride as usual. I was still warm. I went in another fun house called Dominoes. There was a big slide. It went fast except if you were wearing velvet like Aunt Laurel.
After that, we walked in the snow to the oldest restaurant. We had schnitzel. Then we took the S-bahn railway and it was stuffed and packed with people. We got off and got on another one. The other one was not packed. When we got out of the subway we had to walk to the hotel. I threw snowballs at Uncle Harry, Aunt Laurel and Ben.
When we got to the hotel, I got dressed in my velvet dress and sneakers and packed my fancy shoes in another bag. We were going to see "The Magic Flute." Mozart wrote it. When we got to the opera we got our seats and sat down. After we got settled down the lights turned off. There were scary parts and nonscary parts. The scary parts were when a dragen came out and it would jump at you and make scary noises. Also the lights would turn off and then they would turn striaght back on. Aunt Laurel and Benjamin kept whispering in Uncle Harry's ear and my ear because we didn't understand because it was in German. We were in the middle of the opera house so we had the best place for hearing. The singing was beautiful.
Then we went to the club. We heard hard rock. It was smoky. It was dirty. It was LOUD. I kind of liked it because the singing was in English. When we left the club, we said goodbye to everybody. We hurried home to go to sleep becuase we had to catch the train the next day.
The hotel called us to wake us to get up early to catch a train to Frankfurt at 9:30 AM. We got to the train station and waited for the train. The doors opened for the other people to get out of the train. I waited by the door to get in. A man picked up my luggage and put it in the train and I went to get on. I went in the train and the doors shut on me so I couldn't get out. I went to another door. They were all locked. Aunt Laurel and Uncle Harry and Benjamin were outside and I was inside so we were all laughing. The reason why they closed the doors was because nobody was supposed to go in there. They were cleaning the train thats why. They were finally done cleaning and opened up the doors. We grabbed a cabin and a place to eat. We said good-bye to Benjamin and then settled ourselves down. We really didn't eat breakfast. The only thing we really did was write in this diary and sleep. When we had lunch at 1:00 pm. I didn't eat that much either. When we got back to our cabin, I wrote in the diary again. Then it was time to go. We carried all our stuff to the door to get ready to jump out, cause we had so much stuff.
In the station in Frankfurt, we got one of those pull carts for our luggage. I pushed the cart. We had some trouble with our rental car reservation, because of the rail strike in France, again! I slept most of the way to our hotel, about an hour away in the country, on the river Rhine.
We had to get dressed in a big hurry to get to the wine tasting on time. When we got there at the wine tasting which was downstairs, I ordered a drink and had a little something. When I got to our table, the people started pouring wine already. First, it was the German white wine which I didn't like. There were four kinds. When ever they served wine they served food. Second, it was French white Burgundy wine. Third, it was French red Burgundy. Then we got up to see the host open the old French Bordeaux. There were eleven, and one really big, humungous bottle. I went back to the table and ate, drank and drew funny pictures. Then I had sweet wine from 1847 but I was tired and did not like it as much. I went back to the room and watched a little T.V and went to bed.
I woke up early on my own. We got dressed and went downstairs to the restaurant. We were lucky because they were taking everything down for the breakfast. In Germany, they have a lot of food for breakfast that we usually have in New Jersey for lunch. The hot chocolate is much stronger, though.
After that we went on a tour bus. They dropped us off in the forest above the town. There were two really big dogs. One was black, and one was black and brown. We saw big piles of cut down trees, a statue of a lady kind of like the Statue of Liberty, called the Niederwald monument, and the Rhine river. We walked through the grape fields. They were pruning the vines because it was winter.
After we walked down to the bottom of the mountain, we got to a town called Rudesheim on the Rhine. We went in to a mechanical musical museum. We had lunch there, too, and St. Nicholas came to give presents to the children. St. Nicolas is the German Santa Claus and looks like a skinny Santa in a long dress. Then the owner showed us all of the music instruments and played them. After that we looked around a Christmas fair that had stuff you could buy. I bought a puppet for me. I already named him. His name is Bubba Bo Paradiso, and he is a clown puppet. Also, I bought a joker doll made out of china for my mother.
To get to the hotel we had to take the train and it left at 4:47 and we had to be there at 4:30. We were running late, but then our guide found us, and said that he made a mistake for the train time and we had to wait an hour. So we went to the wine museum. It had lots of old things for wine like tremendous wooden grape presses. We were the only three people there, and I made my puppet walk in the museum. When we left the museum, the gate was locked and the ticket lady had left so my aunt and uncle and Bubba and I had to climb over the gate to get out and catch the train.
When we got back to the room, I worked on the diary, and then we went downstairs for dinner. I was tired and didn't want to go, but I was hungry and didn't want to stay in the room by myself.
The hotel had a special Christmas program for dinner with a lady reading in German and singing. We didn't understand it. The owner's six year old little girl came to meet me. Her name is Johanna but it sounded like Yoanna (with a Y). She could say six in English and write in cursive. She did her n's differently than we do. Later, after dinner, I went to give her a note. She had gone to bed so I went to her room to give it to her. She had the same black and brown dog we saw on our tour.
After my sundae with that really strong chocolate sauce that they give you everywhere in Europe, I went back to the room to work some more on my schoolwork and on my other stuff. Then I went to sleep.
We got up early and got dressed and came down for breakfast with Bubba. After breakfast we took picktures of me and Bubba in the 450 year old hotel. Then Bubba and I signed the guest book. (Uncle Harry and Aunt Laurel signed the guest book too.)
Then Uncle Harry went to start the car. Then Uncle Harry came up and said, "I can't get the car to start up!" Aunt Laurel said, "I will get it," but she never did. Then we found out it was a complicated French car that you needed to get out of the car and shut the door, press the button to lock it, press the button to the trunk, press the key button to unlock the door, open up the door and press in the code. When we finally got it, we packed up the car and turned it off again and went rollerblading with Bubba. The we drove to Luxemberg and I slept half the way with Bubba.
When we got to Luxemberg, which is a tiny country between Germany and France, we rollerbladed without Bubba. We ate at McDonald's. We took some funny pictures with statues and rollerbladed back to the car. We started to Paris. I never touched Luxemberg with my feet, only with my rollerblades.
Now we are going to Paris. There was lots and lots and lots of fog on the highway, and lots of tolls. We did at least five of them. One time there was a toll that had very very bright lights. We could hardly see the toll. We even went into the wrong toll booth. After that I took a nap.
When we got to Paris, we were looking for a certain restaurant, L'Ami Louis. When we got to the restaurant, I ate the best chicken, and went kerblooey. In other words, I fell asleep.
Next thing I knew, I was in the hotel. Our room had stairs, with two bedrooms upstairs, and each bedroom had a railing looking over the living room. I asked my Aunt Laurel if she liked the room, and she said no. I said, "Aunt Laurel, why don't you ever like any of the hotel rooms?" She laughed, and I went to bed.
Monday, I woke up very early for France, at 9:11. The breakfast man came in, and I heard him. My aunt and uncle were still sleeping, and I was going to fool them by getting dressed first, and I did! Me and Bubba!
We went to the Louvre, but it was now closed completely because now the Louvre workers also went on strike! So I did not get to see the Mona Lisa. Since we couldn't do that, we went back to the biggest toy store. There were 4 big floors. I looked on the first floor and I saw nothing. I went to the second floor, and it had only baby toys. I went on the third floor, and that was the floor I loved the most. It was the stuffed animal floor. I saw a big humungous stuffed bear, a big humungous stuffed panther that I wanted but it was too expensive, a big humongous jaguar, and a lot of other big humungous stuffed animals. Then I saw a cat that looked like my kitten, Socks. Then we went up to another floor and bought a Monopoly game in French, because my aunt needed it for a present. I asked Aunt Laurel if I could go back down to the stuffed animal floor. So Uncle Harry stood in line to get the present wrapped. Aunt Laurel said, "You go downstairs with Elise, and I will stand in line."
You needed a ticket to wrap the present. Uncle Harry didn't give the ticket to Aunt Laurel so the wrapping lady said, "You have to pay because you don't have a ticket. Also you need a price!" When my Uncle Harry paid the cash register lady, he took off the price. So my aunt had to run back and get another box with a price on it. Then she bought it again, not knowing Uncle Harry already paid for it. When we went outside, Uncle Harry said, "Did you pay for it again?" and he got all angry. Uncle Harry said, "Let's go back!"
We went into the toy store, walked up to the fourth floor with Aunt Laurel yelling and complaining at Uncle Harry to stop yelling and complaining. As we got up there we went to the cash register and she said to go to another desk. We went to the other desk and said what happened. The lady didn't understand, so she got another lady. She wasn't nice. Finally the manager came out and gave us the money.
After that, we went outside and ate in a cafe. I had a cheeseburger and french fries. The cheeseburger came without a bun, but it was delicious. Then we went to a pet store and I held a kitten. The pet stores in Paris sell a lot of chickens and rabbits and other kinds of animals.
Next, we walked through the island where Notre Dame is, to the other little island where the best ice cream is. I had a sundae again, and the waiter remembered me from last time.
Finally we got back to the hotel and packed and dressed up to go.
We were going to the Eiffel Tower for dinner. It took an hour and a half to get there because of traffic from the strike. We went up an elevator to get to the restaurant, Jules Vernes. It was on the second platform up in the sky. It was very pretty and nice, all black, with chairs on wheels, that could move around. I ate deer, and beer soup with no beer in it. For dessert I had a chocolate souffle. We talked to the chef, and left to see more of the Eiffel Tower.
We were the last people to get a ticket and go up the elevator. At the top we were in a cloud, in the fog, and couldn't see. I loved it! It was fun to be in the fog, but you couldn't see anything! We left, and went down the elevator.
We got in the car. Now there was no traffic because it was late. We went the wrong way at first, but then we turned around and went the right way. We got to the airport, in no more than ten minutes. When we got there we went straight to the airport hotel. I got Bubba out, and went to bed.
I had to wake up early because the plane was leaving at 10:20. I packed in a mad dash, drank my last hot chocolate, and took a van to the terminal. The plane was delayed, and was going to leave at 3pm Paris time to arrive at 4:10pm New Jersey time. We walked to President's Club. I worked on my log to this point.
We went to lunch for free because of the delay. I ordered steak again. I drank wine. My uncle said I could have as much as I want because you don't need a drinking license in France. I got tired of sitting down and eating in one little place so we got up and wandered around. We went into a music store and then went back to the President's lounge and lost the camera. Aunt Laurel left it in the bathroom and someone took it. We looked all over for it, but then they returned it to the Presidents club desk. Aunt Laurel went to get something for Bubba and Uncle Harry and I stayed in the President's club.
We started to get on the plane at 2:45 and Aunt Laurel still wasn't with us so we had to wait. I saw Aunt Laurel at a small toy store. She said I couldn't look because it was for Bubba and it was a present. I couldn't see it until I finished with my log.
Uncle Harry, Aunt Laurel, and I went into the airplane. There were really no people in first class and I could run around. I watched Santa Clause on the TV in my seat, worked on the diary, ate, and played with Bubba.
Now we're landing! My mom and dad are picking up Uncle Harry, Aunt Laurel, and me!
By: Elise Paradiso
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