crazy experiences - Curious Karibella

2023-12-162024-01-15

Quark Expeditions: Antarctica, Day 2

Saturday, 12/16/2023

Where: Punta Arenas, Chile, to King George Island, Antarctica via Antarctic Airways and the World Explorer (Expedition Ship, Not a cruise ship)

Agenda: Standby for the flight to Antarctica, Boarding the World Explorer, and our First dinner on the ship!

So today, we started with breakfast in the hotel for free! Then everyone was on standby for the flight time. Our flight time changed three times in the morning because the weather kept changing, but then suddenly, a bit after breakfast, we got a notice to be reading in 1 hour. Quark 1 loaded onto two buses that took us to the airport, and at the airport, we checked our bags with Antarctic Airways (DAP). The wait to board was not long, but the line to board was long…. and very disorderly. We made friends with the people in front of us who were from Utah. They ended up being in the same zodiac group as us, and we saw them often around the ship.

The Flight

The flight out was very smooth. The plane was not full, and everyone listened to music, read, or watched shows. There were drinks and snacks and two working toilets!! It was the size of an airplane that you would fly from Portland to California in. When they told us to use the restroom and put on our cold-weather gear, everyone got very excited! As we started to lose altitude, the people with windows started shouting, “I see land!” I did not have a window, and I was very jealous, but it was fun to hear the excitement. The landing was extremely smooth! Smoother than most landings on real runways! Remember, we landed on a gravel 1800m airstrip breaking through clouds. When the plane came to a stop, we were told to stay seated because a guide would come on and brief us about our trip to the shore.

My First step on to Antarctica

Sonya came on and told us that we would load into buses, receive life jackets, and then ride zodiacs out to the ship. The funny thing about the first day in Antarctica was that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, and everything was so new and exotic that we looked like stunned penguins gawking at everything. As I stepped off, a Very cold wind hit my face, but it just made me more excited. The first bus they were loading had one spot left, and I took it. We were given a briefing on how to put on our special life jackets by Sonya. The drive down was super bumpy but exciting because we drove through the Chilean and Russian bases on King George Island. There was a graveyard, a church, a school, and a lot of little buildings. The shore was made of rock plebes, and there were penguins around us! We put our backpacks on a tarp to put on our life jackets then we were put in lines to board zodiacs. Me and my mom were called to a zodiac, and a very friendly lady with a cool hat (Valarie) helped us into the zodiacs! Valarie drove us to the ship, and Ema helped me and my mom onto the ship and got very excited when we handed her the violin! I later learned that Ema used to play violin which was cool! We were led into the mudroom, which is a room full of open lockers for storing your Antarctica muck boots and big coat. Each room is assigned a locker, and 2-3 people’s stuff can fit in one locker.

First steps on the ship

Upstairs, we went to the 4th floor, which has all the main public spaces. When we came out of the stairwell, all the staff captains were waiting, and reception was ready to give us our ship cards and room numbers as well as get a photo of us to be matched up with our cards. As the rest of my family came and went through the same process, I looked out the windows and stared around at the small space of the ship that I could see. The ship was much more glamorous than I had expected. Our triple cabin had a small “front hall that had four doors in it. One leading to the hallway, one leading to the bathroom, one leading to my brother’s room, which was a small cabin with a couch, twin bed, a TV and porthole, and a closet! And the last one led to my and my sister’s room. Our room had two nice twin beds, a deck with chairs, and a walk in closet that had a mini fridge, safe, hanging rack, drawers, and shelves and a small desk/shelf for coffee maker!!! The room was very impressive, and I loved it so much!

Life Boat Drill!

The next great event was the lifeboat drill, where all passengers had to go to their cabins and get their life jackets. You also had to bring your ship card because it tells you what muster station you go to, and the little sarcode has all your info on it to be scanned. Scanner PPL waited at the exit from the stairs to scan every person’s card to make sure everyone made it out. We waited until everyone was present then we were all sent to put our life jackets back and explore the ship. Explore what we did!! I found the observation deck and met the Marine Biologist, Annie, and the ornithologist, Nigel.

Quark Expeditions: Antarctica, Day 2

The rest of the day

There were no more great adventures that day besides finding out that the ship had gluten-free bread and sweets!!!!!! This was very exciting, and our food days were brightening! We also had our first debrief in the auditorium! I went up to the observation lounge before bed to look at the beauty all around. It was just captivating!

Me and my sister on the bus to the airport!

Friday, 12/15/2023 Punta Arenas Dream Hotel	Saturday 12/16/2023 Punta Arenas to King George Island
Briefing about Antarctica, the ship, and what will happen tomorrow	Drive to the Airport and board the flight with Quark group 1 (half of the ship’s guests)
Pack and Re-pack to make things fit!	We are on Standby for our flight to King George Island, Antarctica, via Antarctica Airways
Receive Quark Coat, Special Boots, and Bag tags for non-Antarctic luggage	Arriving in Antarctica and working to get onto the ship: World Explorer
Welcome dinner with the rest of the ship guests in the hotel	Being welcomed on the ship warmly and finding our rooms! 🙂
	First Dinner On Board!!

This Table is the schedule of our first two days with Quark Expeditions

2023-11-252024-01-15

So, I Published a Book On Amazon!!!

Morning Magic in Ukraine – Ранкова Магія В Україні 🇺🇦

(No, The letters that are not English letters are not supposed to be in English. It’s Ukrainian 🙂

Hello everybody!

On Saturday, I published my first book on Amazon!! After many, many months of work, I have finally been able to click publish. My book is a bilingual children’s picture book about the sun rising in Ukraine and how it shines on different places throughout Ukraine. The book is written in Ukrainian and English, but don’t worry! If you can’t read Cyrillic or you don’t speak Ukrainian, there Is English in the book. The Amazon listing does say (Ukrainian Edition), this can be confusing, but the book is in both languages.

I made this book with my good friend Yehor Bondarenko who is from Ukraine. After floating many ideas, the sunrise one finally stuck, and we could begin to write! At the start of the bookmaking class, it sounded like it would be a fast process. You just have to write, illustrate, format, edit, submit, review, edit, resubmit, and probably edit and resubmit a few more times. Then you have to market so your book will actually sell, and then comes the big moment when you can satisfyingly click “Publish Book”. It took eight months, but every hour was worth it. The best part about making the book was when an illustration or line of text was finally completed and when it started to look like a book! When self-publishing a book, you have to really make it look legit. Thankfully me and my siblings’s teacher, Klare, taught us everything we needed to know and was there for us at Every step.

Why Did I Publish A Book?

So, in my family, we are home-schooled, and we travel the world. We also like to do really random cool things, like learning how to publish books! It turns out that when you learn how to write and publish a book, you also learn about graphic design and marketing. Publishing and Graphic Design and Marketing are super useful for adults. (or so I’m told 🙂 And having your own published book is super cool!!! I hope to write a second book over this and next year, and I am so happy that this first book is finally published!!

Links

Curious Karibella Link Tree

This link goes to my Link Tree, which is a page with links to my book, my notebook, and my Blog. I add links for things like new books and my sibling’s books.

Karibella’s Book: Morning Magic in Ukraine

This link goes to the Amazon page with the book.

Ukraine Composition Notebook

A few months ago, we practiced putting things into Kindle Direct Publishing, and I made a composition notebook.

Bardez’s Book, Perry In Paris

My brother Bardez published his adorable book one week before me. It is called Perry In Paris, and it is about a little mouse who travels to Paris in search of the perfect cheese! He wrote and illustrated it by himself, and I would highly recommend the book.

Emmy’s Blog

Zeb’s Blog

Bardez’s Blog

Above are all my sibling’s blogs, where you can read about their travel adventures!

Check out my other posts!

2023-11-222023-11-25

Expedition: Rotorua, New Zealand

I never thought that I could do so much in 36 hours, but somehow I did. Yesterday around ten thirty we made plans to drive two hours to Rotorua. Rotorua is a small town on the North Island of New Zealand, and it has many tourist attractions and cool things. In under an hour, we were in the car. The drive was scenic and filled with the book’s endurance and pauses to discuss what we wanted to do. I had been voting to go to Rotorua for a week because there is Zorbing, Louging, Zip lining, and many more cool activities. almost everyone did not want to go Zorbing, but 12 minutes out from our Airbnb (booked not long before), we passed the Zorbing place, and we immediately turned around to check it out.

Zorb Rotorua

You are probably wondering what is zorbing. Zorbing is an activity where you jump into I huge plastic ball that is suspended by ropes (secure ones) inside another plastic ball that is bigger. There is water in the ball, and the workers zip you inside, and the next thing you know, you are rolling down a hill, not knowing what is up or down and feeling like you’re in a washing machine. At the bottom, you slide out and run to hot tubs and wait for the next bus to take you back to the top to do it again. Honestly, Zorbing is one of the funnest, craziest things to do. The zorbing place has four tracks, three of which are currently in use. The short straight one is a “short” straight track that you roll down. they have two of these tracks, but they are exactly the same. We (Me, Mom, Emmy, Zeb, and Bardez) did this one first, and since there are two of the straight tracks right next to each other, we raced. The straight track was my least favorite out of the two that I did because it is super fast and disorienting because you are just rolling and rolling and rolling. It was still super fun, though, and it’s a great one to start on if you have never been zorbing. The Sidewinder track is my favorite because you roll straight, then you turn and roll up onto the banks. then right at the top, you stop, just for a second, and then down you go again! The two other tracks I did not do, but there is the MEGA which is a SUPER long straight steep hill. Then there is the BIG AIR which was under construction when I was there. It was being transformed into a new track because only one person could ride down due to the big bumps. I hope the next time I come to New Zealand, I will get to Zorb again and do the BIG AIR track. (They are going to rename the BIG AIR track once it is re-built, but the name is a super secret.)

Te Puia

After Zorbing and dropping our stuff off at our Airbnb, we went to our dinner and show at Te Puia. Te Puia is a Geothermal hot spot with some of New Zealand’s most active Geothermal Guysers. It also is home to the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute which is a school of Maori Arts and Crafts. We signed up for a dinner and a Maori show. The dinner was a buffet in a big dining room with shared tables and fantastic views of the springs and geysers. The food was absolutely amazing. It was by a long shot the best buffet ever. After dinner, everyone was moved to a bit open-air building with circular tables and a stage. I thought that the show was taking place there, but I was wrong. I was not totally sure what to expect, but when our host went up and explained what we would do that night, I became more excited. He had selected an older man from the audience to be our “chief,” and that man (named Bob, I think) was to accept the peace offering from the performers. We were told that the most important thing was to NOT smile, laugh, or make any noise during the first dance. The first dance was usually performed when two tribes met, and during it, the tribe who was visiting would place a peace offering in front of the chief of the opposite tribe. If the chief picked it up, he wanted no fighting and accepted the peace. If he ignored it, that meant fighting.

It started raining right before we headed out of the first building, so instead of the dance and other performances taking place on the wide lawn, we went into a second building that was hand-carved and very ornate. Inside, it was dimly lit, and the walls were covered in carvings. For about thirty minutes, we sat and watched the dancers. One man played a guitar while four other men danced, and five women danced. They all sang, and the sound was so beautiful and filled with joy. The women had strings, with white balls on the end, that they would swing through the air to make a beat to the music. Each dance they performed was full of life and extremely beautiful. When it was over, it was Extremely rainy. Like, pouring rain. We were given the option of going to see the geysers via train (not a normal train like a trailer but not a trailer. (They call them trains) Me and Bardez wanted to see the geysers, and I did not mind getting wet to walk to the train. It was dusk by now, and the geysers were illuminated by purple lights. It was also very cold, so even more steam was in the air. It was super beautiful and standing in by the hot rocks and letting the clouds of vapor and steam roll around me was just amazing. It was like being in fog or a cloud, but in fog, it is super thin and cold, and in a cloud, it is thick and cold. The funny thing is that on the airplane ride into Auckland, I was watching the clouds fly by, and I made a wish to go into a cloud someday. Not in an airplane inside a cloud or on the ground inside a cloud, but really, inside a cloud. We stayed by the geysers for what felt like 45 minutes, but I was not sure of the time.

Redwood Tree Walk

When we got back to the car, Mom told us about a redwood tree walk. Yes, Redwoods in New Zealand. It was nearing 9:00 pm but I was still game for more adventures. It turned out to be a two-hour adventure of waiting in line. The tree walk is a magical experience, but it comes with a cost. You have to wait in line for a very long time. But the good news is, it’s totally worth it! you walk up a wooden ramp 20m into the air and travel from tree to tree along suspended wooden bridges. The trees are lit up by beautiful hand-crafted lights at each tree platform. At each tree there is a sign talking about the trees and the lights and the California redwoods. The night walk was literally a perfect thing to polish off the day. We did not get a ton of sleep because of early classes, but I definitely never did so many fun things in a day!

2023-11-062024-01-15

Nine Days Until Takeoff!!!

By the end of the year, I will have gone to all of the continents!

So today was the day that I packed up all my things and made my room “renter ready”. On Thursday, I go with my mom, dad, and older brother to the Spies Lies and Nukes Conference. Then, on the Wednesday after that, we go to New Zealand. (My little brother and older sister will join us after the conference) In New Zealand, we will stay in Auckland for a month, and then we fly to Chile. From Chile, we fly down to Antarctica, then helicopter onto a boat, then sail around Antarctica for 7 days. After Antarctica, we go back to Chile and to Easter Island and we spend Christmas there. After Christmas, we come back to Raleigh.

Every time we go on a big trip, it is like jumping into the deep end of a freezing pool. You just have to do it and get it over with. I am never totally sure what it is gonna be like in international countries, and I can do all the imagining I want, but it is always different. Every time, though, it makes good memories and broadens my perspective of the world. It’s nervous excitement that I get going to all the new places. But it is super fun and worth all the obstacles. I can’t wait for New Zealand, South America, and Antarctica! I will be posting about my travels, and I will be making a video for Antarctica, so look out for new posts!

2023-10-012024-08-30

Where Have I Been?

This is a complete list of countries I have been to, want to go to, and countries I am going to soon. The names highlighted in blue are links to blog posts that I have written. Many countries or places that do not have links were visited before my blog was created. I wish I could have blogged about them, but I was very little when I went to them. I have very fond memories of Hungary, Switzerland, France and Thailand. My Favorites are probably Switzerland, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.

7 Continents 21 Countries

South Africa- Cape Town – Johannesburg – Cradle of humankind – Thulani–
Kenya – Masai Mara – Nairobi– Amboseli –
Tanzania – Kilimanjaro – Stone Town Zanzibar – Upper Zanzibar –
New Zealand – Auckland – Waiheke
Australia – Sydney – Cairns –
Japan – Tokyo – Kyoto –
Tahiti – Bora Bora – Papeete
Thailand – Koh Samui
Mexico – Puerto Vallarta –
US – I live in the US so listing all the places I have been here is…….. Hard
Canada – Whistler – Mont Tremblant – Montreal
Sweden – Stockholm – And many other cities, but we went many many years ago –
Switzerland – Geneva – Zermatt – Lausanne – Zurich – Vengan
France – Paris – Nice – Marseille – Combloux- Chamonix –
British Virgin Islands – Virgin Gorda – Anegada – Marina Cay – Beef Island – Jost Van Dyke –
Hungary – Budapest –
Chile – Punta Arenas – Puerta Natales – Patagonia – Santiago
Antarctica – King George Island – Petermann Island – Deception Island – Antarctic Peninsula – Lemaire Channel (this last one is in a channel, so not land, but its a notable place)
Italy -Florence – Rome – Massa Lubrense
Vatican City (The world’s smallest country)
England – London

Antarctica, Vatican City, Tahiti, and British Virgin Islands are in more of a gray area when I say Countries. Antarctica I am counting when I say 20 countries because it’s really loosely defined as to what to count it as. Vatican City is a country but I don’t have a passport stamp from it because you don’t need normal passports to enter. Tahiti is considered a country but it is owned by france. The British Virgin Islands (BVI’s ) are an “overseas territory” or Britain. I have never been to britain in Europe and I don’t think I can say I have been to Britain by counting the BVI’s so I am going to list them as one of my countries that I have been to.

Countries I Most Want To Visit

Belgium
Soctland
Ireland
Norway
Poland
Germany
Latvia
Luxembourge
Ukraine
India
Egypt
Spain
Romania

Upcoming Countries in 2025!

Spain
Andorra