history - Curious Karibella

2024-03-302024-04-15

What to know about Pompeii, Herculaneum and Climbing Mt.Vesuvius in Italy

Climbing Mt.Vesuvius

Climbing Mount Vesuvius in Italy is possibly worth it. It depends on how good of a driver you are,\, and how long you can hike. My mother is a fantastic driver, and I have attempted one of the 7 summits so the hiking was not going to be an issue. I still did not make it to the top! All due to a serious lack of information on the most widely used library: The Internet! This is why people say don’t trust the internet! Here is my recommendations:

Go early in the morning! There are so many benifits of this! You dotn have to hike in the heat, there are less crowds, and probably more parking!
The parking is FREE but it’s not actually free because the park service gave some guys a permit to charge people for parking. You also have to pay for a parking spot ahead of time Dont park at the very top of the road right before the entrance because it is for busses only.
Try to drive a small car because Italians like to pretend that one lane roads are two lane roads and they use them like two lane roads. Your car might get scratched FYI
You have to have pre-purchased a ticket online to get onto the trail. To get a ticket you have to go to this website:https: //www.parconazionaledelvesuvio.it/en/visit-the-park/the-paths/the-great-cono-2/ and buy a ticket for a times slot the day before. Each time slot only has 10 tickets available.
If you are not a bus and you park where everyone else parks, it is a very long walk up to the start of the trail. I would suggest having someone drive everyone in your party up to the entrance, drop everyone off and go back down and park. The person who drives everyone probably wont get to climb the mountain but if they do, they will have to climb almost double of what the other people climb.
The bus ride that is offered by the parking guys in vests is $15 per person and you have to already have a ticket for getting into the park. The bus ride may be worth the money for some people but I would recommend just walking or being dropped off.
The roads up are very windy and small and alot of busses go up them. Have the best driver of the group behind the wheel to avoid collisions.

Pompeii

Pompeii is mind blowing! Walking on a road that looks perfectly intact while knowing that it is 2000 years old is crazy! The intricacy of life in Pompeii and the Roman empire is very fascinating because we often think that everyone was not as smart back then but they were super smart! There was plumbing in pompeii! Not plumbing like ours today but they had lead pipes and running water in houses. I would 100% recommend having a guided tour, you learn so much more! The tour company we used was Askos, our guide was great and we learned so much! Some fun facts were that romans used urine to clean their clothes. They also had the coolest fountains. The fountains around the city were landmarks used as meeting places.

Herculaneum

Herculaneum is not well known, probably due to its size. Herculaneum was a port city resting closer to vesuvius than pompeii. Because it was closer to vesuvius it is much more preserved. There is wood from it’s time as well as many other artifacts. The sad part is that since it was buried under 50+ feet of ash for thousands of years people forgot about it and built towns on top of it. The small section that is visible today is really cool but it is a shame that a large portion of it remains buried under homes and roads. For pompeii you need a whole day and a tour guide. I would recommend going to pompeii first so you learn all about the life style and then go to herculaneum without a guide. It is small enough that it’s just better to wander around the city. It was rather quiet when we went so we usually were able to go into each building with just our group. There is a garden for reading and relaxing as well as caves demonstrating how they excavate buildings. I found Herculaneum more enjoyable because we got to run around the city “discovering” everything and use the information we learned in pompeii to deduce what the buildings were for.

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!

2023-02-242023-05-20

Sydney, Australia

Sydney at night with talll bulidings and the beutifull water front

Sydney, The most Beautiful place

Sydney, Cape Town, and Seattle are three of my favorite cities. Cape Town for the People, Sydney for the City, and Seattle because we lived there for many years, and I love it there. Sydney has this really awesome bus system where its all ferry’s and since the city is built on a huge inlet with the north head and south head it makes this possible. Every few blocks there is a ferry station on the water and you can just hop on and off!

Sydney was a penal colony of England. After America shut its doors to prisoners being brought there, England was in a fix. They had several ships stuck in the in london river with tons of prisoners dying and going crazy. Londoners were very worried about a prison break. Most of these prisoners were petty thieves. For example if you stole a pair of stockings, you could get hanged! Instead, these people received a “pardon” and were sent to places to make new farmland and colonies.

A few years earlier an expedition went to Botany Bay (which is right next to Manly Bay where Sydney is located) and they saw beautiful lush land perfect for farms. Little did they know that Botany Bay goes into this lush state once every three years, the rest is spent in drought. The only thing they did not see was that beyond the cliffs of the North and South head stood amazing farmland.

Finally the government sent eleven ships, six of which were full of prisoners. The ships went from England to Rio to Cape Town to Sydney. When they went to Rio, guess what they spent most of their money on? RUM! Literally, a Boatload of Rum was bought. They didn’t even have Jack Sparrow to influence them! Now, these blokes weren’t very creative with naming things, probably due to the rum but when the first expedition came, they saw a very Botanical Bay and creatively named it botany bay.

Between Cape Town, South Africa, where they bought livestock and seeds, and Australia, all the ships got separated in a huge storm, and none of them knew if the other ships were okay. Surprisingly they all reached Botany bay within one day of each other. Sad for them, they saw dry land in Botany Bay, horrible for farming with no streams. They were so disgusted by what they found that they did not even let the prisoners off who had been stuck in the hold of the ship for eight months! Thankfully some of the men took a boat around the point and saw the beautiful manly bay! They actually saw the two heads, which were scraggly cliffs, but they went in and saw streams and perfect farmland. They also saw some natives who looked very Manly, so they named the bay Manly Bay. Again, they were not exactly creative with names. Soon all the ships were in the harbor, and they all lived happily ever after. No, they had a very hard time living because the soil was not too great, but now it is the most beautiful city ever!

If you’re interested in the history of the last two hundred years in Sydney there’s this thing called chatGPT….. Im serious Chat GPT can write you paragraphs of history that is all original!

The Opera House

We had the amazing experience of watching an Opera in the Sydney Opera House! The Opera House is located on a peninsula in the city. In sydney there is the inlet and at the main ferry hub there is all the skyscrapers and the rocks which will explain later. The maps below this paragraph are worth looking to give you a general idea of where everything is. Walking to the Opera House from the back was weird because in pictures you always see the iconic waves and the arch things. The inside made up for everything else on the outside. The ceilings were vaulted and they had really really cool lighting. I still don’t really understand how there is so many theaters in the Opera House or how the layout works. When we walked to our theatre there were all these cool walls which as I just found out are actually designed after the sails on a boat, not waves. The acoustics were surprisingly not what I thought they would be. The singing and music was amazing but there was no amplifying of the sound that I noticed. The Sydney Opera House was a very amazing experience and I would go back.

Three Tours

We did three tours in Sydney and all of them were the best. The first one was a tour of the city where we learned all the cities history. In almost all the places we go we do some sort of history education experience #homeschoolingwhiletravling. We do this to learn the history of the place but it also is part of school. Thats where this blog comes in to tell everybody about the amazing stories around the world. Back to the history tour. In most cities the history all sound the same, native people lived mostly peacefully then a European country comes in and invades claiming the land and starting a new country but also upprooting the lives of the people who actually had claim to the land. Sydneys history was actually slightly different. Or mabey it was told in a different way. I actually found it very interesting and we even got to visit some really old intact buildings from when the city was growing up.

Tour two was climbing the bridge that spans the harbor. In one of the photos I circled it to show you where it is. The amount of getting ready was alot. It was like we were in an assembly line to get ready to climb the bridge! When we started we were underneath the road then we got to the stairs/ladders. By stairs i mean the kind you have leading to a loft where its like a ladder but not straight up. As we were climbing past the road and all the cars my only though was don’t look down. I can tell you people are not joking when they say don’t look down. Its not a fake thing if you don’t look down its less scary for most ppl. I looked down and that did me absolutely no good. I could see all the way to the cars and beyond that to the water. When we got to the top arch it was just stairs to the summit of the arch. We were all insanely thirsty and I really wanted water. You might be wondering why i did not bring a water bottle but let me tell you, you couldn’t bring anything. You couldn’t even smuggle things like a phone or camera in your pockets. To even start putting on gear we had to put on jumpsuits as if we were parachuting. Then there was a metal detector and the other hand metal detectors after we put the jumpsuits on. They had good reason for all this seemingly ridiculous security. The didn’t want us bringing something and either dropping it or having it cause us to drop/fall. They took lots of pictures for us and I will show some at the end of the next two or three paragraphs. At the top i asked if anybody had ever proposed on the bridge because i was thinking how badly that would go. Surprisingly they said yes lots of people. I was like sure that makes perfect since amazing proposal then oh no! The ring has fallen to the sea or cars! The guy i asked explained that there was a special wristband to keep the ring from falling. I still don’t understand how that would work. One last thing. As we were gearing up i was being handed gear and a person clipped on this black thing to my harness and told me it was a parachute! I was instantly thinking parachute? Mom did not tell me we were jumping off! I asked if it was really a parachute and how it would work and I was told it was actually a raincoat. (This was true)

Five starts to Bridge Climb Sydney! Amazing unforgettable experience and great people.

Kayaking Tour

Third experience was a kayak tour throughout the harbor. we went to three beaches and they were all beautiful. Beach One had a little waterfall on it and mom was daring us kids to go under it for fifteen seconds. All of my siblings were saying it was freezing so naturally i went to stand under it. It really was not freezing at all. It was not even as could as a beach in oregon! We did not spend alot of time at the first beach nor the second beach. Beach two was long and very shallow. It was surprisingly only accessible by water. There was no trail or road to get to it. On a big rock in the back was an inscription that was very hard to read. I don’t remember what it said but it looked very old. We learned that this beach had been used to store tanks during some war. I asked how that was physically possible because it was not accessible by land. Our guide said the tanks were moved by boat but i think thats a bad idea because if your boat gets sunk then you have to say goodbye to very expensive machinery. Paddling to the third beach was just beautiful. We could see the north and south heads and our guide told us a little story about a zoo on one of the heads. He said this zoo was partially an open zoo where the animals could roam around. You could also camp in the zoo but the more carnivorous animals were kept in enclosed in habitats. One day the lions (i may be wrong) escaped. The alarm was sounded early enough that everybody got out in time and the lions we put back in their places. Backstory to the climax there is a bird that can mimic almost any sound. It learned to mimic the sound of the alarms so it thought it was funny to make that sound and scare everyone! Everyone evacuated again but it became clear that nothing had escaped.

The third beach was a former coal mine hub, hospital, penitentiary and had military history. There was another rock here and it had dozens of inscriptions in it from exploration expeditions, prisoners and people. There was a coffee shop and a little museum but we were running low on time so we had to start the long kayak back to the boat club that we came out of. The adventure was super awesome and very beautiful, i would totally do it again and bring friends with me.

Most Beautiful City (so Far)

Sydney was literally so amazing! I know the adjectives I’m using are not very fancy but i have to say it was just amazing! I very much look forward to going back with my family and exploring new sights.

2023-01-292023-02-11

A Day Zip Lining on Waiheke

Bright Orange Fungus Growing on on the side of a tree on waiheke

When I woke up this morning, I did not know what we would do or if we would do anything. I went downstairs, and Mom and Dad were talking about some place we could go. I soon figured out that we could go zip lining on an island that Mom really wanted to visit. I remember our last zip-lining experience in Mexico with some very good friends. Me Zeb, B, Mom, and Dad were in the car and off to Waiheke! Dad said we had to leave in fifteen minutes, and I was still eating breakfast! Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to get out the door if you are not going slow.

The Ferry

You usually take a ferry to get to an island by a car. Thankfully our car could transform init a boat, so we did not have to deal with the annoying discomforts of a ferry. I’m completely joking! I don’t think any machine can transform the way I was talking about. We did take the ferry, and it was very comfortable sitting in our car for forty-five minutes. 🙂

Batch vineyard and Restaurant

For lunch, we went to Batch Restaurant. It was also a vineyard, but we did not taste wine. The Venue was super pretty, and the service and food were terrific. It was a restaurant where you ordered a couple of shared plates. We got Duck and short ribs. In my opinion, the Duck leg was way better, and it tasted like a holiday. We had a Gluten Free red velvet doughnut and Hokey Pokey Ice Cream. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream is Vanilla Ice Cream with honeycomb toffee in it. It is so good, and I would highly recommend it! We went to the Zipline after lunch and waited for a little before the adventure.

Eco Zip Zip Lining

Hills of Jungle and vineyards surrounded Eco Zip, there were only three Zip-lines, but they were still really fun. The first line was called Vineyard cruise. It was a very creative name, given that you cruised over a vineyard. The second line was called Jungle Cruise because you were cruising over Jungle. These people were very creative with names. The third one was the biggest and longest, so it was named shorty. I’m joking, it was called…. I don’t remember, but from now on, it is named Shorty.

After we flew through thick air ( I don’t know why people call air thin if you are not at high altitude, it is rather thick near sea level) we took a long walk through the Jungle. We saw 400-year-old trees and a one thousand and something-year-old tree. Near the end of the hike, we came to a tree about two feet wide and fifty or so feet tall. Our guide told us it was a tree that the Maori used to build canoes, and at its oldest, it grew to eight meters wide and so tall that I can’t remember the number! After we saw the big tree, we came across a large pile of rocks. We all thought it was a grave marker of somebody who had died while ziplining, but it was just a pile of stones that people had made. It was not very interesting. The exciting thing was a palm tree. I am not pulling your leg here; these palm trees were OLD. A baby one that had not even formed an actual trunk was TEN years old and only to my knees. About two and a half feet tall. There were lots of these palm trees, and they were all so old. Older than cars and even the united states. It’s a little funny when you think about it, one of the trees was about six hundred feet tall. When it was about 200 just trying to stay alive and grow, meanwhile some hotheaded blokes got a crazy idea to start their own country.

“All alone, across the sea, when your people say they hate you, don’t come crawling back to me.”
-King George, Hamilton Broadway play

After ziplining, we took a rocket to the moon (we took the ferry back home). Zip lining was fun, the ferry was excellent, and New Zealand was Rainy! It was fun, but my other adventures that you can read about in New Zealand Update were totally tubular! For all who love Zip Lining, the BEST zip lining is in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It is called Vallarta Adventures, and it is a once (or 100) in a lifetime experience; every person should do it.

Mom and dad coming off of Shorty the zip line

2022-11-082023-09-08

A Visit to Noah’s Ark

Yes we Literally went inside Noah’s Ark. Ok, they did not recover the actual Ark, It was a Replica. But life size and with all the cages for the vigorous animals and Noah, and his family. In this post I will address a lot of the big questions about the Ark and its contents as well as providing a list of things that surprised me. Please enjoy and learn a lot!

Most people including me (before the museum) imagine the Ark a lot smaller than it is and pink! ( I am kidding about the pink. 🙂 It is only a tiny bit smaller than the Titanic. It is over a hundred ft tall and at least fifty feet wide. How did Noah fit all the animals? God gave Noah the exact dimensions of the ship and God helped Noah fit all the animals (except wet one’s) in.

How did Noah feed and care for all the animas with only eight people? Each person had to care for 850 animals! (Gargantuan or small) The cages were designed so you did not have to go to each cage every day. (Side note, when we got there i thought mabey we were at Dollywood) There were water feeders and food troughs and the waste fell down chutes into a tray at the bottom for easy cleaning. All the humane and animal waste was emptied into the ocean via a chute. How did Noah build the zenuous (hospitable) Ark? He built it over many decades after Decades of planing and logging. His family helped him build it and they all traveled around the world with him on it.

How did Noah gather all the animals? I am going to give a straight answer to this question and other relative facts (i need 12-31 facts). He did not gather them. God gathered them and sent them to him to be with him. Now, he did not need to take all the animals like fish and some bugs. (Yellow moths went on board to feed the lizards) And not all animal species we have tuday existed back then. Also giraffes and elephants were smaller. Why did only Noahs family go on the Ark? They were were the only ones because the rest of the world was filled with sin and it needed to be cleansed.

Now for the Fun Facts you all have been waiting for.

How Noah could fit everything in so neatly!
Inside was way bigger than i expected!
Every inch of the outside had to be water-proof
little details could not be overlooked
Imagine living with all the smell and heat.
Zebras were also on the on the ark and lions!
Ark was the name Noah choose
Bears were alive then and on the ark!
There were even dinosaurs and two T-Rex’s
Ham and other meat could not be eaten til after the flood.
-Kangaroos lived and were on the boat.
Bugs were mostly left outside the boat but some had to be inside