reviews - Curious Karibella

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

2023-03-312023-09-08

Bob Smiley 😂 the Comedian

Bob Smiley or Bob or Mr.Smiley (hyper link to instagram) = 🙂or😁or😂

Have you ever been to a stand up comedy show? There really funny if you didn’t know. Last night at the Great Homeschool Convention I went to my first stand up comedy show featuring Bob Smiley (hyper link to his website). I thought it would be a ton of jokes that I would not understand but i actually laughed three times. No Joke I only laughed hard three times. For a comedian Smiley should figure out funnier jokes.

The entire performance was totally not scripted, which, I guess is where the stand up part comes in but I really liked it. A good amount of the jokes were ones that i did not get but the rest was pretty funny. He told us about his life while making fun of himself and sometimes others. My three favorite story/jokes are the next three paragraphs.

Abraham Son and Bob Smiley‘s Son

You know the story about Abraham taking his son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him because God told him to? Well Bob Smiley’s son was reading that story in his bible when he and his dad went on a camping trip together. In the morning Bob came out of his tent and his son was reading the part of the story right before God saves Isaac. Right at that moment Bob asked if he wanted to go on a hike. His son was very scared and Mr.🙂 had to explain it all.

(In The Grocery Store, During Covid) “Stop Coughing”

One day before the lockdown 😁 and his wife were going into a Walmart. At the time 🙂 had a “cold” so his wife told him he must not cough. When the went inside 😁’s wife told him to go get batteries, instead of getting batteries he went to the clock section and began setting all the clocks to go off together. He turned around and there was 37 people standing there who knew who he was. Now 😁 is a kinda sorta famous person but not everyone knows who he is, I was one of them but now I know who he is. Anyway these people knew who he was and wanted autographs. As he was giving autographs he really needed to cough so he stepped to the side and coughed into his elbow. His wife just happened to be in the aisle next to him and she shouted “Stop Coughing!” The entire store became silent because this lady had just shouted at somebody who she (ppl were mistaken) did not know. 😂 walked around the corner to the next aisle and said

“Im sorry if I offended you Ma’am”

She said “Don’t Ma’am me!”

And he said “ Oh sorry I’m from the south where we have manners but if you don’t want me to call you Ma’am i’ll just assume your name is Karen.”

She said “ This guy is my husband!” Which was true.

And he said “ I have never met you in my life ma’am” Apparently that night was the first time Smiley 😂 took an Uber.

Chicken of The Tree

One of the things 🙂 liked to do with his sons was eat squirrel meat. So one time, a friend of his sons came over for dinner and they had squirrl for dinner 😬. The next morning the friends mom came over and said “my sone had dinner at your house last night.” Bob was like “ yeah it was fun.” The lady said something like “It is to my understanding that you fed him squirrel meat!?!?” He answered “Its Chicken of the Tree.” ( Hyper link to Chicken of the Tree T shirt)

The Abraham story was totally the funniest story in the whole show. It just was very ironic and so random. The covid story was just plain hilarious I mean the whole I’m from the south and I have manners was hilarious. I just accidentally put two words on top of each other! That’s hilarious! Chicken of the tree (no offense 😂 ) was a little gross. Squirrels are little turds. They tease dogs and are pests. I can see that my argument is not very good there, none the less squirrels are as bad as Fat Tail! Comedy is a necessary part of life for everyone. It should be a fact on google. You know what is a fact, laughing is really good for you! One really good way to laugh is to watch funny things! 🤯 Wow that was hard to figure out.

Average Boy Aka Bob Smiley

Bob Smiley also created a character called Average Boy. The Average Boy books are devotionals with lots of funniness. There is also an Average Boy podcast which i listen to and I think no matter how cheesy it is, it is still really good to listen to. Each episode is like 20 minuets and has some life lesson in it or devotional. I know I am advertising this but it is really good stuff and you should at least check it out.

2023-02-092023-02-21

Cairns Australia

Okay, Australia has a reputation for having dangerous animals, but after Africa, I am now not super scared of Australia. Our first place to stay in Australia was Cairns in Queensland. They call Queensland The Sunshine State! So that makes Queensland the Florida of Australia. It was so stressful getting into Australia! You can’t have any food going through biosecurity, especially meat and vegetables, and fruit. I had a chicken sandwich in my bag (I thought it was fine) and some peppers (I honestly thought I had thrown them out). Thankfully, the very lovely Bio Security lady only gave me a warning and did not fine us. The long Bio Screening wait and the Chicken Sandwich caused us to miss the small bag drop window for our flight, which meant we could not get on it. FYI, that flight was canceled later, so it is good I had that chicken sandwich. The lady at the Qantas desk said she could re-book us on a Jet Star flight. She gave us Taxi coupons and told us where to go.

Jetstar was way better than Qantas. I know this because I have taken a Qantas flight, and it was okay. FYI, if you are on a flight and love funny movies, Ticket to Paradise is hilarious! On the flight, I got three complimentary snacks because we had to move flights, and I enjoyed my time as much as you can on an airplane. When we got to Carins, it was So Hot! I was wearing pants, and it felt like it was 100 degrees. It was probably only 93, but it was still so hot. We got the rental car out, and it was literally as hot as an oven. We went to our Airbnb inside a hotel. We love Airbnb’s because you have your own kitchen, and you can have a lot more room! The rest of the day we spent in the pool and eating dinner.

Cairns Exploration

We did not do a lot inside cairns, we spent two of our days Scuba Diving, but I will tell you about that in a post probably called Great Barrier Reef Diving. What we did outside of cairns is more important. On Tuesday, after we had done all of our diving, we went to have breakfast with the koalas. We went to Hartleys Crocodile Adventure and ate breakfast. It was more like koalas as a dessert for breakfast. Not to be eaten but to pet and look at. The Koala was adorable, and its fur was velvety. Koalas, in my opinion, would be an okay pet, but they sleep most of the day and eat so much! They sleep for up to 20 hours a day and eat 500 grams of eucalyptus daily! Sadly for the koalas, they were not my favorite thing. After the Koalas, we went on a Crocodile cruise. The tour guide got the crocodiles to jump out of the water to get meat chunks off a stick. It really was amazing to see just how stealthy the crocs can be, I saw one surface and swim word the boat, but it went under and appeared at the front of the boat, and it surprised the guide. The crocodile sanctuary (I don’t know if it was an actual sanctuary, but they kept the crocodiles and fed them and took care of them) had once held the world’s second oldest crocodile! You might have noticed from my writing that crocodiles were not my favorite.

The Black-Headed Python and Inland Taipan

The Snakes were my favorite. While I wouldn’t say I like snakes that are threatening me, I Love Snakes that I can hold or touch and look at. I got to hold a Black-Headed Python! It felt so muscly and thick, but the skin felt so thin. I could really feel its muscles moving, and it was really cool to feel it wrap around my hand. The Black-Headed Python can grow up to 6.6ft and is found in the upper coastal part of Australia. It is one of the only types of Snake that can eat other venomous snakes! The Python is not venomous. It is a constrictor which means it squeezes its prey to death. We had to go to the snake show, so I had to leave the Python. At the snake show, a man held a very short, fat python. It was a short-tailed python because it had a short tail. Next, he brought out an Inland Taipan. The deadliest Snake in the world. Deadly means the most fatal venom, not that it has killed the most humans. The handler was holding it; if it wanted to, it could have bit him and me and gotten away. Thankfully this one was specially bred to be handled and okay with the show. It was not a trained snake, but that would be cool to see. People rarely see an Inland Taipan because they like to hide. They mainly eat rodents and small prey.

Babina Boulders

After the Crocodiles we went to Babina Boulders, an area with a river and boulders. We drove for a while, and when we got there, I seriously doubted this would be any fun. It was fun; I sat in the freezing water, reading my Agatha Christie. The boys jumped off a massive tree into the river, and I was the only one not to get fully in the water. My book was exciting, and spoiler alert, somebody dies. Many people do, and I think what makes Agatha Christie so interesting to read is her colossal plot twists. The entire day was fun but quite exhausting.

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

2023-01-162023-01-29

The Dive in Bora Bora

I have to admit Scuba Diving was not my favorite activity. My Scuba training was not a good experience, Thankfully my wonderful Mom Scuba dives and makes sure I have a good time and go slow. The first dive I ever did outside of training was amazing thanks to Mom. The dives this time around were both pretty awsome too!

I always wake up nervous before a dive so I did not eat much. When the dive boat came to our boat to pick us up I was ready.

Our first dive site was pretty close to our boat and it was called Anau. A-na-oo. The dive was roughly 40 minutes long and we went to 32 ft or roughly 12 meters. The coral was beautiful and my favorite part was the fish.

There were so many bright fish and things. Most people don’t know this but colors disappear underwater. They don’t actually disappear you just cant see them without special lights. Red is the first to disappear at around 20 ft then orang at a little over 50. Since we were only at 30ft I could see orange and all the other colors of the rainbow (except red and pink). One interesting thing that happened with colors is, I had hot pink nail polish on and it looked purple underwater.

Back to the actual dive. Have you ever seen a Giant Manta Ray? They can have a wingspan of up to 30ft wide! Note: Manta Rays are Not birds They are fish, they look like a sting ray. Sadly the rays we swam with were not that big, only 7-8 ft wide (roughly 2.5 meters) Manta Rays have big “ horns” on the front of their heads. They are not actual horns but fins. Reef manta rays have curved horns also know as devil horns. Manta Rays predators are large shark and Orcas (killer whales). A great show on Disney plus is called Secrets of the Whales. It has a very interesting episode on Orcas that I would highly recommend.

All in all the dive went really well, I saw a Barracuda (oooooooo Baracooda). that looked like it should be in finding Nemo, i saw lots of zebra looking fish and bright orange fish. I even cracked a joke about Deforestation because parts of the coral were all knocked over. I have to say, I was a little disappointed on my first dive when the coral was not all bright colors and the water wasn’t absolutely clear (Thanks a-lot Nemo 😒 tricking kids into thinking that the sea life talks 🙁 :). It is true that Disney movies don’t depict the real world to a T.

The Second Dive

Teavaniu was our second dive site and, you wont believe, We Went Beyond The Reef! Dun😦 Dun 😲 Dun! 😱 If you don’t know, I’m referencing to the movie Moana. A girl surprisingly named, Moana, goes beyond the barrier reef of her Island to explore the ocean and find Maui, demigod of the wind and Sea. Great movie for All ages and if you have not seen it and you love pineapple 🍍 you have to watch it!

Back to the dive, I can really get sidetracked with just a little bit of humor! 😏 No more Jokes (for now) this dive was deeper by ten ft and seince we were right next to the reef and there was huge swells above us going to crash the party on the reef ( crash onto the reef) we had lots of fun swaying in the swells forty ft below the surface. The sea floor looked like it had roads running through it big enough to fit a car. All I had to imagine was some power lines and you get an underwater dessert. There was a shark and the usual bright fish. I kept seeing fish with weird patterns and crazy colors! Fish no matter how small are very fascinating!

Great Dive Site

I think diving in Bora Bora was the best diving I ever did. You don’t have to go deep and you can see some pretty awesome fish and sea life! We used Bora Bora dive Center but one of our instructors was not nice at all. One key thing for divers is you Can Not rent gear, you have to dive with an instructor even if your certified.😒 I can also now say that I dived at Bora Bora witch is a famous dive place. If you Scuba Dive, Bora Bora is a must visit. 😁