The trip was fun; we got to do a lot of stuff. My 5 favorite things that we did were: meeting my friend Josef, pushing the sailboats in Paris, being at Normandy, going hunting with the bushmen in Tanzania and seeing all the animals in Africa. I feel like I never went because it went so fast. It’s almost like I was here the whole time sleeping.
I liked meeting my friend Josef, because his family owned the best ice cream store in L’isle Sur La Sorge and because he was nice and fun. The ice cream store had fake ice cubes on the wall with little lights in them that blinked. It had a patio close to a canal. The ice cream I ordered there for my birthday was in a skinny, tall glass and then it opened up to a bowl. Inside the bowl was chocolate ice cream then vanilla then lots of whipped cream with shredded coconut on top. Stuck into the sides of the ice cream were halves of Bounty chocolate bars. It tasted like heaven, ice cream heaven on earth.
One night, Josef invited us over to his house to watch Star Wars Episode III. There were four other boys there. They were French and were really nice. We spoke only French with them. It was a little difficult at the beginning. After a while, we made friends so we could talk with them without being embarrassed. I learned some new French words like “cache, cache,” which is “Hide and Go Seek.” We played with some of his toys and we fought each other with toy weapons. Later that night, we played some Xbox and Wii. I found that all kids are alike and a lot of fun.
I liked pushing the sailboats, because it was chance and strategy. You push the boats with a long stick from the edge of the fountain so that they go out on the water. You had to gamble a little; you had to have a little luck because sometimes-bad things could happen like get stuck under the fountain or hit a duck. My boat got stuck under the fountain once and I had to wait about five minutes till it got out. The wind changed direction and my boat got out.
Now I’ve used boats in three world capitals—Paris, Mexico City and New York City. In Mexico City and New York, the boats were remote controlled. I think both kinds of boats are fun, but the thing with the non-remote-controlled boats if your boat gets stuck, you can get out of the bad situation. With the sailboats, you have to wait for the wind. Plus, with remote controlled boats, you can sail wherever you want.
I like Normandy, because there was so much to do. It was one of the best places of the trip. At the beach of Omaha and Utah, it was incredible to be where American soldiers fought and died. I’ve seen so many movies and stuff about it and now I was actually there. At Point Du Hoc—talk about freedom—you could run around, jump into bunkers.
There were only two bunkers you couldn’t go into. One that took a direct hit from a shell; the other one was being repaired so it wouldn’t slip into the ocean. I wish when we were there we had had a flashlight. That would have been so cool because some of the bunkers were really dark inside.
Going hunting with the Bushmen was so exciting. You didn’t know what they were going to do next. They could turn left or right and you couldn’t say, “Wait up.” They would have just ignored you because they were hunting and they were hungry. They weren’t going to wait around for some white person from America to catch up.
I found out that the difference between a ground squirrel in Africa and a squirrel in the States. The squirrel in the States doesn’t have to worry about being eaten by humans. When I see a little squirrel now in Texas, I say, “Hey I ate your cousin” and I feel a little bad for the one we ate.
Seeing all the animals in Africa, I can’t find a word to describe it. I saw animals that I never knew existed before we went, like dik-diks, hyraxes and jackals. The animal I’ll remember most of all was the beautiful leopard lying in a tree. I love Africa.
BYE
JEB
