Tidy Teddy joined us on a big trip to Thailand, which is in Southeast Asia. We had a great time and even got to ride an elephant!
Teddy took an elephant ride and a jacuzzi this morning before saying goodbye. Although he doesn’t get out of the suitcase very often, he’s become quite travel-weary.
While we were packing up this morning to head to our next Thai destination, Khao Lak, he decided to retire on this island. I think he’ll be comfortable here.
Tidy Teddy and I set sail on the Nieuw Statendam, a Holland America Cruise Line ship. This ship is 975 feet long and 114 feet wide. We set sail from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for a 7-day adventure.
The next day (New Year’s Eve), we arrived at our first stop – Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. The Bahamas are a group of 700 islands, but people only live on 30 of them. At Half Moon Cay, we rode horses on the beach (and in the water!) and relaxed on the beach.
After a day at sea, we arrived in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Jamaica is an island in the Caribbean Sea. We climbed the famous Dunn River Falls, a 140-foot-high and 600-foot-long waterfall located near Ocho Rios. The waterfall flows right into the Caribbean Sea.
Our next stop was in Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island. The Cayman Islands are famous for beautiful beaches and great shopping. We spent the day snorkeling and meeting stingrays up close.
The last stop on our trip was Cozumel, Mexico. Mexico is a country south of the United States in Central America. In Cozumel, we took a ferry to the mainland and explored the ancient Mayan Ruins at Tulum. The Mayan people were a group of people who date back to 1800 B.C.! There are many ancient Mayan sites in Central America, but Tulum is the only one built on the coast near the sea.
When we weren’t visiting a new country, we were doing lots of fun things on the ship. One day, we got to meet the captain of the ship. He told us about how big our ship was and how it stays afloat in the water.
We had a lot of fun on this 7-day adventure. We traveled 1,917 miles in 7 days! We were in 5 different countries. It was a fun way to travel!
This summer, I was lucky enough to travel to Venice, Italy, with Ms. England’s Mom and Aunt. We had a great time. Venice is called “the floating city” because it is an island. The only way you can get there is by boat. There are no cars, motorcycles, buses, or bikes in Venice, and the only way to see Venice is to walk or take a small boat, called a gondola. Even food is brought to the island by boat. There are 150 canals and 409 bridges on this island, with the biggest one called “The Grand Canal.” We visited a glass factory, museums, a vineyard and a small shop where a very kind, older man paints beautiful paintings. We also ate lots of pizza and gelato (ice cream). Venice is a beautiful place to visit!
Tidy Teddy had a quick visit to Brazil this week. Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world, both by size and population. TT spent 3 days in the city of Curitiba, including September 7th, which is the national holiday of Independence Day. TT and the locals celebrated the day Brazil became independent of Portugal in 1822. Tidy Teddy had to learn some Portugese, still the official language of Brazil. TT can be seen looking over the city in this picture.
Tidy Teddy also spent a day in the city of Sao Paulo, which is the largest city in Brazil and one of the ten largest cities in the world. Brazil played host to the 2014 World Cup of Soccer this past summer, and TT is seen here admiring a soccer warm-up in the country’s colors of green and yellow.
I am traveling in France right now with Mr. Perkins’ mom, Ms. Armstrong. She is taking a group of high school choir students in a group called Footnotes, who will be touring and performing around different parts of France this week. Today, we visited many tourist locations in Paris, France.
I had the most wonderful holiday vacation, traveling with Madeleine and Douglas Armstrong and their parents and grandmother to India. Do you know where that country is? Look it up on your globe, and you’ll see that it’s halfway around the world from Tennessee. It is a beautiful country, but much different in many ways from ours. For one thing, there are elephants and camels walking in the streets! Cars and carts and bicycles and people have to go around them. I rode on a camel with Douglas out in the country. It was a bumpy ride but lots of fun, even though the desert sands blew in my face.
We rode in a motorboat, too, to see a beautiful palace built on rocks right in the middle of a big lake. Isn’t that funny? Why would anyone do that? It was built by a Maharaja (Indian ruler) for protection from enemies. There are also huge walled cities called forts, built high on hills for the same reason. To get to one of them, we rode on an elephant!
Until the airplane was invented, the only way to get to India from America was by boat. On the waterfront of the port city of Mumbai there is a huge arch called the Gateway of India which welcomes visitors. There are always crowds of people passing through and lots of men, women and children trying to sell you food, clothing, balloons and toys or trying to take your picture. We took our own to send to you.
To see India before cars were invented, you had to travel by train. We did, too, in long railroad cars pulled by a big engine. We had a small compartment with two beds to sleep in at night. The motion of the train lulls you to sleep or sometimes jolts you awake, and once in a while other big trains whistle and roar by you, shaking you in bed. Jai and Mandu cooked breakfast for us in the morning.
One of the most beautiful buildings in the world is in India. It’s called the Taj Mahal and is over four hundred years old – older than any building in the United States. Built entirely of white marble, it gleams in the noonday sun but turns pink in the early morning and late in the afternoon when the sun goes down.. Everybody likes to have their picture taken there.
The state bird of India is the peacock which has bright blue and green feathers. The spots in them are called the eye of the peacock and are thought to bring good luck. Look at the picture of me lying on a peacock fan. I’m wishing all of you good luck.
I hope you like my pictures. Maybe someday when you are older you’ll go on a travel adventure and send me pictures. But you know what? It’s nice to come home, too.
Love,
Tidy Teddy
Kristen, Madeleine, Douglas, and Denni next to an elephant
Madeleine, Douglas, and Tidy Teddy about to ride a camel
Douglas, Tidy Teddy, with some camels
TT, Douglas, Madeleine, and their dad at the Lake Palace Boat Ride
TT and Douglas at the Gateway of India
TT, Madeleine, Douglas, Jai, and Mandu outside the train
Tidy Teddy traveled with me to India. TT got his first official ride in a Tuk Tuk…………TT rides a TT. Tidy Teddy gets his first look at the Indian Ocean with the famous Bandra-Worli SeaLink Bridge in the background.
Brrrrr! Tidy Teddy is sure glad to be back in Nashville, where it is warm! Tidy Teddy just got back from a trip to the bottom of the world’s tallest mountain – Mount Everest! Mount Everest is in a country called Nepal, which is all the way on the other side of the world, right in between India and China. It took Tidy Teddy 18 hours on an airplane to get there! But Tidy Teddy was glad that he went there, so he could see so many cool new things like these animals called Yaks that are like cows that live high up in the mountains. They have really long fur to keep them warm and long horns, which scared Tidy Teddy a little bit, even though he is a bear. Instead of using wood logs to burn in a fire to keep them warm in the winter, the people that live in the mountains burn Yak poo to keep them warm. YUCK! You can see them drying it out here.
On the way back down, Tidy Teddy also lived through an earthquake! He was so scared – the ground started shaking, and everyone ran outside! Some of the roofs of the buildings started to fall down, but luckily, no one was hurt (including Tidy Teddy). Tidy Teddy has had enough adventure for now – he is glad to be back with Ms. England’s class in Nashville, where there aren’t any mountains!
Namaste (that means “good day” in Nepal)! Kristin (Ms. England’s friend)
Tidy Teddy's Travels 