MAX’S WORLD JOURNAL (The Unedited, Real Live Stuff)  Sunday, July 9, 2000  My airplane ride was fun because I slept overnight and had a good dinner of noodles. The movie was called Anna and the King, it was boring. The plane ride was eight hours and thirty-five minutes!  When we got to Amsterdam I saw over one million bikes and at the airport the tram was a double-decker. Their money here is prettier than our money, it’s much more colorful. Our American money is so ugly because it’s only green.  The weather in Amsterdam is sixty degrees and it is cold and rainy. The first thing we did was took a cab to our house that we stayed in called a bed and breakfast. The people who own it are Dennis and Lynn. They gave us a good room in the house and made me hot chocolate! Monday, July 10, 2000 Today me, my Mom and Dad went to the zoo. At the zoo we first saw two camels. One camel had a hump that fell over! Then we went into the monkey house and one of the baboons got mad at my mom and kept mooning her. Then we saw the birds. We saw toucans; a fake hummingbird, vultures and I saw an owl that ripped a rat’s head off.  It was GROSS!  There are lots of funny cars here. One car was only as tall as my neck, it was very small.  Then we went to Anne Frank’s house and we went through the bookcase and Dad took a picture of me in front of it. I thought that it was kind of boring.  I wish that they could have just taken the stars off of their jackets. I bought a Game Boy game but the instructions were in Dutch. The game is a skate boarding game called 720. I also got a rubber thing to put around my Game Boy so if I drop it I will hit the rubber instead of breaking. Tuesday, July 11, 2000 Today I went to a place called Haarlem. Some of their buildings were older than the United States of America.  There was a store called Intertoys and I bought three matchbox cars. One was a convertible called a Dodge Concept car, the other car was a Porsche 996, and the last one is a 57 Chevy. I took a train to Haarlem and on the way I saw a windmill.  I also saw cows and horses. It was really fun. The only thing that I didn’t like in Haarlem was that Mom shopped for clogs to wear with her dress. There are no clogs that my Mom liked in Haarlem. The other thing that I didn’t like was that we had to shop for a sweater too because the other one my Mom had was too thin. We found one and I was happy about that.    Wednesday, July 12, 2000 Today I found a half pipe and some skateboarders grinding on the railing.  I ran up and down the half pipe trying to get to the top of the half pipe because there wasn’t a ladder to climb up and that’s why I had to run. I also met someone. His name was Danielle and he tried to run up too. It was hard. Danielle was talented at climbing to the top of the half pipe. His Mom helped me climb to the top of the half pipe but I couldn’t make it so my Dad helped me up. It was hard but I never gave up until I got to the top. Cool! We also went to an art museum and it was kind of boring. We visited the Van Gogh Museum. It was kind of weird because he chopped off his ear. He gave the ear to his friend so that his friend would know that he would always listen to him. He also likes to paint pictures of himself. He had red hair and a mustache and beard to match. Before the museum we went to a big park and it had a tree that had a long, loose branch and you can sit on the branch and swing on it. My Dad swung the branch and drove me crazy.   Thursday, July 13, 2000 Today I went to a town called Naarden that had a moat around it and it was shaped like a star. We went to the museum and it had cannons from the war. Some of the cannons were pretty big and some were small.  I also saw a really long gun that was three feet long. For lunch I mostly had tomato soup every day in Holland. When I was walking back I saw some deer and goats and fed them some bread. There was also a billy goat and a baby billy goat and we fed them both some bread. The bigger billy goat was very obnoxious because when I tried to feed the baby goat the bigger goat rammed into it on purpose and the baby ran away. It was fun.  I also saw some pigeons near the tram station. I had food in my hands and they flew on my arm and ate the food. My day in Naarden was really fun.  Friday and Saturday, July 14 & 15, 2000 We left Amsterdam to an amusement park in Holland called Efteling.  There was a ride called The Vulture and it was fun because the whole ride was in darkness. We also went into a Spook House that was kind of scary.  There was another ride that was a story about some robbers that stole things from people. After we heard the story, we went on the ride. It was real scary because it seemed like the whole house went upside down. When I walked in I thought the hotel room was AWESOME! Our room had 12 telephones, Nintendo 64, and the bedroom had planets and stars that lit up when you put on the black light. There was another ride called the Pagoda that went really high so you could see the whole park. For the two days that I stayed at the park I had Chinese Tomato Soup but when they gave it to me it was really hot. There was also a crazy looking seesaw that looked like a clowns face.  They also had coffee cups that spun around, as usual, and it started raining really hard when I was riding them. The rides were really fun. Sunday, July 16, 2000  Today I drove along the Rhein River and drove our car on to a ferry to get to the other side. Then we visited a castle. It was called the Rheinfels Castle. It keeps raining every day on the trip. In the castle there were lots of steps and hallways. After that we skipped stones in the Rhein River. The food in Germany was really good. My Dad ordered a wiener schnitzel for lunch and I loved it. Then it started to rain again.  After that we went to a park. Then we drove to Switzerland and saw lots of castles along the way. I like seeing castles because some of them were built in the 1200s and they haven’t fallen down. But some of them have been rebuilt. I like old stuff…and I mean castles are old stuff. And now, we travel on to Switzerland. Switzerland Tuesday, July 18, 2000 Yesterday we went to a Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. It was prettyfun. I climbed on the rocks along side Lake Geneva and played Mission Impossible. We also went to another castle and I videotaped the castle. It was called the Chillon Castle. The day before I got a new pocketknife and it was clear red. The lady there carved my name on it! I got my knife in a town called Gruyere. There is a castle with art in it. Chillon had clothes that they wore in the war and had a pretty gun that was as tall as me. They also had a stick with a chained spike thing. They even had the furniture. I had a fun time. Thursday, July 20, 2000 Today I went to a train station first thing and rented bikes. We rode our bikes from Montreux, Switzerland to France. It was 9 miles each way. On our ride we saw mountains with snow on them, rocky trails, cornfields, and we went over a river. My bike was a red mountain bike with 6 gears and a bell. We rode around Lake Geneva. It was kind of hard and kind of easy. It was easy because most of it was flat. We went down a really steep hill and I was frustrated because my Mom and Dad were always telling me to stay to the right. They were nervous because we were riding along a narrow sidewalk in France. In Switzerland we rode on sidewalks that were cracked and made bumps and I rode on them. It was kind of scary the first bump I went over. I feel brave for riding 18 miles to France. We ate lunch in France and then came back to Switzerland. After our bike ride we went to the Jazz Festival and I ate a hotdog, Swiss chocolate and it was really good, an orange Fanta drink, and a really good waffle with whipped cream. I wish I could have another one. It was a really exciting day and I had lots of fun! When I was working on my journal I was eating an apple and I dropped it. So I threw it out the window and hit a parked car. OOPS! Friday, July 21, 2000 Today we drove up to a glacier in Swiss Alps. But it was closed. So we went on a gondola to the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. Then we hiked down the mountain, most of it was down hill, but it hurt my ribs. We sang funny songs together through the rocks and when we got to the bottom we saw some skateboarders, then we went to get some ice cream. Monday, July 24 2000 Today my mom went on a hike while me and dad rented two scooters called Razors and we went to the city and after that we had lunch and I had tomato soup, it was good. I met a friend at the restaurant who tried to jump as high as me. There was houses built on stilts and there’s the Matterhorn and we saw a house built on a mountain. We saw roofs and for dinner I had a crepe it was an egg and cheese crepe. And for desert I had a cinnamon crepe. I had a great day. Tuesday, July 25 2000 Today I went to a glacier and actually walked on it, it was really icy and walked in an ice cave had some ice sculptures. We took a gondola to get to the to the top. Then we went on a hike and sang funny songs while we got to the bottom of a mountain. July 31, 2000 Yesterday I was in Bern. We met my uncle Steve and his girlfriend a couple of days ago in Lucerne and they came with us to Bern. In Bern we saw some bears and took some pictures for my website. If you give the bears some chocolate, they will do funny tricks for you. They can clap, roll over, pray and touch their toes! Then we left Bern and drove to Zurich. Today my Dad and I were walking around in Zurich and there was a lady working in a store and my Dad thought she was a mannequin. We also went to a toy store and bought another game boy game. It was called Yoshi and I was frustrated because I didn’t know how to play the game. Then my Dad figured it out for me and now it is fun. Thank goodness, I thought it was a waste of money. My Dad had a Swiss watch that he got for free a long time ago. It was cracked on the side but it still worked. My Dad wanted a new watch that was waterproof. I wanted him to get a new one so I could take the old one apart and look inside the watch and see all the pieces. Guess what? He finally got a new watch and I had a fun time taking the old one apart. I am having a fun time! August 1, 2000 Today I went to a parade because it is Switzerland’s independence day. The parade had a choir, the Swiss Army, The Army Band and these people who had huge cowbells and they played a song when they went by. After that we went to a lake and swam in it. There was a slide that went around and around. It was fun. We also rented a boat and I got to drive it all around the lake. August 3, 2000 Today is our last day in Switzerland. Today we really didn’t do much. I looked for a new pocketknife since I lost my old one. But I didn’t want to buy one because I really don’t need one. Over all, I have had a great time in Switzerland. I have enjoyed looking at all the pocketknives and all the mountains. I thought it was cool in Lucerne because they have all these big frogs all over the city and each one is painted differently. Now I am leaving Switzerland for Turkey and I am happy about it. TURKEY August 10, 2000 Yesterday I went to a water park with my Dad in Bodrum. My first ride was called the Kamikaze. It was fun but the only thing I didn’t like was that the water kept getting in my face. There was a yellow slide and it was fun. But the water park felt like I was in America, not Turkey. In Istanbul I made a friend that owned a carpet store and he is twenty-two years old. He has a cat that he says is my brother. His name is Abraham. There were a lot of poor people so we gave them some money. In Bodrum, there are houses that are square and white with small windows. They are called sugar cube houses because they are white and square just like sugar cubes. August 11, 2000 Today I went in a boat around the Aegean Sea. It was a nice boat and there were three floors on the boat. The first one is where we ate lunch, the second floor was for tanning and the third floor was also for tanning. It was nice. We had drinks and for lunch had chicken on a stick, salad, and noodles. Next we stopped on an island called Camel Island and there were real camels on the island that you could ride. I couldn’t ride it because we didn’t have enough time since the boat stopped for only one hour. My parents said I could ride one in Egypt. August 12, 2000 Today we left Bodrum and drove to Ephesus and it was really, really old. It was from the sixth century B.C. at the time when the Romans were in charge of Turkey. Two hundred and fifty thousand people lived there. When we got there the first thing I saw was the stadium. The stadium is where they had town meetings, shows and tiger fights where the tigers fought the slaves. After that we went through Hercules’ gate and the streets were made of marble. Next we went to the ancient toilets. It didn’t seem like they had any privacy and no toilet paper at the ancient toilets. Then we went to library where they store books and the statues looked like they had casts on their arms and I asked my Dad “ Is this where they invented casts?” The library is called the Celsius Library and we saw the tomb of Celsius. August 13, 2000 Today I went to the town called Selchek and we went to the Efes Museum and I saa bunch of old things then we drove to Izmir. We stayed in Izmir and then we went back to Istanbul. We only stayed in Istanbul for one day and then went to Greece. GREECE August 17, 2000 (boat trip) Today we went to the Acropolis and we saw some awesome columns. It is high on a mountain so it is hard to attack. On the Acropolis is the Parthenon Temple, which was built in the fourth century B.C. The Acropolis has two big stadiums and one that they still have concerts in. My friends Corey and Jordan are here and they are going on a boat trip with us. We are leaving soon to go on a sailboat trip for 10 days. August 27, 2000 (boat trip) Today I went snorkeling with my Dad and we saw three different kinds of fish. One was a silver fish with light blue on the top, the other fish had a black dot by the fin, and the last one was brown with stripes and was eating something in the sand. The water was as clear as a swimming pool. Later on we went snorkeling in a different place but the water wasn’t as clear. When we were in the water, I saw a lobster, three or four sting rays, and the bottom of the ocean was all grass. I had a great time. August 28, 2000 (boat trip) Today I went snorkeling in a cove by one of the islands and there were tons of sea urchins and three needlefish in a group. The water was clear too! I learned how to make two knots. Our lunch was great. For dinner I had grilled cod fish that was grilled right on the grill! It was awesome. At dinner there were two dogs and a girl puppy. There were two dogs and the dogs got in a fight and one got hurt. September 3, 2000 Today I had lots of fun. I am renting an apartment on an island that is a volcano. We live in a town called Oia (eeaa). Our island is called Santorini and there are lots of wild cats and dogs. The crater erupted 3000 years ago and almost destroyed the far away island of Crete. There are lots of lizards. We walked 300 steps to get to a marina with fresh fish for dinner. There was a giant grouper fish and I’m guessing it was two feet long. Our friends were eating with us. I also had fish and it came right off the grill, it was great.