Posts – Annabelle – The Blue Van – Overland Travels

Quarantine

Annabelle DeCorso — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 18:49:11 +0000

The schools closed on March 20^th in the UK. Although it was not really a surprise when they announced the closure, it was still sad. The Monday after that the lockdown was initiated and people were only allowed out for work or buying essential items, or for exercise.

Luckily, since I live in Alaska half the year and I’m homeschooled there, isolation was not too different from the way we lived back home. My days are usually spent lounging around the house and shifting between watching shows, working on the art projects I started before quarantine but couldn’t finish due to a busy schedule, going out on walks or a bike ride, just sitting somewhere and the very occasional school. There is quite a lot to do, it’s just mostly about finding the motivation or inspiration to actually do it.

However, I do miss my friends from school a lot. The main reason I was so excited about coming over to Scotland this year was because of them, so its really unfortunate that I can’t see them due to the social distancing laws. I miss getting up and going to school, too. It provided a really nice rhythm to the day, and without having the social perspective or the active one, school has become quite boring.

Something else that’s changed is that I can’t just pop into a store to buy a snack or a drink while I’m out and about (exercising, of course). There are now queues to get into the shops with each person six feet apart. The first time I saw one of the lines outside a grocery store, it looked like a bunch of people just standing there, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was the queue to get in.

Overall, being quarantined during this pandemic is definitely not that fun and it has impacted the general way of life for everyone. Although it will probably be several months until this happens, I hope that a way to deal with the virus is figured out and that I can see my friends again.

Preparing to Leave

Annabelle DeCorso — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 23:20:37 +0000

When you’re preparing to leave the country or state, you should do a lot of research into your destination. For example; when I first went to South America, I knew nothing about it. I thought it would like it was in the movies, but it was a lot different. People spoke another language, and I only knew how to say hello. So, I felt a bit alienated and it was hot there. When I went to the UK, I spoke the same language but the environment was very different compared to the environment in the U.S, also it was raining almost every day.

Currently, I’m preparing to leave to Mexico, then to Scotland, which is a little confusing to pack for. Of course, I have a suitcase for Mexico and a suitcase for Scotland, but I occasionally ask myself if I need this thing for Mexico, or Mexico and Scotland, or just Scotland, which makes me think a lot. It’s a bit hard preparing for somewhere warm, then going to somewhere cold. Before I go to Mexico, I go to Florida for a week. Since I’ve been to all these places before, I know what to expect, which is good because I know what to pack. It’s always good to make sure you have everything you need, because what you don’t want is to get to your destination and realize you forgot something important.

Preparing to leave isn’t just packing though, cleaning out everything so it’ll be nice when we come back from the trip is also a big step. In my opinion, I dislike cleaning, which of course, almost everyone does. Since I have a large family, there are a large amount of messes to clean, including the messes I made, but it’s what you have to do.

When you’re about to leave, you’ll feel excited because you’re going to a new place, but some people will also feel sad, due to leaving their friends, pets, and their home. Leaving is bittersweet but you’ll see everything again eventually. Just live in the moment and the excitement of seeing new things, meeting new people, and just having a good time in general.

If you’re going to a different time zone, that can be hard, especially if it’s something like a nine-hour time difference, the UK is nine hours ahead of Alaska, which makes me have extreme jetlag, and makes it hard to communicate with people at home. Eventually you’ll find a way to communicate, for me it was I messaged and/or talked to them when it was early morning in Alaska and the late afternoon in the UK.

Have a fun time traveling to everyone who reads this, and good luck!

Northern Ireland and Dublin

Annabelle DeCorso — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 20:11:33 +0000

We got to Northern Ireland on a ferry that went into Belfast. The ferry ride was two and a half hours long, but it had free movies and wifi which was pretty cool! Once we got off the boat we parked the camper, and went into Belfast.
Belfast was a pretty gross place, my parents kept saying if I talked about the great potato famin people would get offended and punch me, a bit scary to be honest. I walked around with Jennah mostly because she wanted to look at dresses and I was going to help her look for them.
Of course, while we were there it was almost the anniversary of the revolution which was in 1916. Right before we got to Belfast actually there was a car bomb injuring a 52 year old man.
In Killyleagh Jennah and Jack met up with a friend Jennah met online. Everyone else was stuck in the camper. We took a walk, though, the town was small.

In Annalong Max, Sylvia and I met two girls named Kora and Alex. We talked a lot and hung out at a park. Annalong was fun, until when we were trying to watch a movie but were interrupted by a group of young people throwing rocks at us, my parents kept going outside and screaming at them, then once they didn’t stop my mom called the cops. Pretty intense. We left that town the next morning.

Finally we went into the Republic of Ireland, but of course the sim cards stopped working because we weren’t in the UK anymore, so we raced all the way to a phone store to buy sim cards.

After a bit of driving we got to Dublin! We decided to stay in the Harbour in Howth, but even better, we were gonna be in Dublin for the St. Patricks Day Parade! And my friend Heidi was coming to visit with her mom and brother, and there was gonna be a Prawn Festival on the weekend!
The first time we went into Dublin it was alright, we went to Temple Bar and went into a shop and bought a ton of St. Patricks Day stuff, I got a headband, a hoodie, and face paint!
When it was St. Patricks Day we went into Dublin around 9:00am even though the parade started at noon, we had to get good seats.

It was awesome! Everyone was all dressed up and had face paint on and makeup, and Heidi was coming at 2:00pm.
When the parade started I was so excited, there were like 12 marching bands and so many other things! But I was tired of standing by the time it ended. Then we had to go find Heidi at the bus station! That was fun.

When she came we lazed around in the hotel room quite a bit, but she also came to Howth and we went around the Prawn Festival. We also went to a zoo, which had more things than I expected it to.

It was fun, I hope the other parts of Ireland are as much cool as this.

Highland Dance

Annabelle DeCorso — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 19:03:04 +0000

I’m a Scottish Highland Dancer with the Red Hackle Pipe Band in Fairbanks. Highland Dancing is more of a athletic dancing and physically demanding. It’s also solo and competitive.
I know 4 1/2 dances, the Highland Fling, the Lilt, the Flora, the Sword Dance, and the Seann Triubhas, (I only know half of the Flora).
I’ve been dancing for five years. There is a Highland Games in Palmer, Alaska each year, and you can compete in it for Highland Dancing. When I first went I danced the Highland Fling and the Lilt, I’m not sure what place I got. I also dance at the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks but not for competition.
In July before I went to the UK I went to Vernon, Canada where there is a school/camp thing called Piping Hot Summer Drummer Highland Dance, it was intense and I got super sore, but everyone there said I improved a ton.
When we went to Scotland I was excited because I thought Highland Dancing would be like a big thing there. . . It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. My parents found a class for me to take, it was a bit awkward there because I knew different steps then everyone else, but it ended up okay.

The outfit for Highland Dancing is a kilt, hose, a white blouse, a jacket, leather dance shoes that are called ghillies, for the national dances you have to wear a white blouse, a circle skirt that has a tartan on it, a plaid which is a fabric that hangs over your shoulder which is the same color of the skirt, ghillies, white ankle or knee socks, and a vest. The outfits are weirdly expensive.

The music in Highland Dancing is usually bagpipes, I’m not exactly sure what the names for the dance songs are but the Sword Dance’s song is called Ghillie Callum.
I can’t wait to I get back because I’ll be able to practice a lot more.

Halifax

Annabelle DeCorso — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:49:06 +0000

It was dark when we arrived in Halifax, we all went over to the grocery store. We got some stuff for dinner and went back to the camper.
The next morning the camper had a transmission problem and it needed to get fixed, they said it would be a two day job. But we we’re leaving in two days and the camper had to get shipped out tomorrow.
We all went over to Tim Hortons and got breakfast, then we drove around a little bit in a red truck that Mr Transmission let us borrow.
I don’t know how but they fixed the camper by the time we got back.
We went to a KOA to camp.
The next day we all headed to the airport to drop our bags off, my brother Jack and my sister Jennah stayed and watched the bags.
The rest of us went downtown to meet up with my father and my brother, Max, they went to drop the camper off at the port.
We walked around quite a bit and then went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It was exciting yet sad because of the explosion of Halifax and the sinking of the Titanic.
After that we got pizza and headed back to the airport.
We flew out to Scotland. This was a great day.

Florida

Annabelle DeCorso — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 21:27:16 +0000

We packed up for hours the day we left. The flight we had went all night, and I don’t particularly like planes . When we got to Tampa, Florida we called an uber car to come pick us up to take me, my sister and mother to Dunedin where my grandparents lived, they weren’t there at the time they were still in Alaska. When we got there. My sister and I jumped into the pool. We went to town and worked on the camper we bought. It we had to remove the battery. Florida is fun but I’m mostly excited about future adventures.

The New York Roller Coaster — Annabelle

admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:57:41 +0000

While we were in Las Vegas, I really, really wanted to ride on the New York, New York Roller Coaster. I wanted to ride it because it looked really awesome and fun. The roller coaster went up 203 feet and then dropped you down 144 feet. They said it took 15 minutes to ride it but mom told me that must include buckling in. It had lots of turns and twists and loop de loops and downhills and it looks super cool because it is red and goes through all of the city of New York, it goes by the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Last time we went to Las Vegas, I wanted to ride this roller coaster but I was 6 inches too short. When I looked the roller coaster up, it said you needed to be 54 inches to ride and I was sure I would be able to ride because my dad said I was 54 inches almost 55. He measured me with a tape measure. So the night came when I was going to ride the roller coaster and I was really excited! We parked at Excalibur and walked over following the signs. We got to the roller coaster line and the guy said kids had to take their shoes off tho get measured. I took my shoes off and there were people in line yelling she’s tall enough! but the guy said NO you are not tall enough. So I went over to dad and I was very sad. I was only less than half an inch short.

Rodeo — Annabelle

admin — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:28:38 +0000

We left Las Vegas. We were headed to Sisters, Oregon to watch a rodeo. Mom told me rodeos were really fun. We drove through Nevada, California and then we got to Oregon. In California, we went to Nevada City and we went to visit Aunt Marian! Aunt Marian lives in a little camp. It has a little market and it is very pretty and nice. It had a little playground and it has houses every now and then and there was a spot where you could watch the sun go down and a thrift store and a post office. We ate lunch there. It was macaroni and cheese. After that, we went to a pond with lotuses. Sylvia went into the water to pick one. Aunt Marian said that at night the lotus will close and in the morning it will open. We put it in a bowl of water. I got a few books at the thrift store. I am reading one right now. After we left, we drove to Oregon. It was really hot! It was over 100 degrees, like 105! We drove all the way to Sisters and it was colder there, the low was 40 degrees at night. The rodeo started at 7. It was sunny. The rodeo was outside in a field. We sat on bleachers. All around the bleachers there were little booths that sell sandwiches and french fries. The rodeo started and the Rodeo Queens came out and rode around the ring. It had lots and lots of rodeo queens! Rodeo Queens had little crowns on their cowboy hats. They rode around the ring five times. One of the Rodeo Queens came out with an American Flag. Everybody stood up when we sang the Star Spangled Banner. Cowboys rode bulls and wild horses. They caught steers with ropes. The released a bunch of wild horses and the cowboys had to catch them and ride them between the barrels. Cowgirls did barrel racing where they put three barrels out and they have to go around them in a circle and if they knock one down they get less points. My favorite part was the bull riding because it looked really cool and you have to keep one arm free. The rodeo had a rodeo clown named JJ and he made us do stuff like sing songs and dance to win bags of chips. I thought that the rodeo was awesome! I got a tshirt! We camped there that night. In the morning we woke up and drove all the way to Washington.

The Amazon Part One — Annabelle

admin — Tue, 28 May 2013 00:58:44 +0000

Living in Lima was pretty fun. We lived in Lima for three weeks. We did not have any big grocery stores, just tiny stores on the side of the street that sold candy bars, chips, vegetables, fruit, bread, water and sometimes things like black pepper. My brother and I bought glass bottles of soda that we could return and refill them for 1.5 soles. We went to walk around Lima and mom said there was a place called Divercity that was like a children’s museum. In order to get to downtown, we had to take a bus that took about 2 hours and it was really crowded, the bus went really slow and kept stopping every few minutes. Once I got to sit up front! We got to a big shopping mall called Jockey Plaza because it had horse racing there. We entered the mall into Tottus which is a grocery store. Me and Sylvia were kind of excited about the children’s museum. We found it in the mall, it was outside. Sylvia, Max, dad and I went into Divercity while Jack, Jennah, mom and Ryan walked around. We had a really fun time. When we first got there the person handed us a $250 check and we had to go over and sign a thing to get an ID. Divercity is a little city that has little jobs you can do and get money from and then there are things you can spend money on like rock climbing walls and you can drive around in cars but you have to take a driving test which the driving test cost $30 and took half an hour and then you had to pay for a car. I had to pass a Spanish driving test and I got third place out of 8 kids!

Mom and dad were making plans to go to the Amazon. Finally mom bought tickets. She said we were leaving on Wednesday.To get to the airport, we flagged down a taxi and we all got in. Max, Sylvia and I got into the wayback and we all scrunched in. We got to the airport to wait for our flight. The plane left. It was 2 hours. We landed and I got out and it was hot, really, really hot. We got three motos and it was very nice on the moto! But then it all went downhill when we went on the combi ride. The combi ride was long and twisty and it made me feel sick. We got to Yurimaguas and we took motos to buy hammocks for the boat we were going on on the Amazon River. Once we bought hammocks, they said the boat was going to leave at 8. When we got down to the dock, which was just a little place of ground, the boat was heading down the river. We could see the lights. There were bugs and bats and I was hungry. A man told us there was another boat that carried passengers so dad and Ryan went to check it out. After a few minutes, they came back and said it was kind of filled with bugs. Mom said “Let me go see”. She took Sylvia (because Sylvia had to go to the bathroom) Max and Ryan. When they came back, Max told me there were lots of bugs, huge spiders and huge bugs and I started to get creeped out. Mom said lets get a hotel for tonight and we can think about this tomorrow. So we did.

I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. There were three beds in our room and the middle bed was under a light and bugs would hit the light and fall on the bed. I was afraid that bugs were on me. But they weren’t.

Next morning. mom and dad were already awake when I woke up. I got out of bed and jumped into the shower. We all got motos and went to the boat. I finally got to go on the boat and see what it looked like. I was like this isn’t so bad and then Max came over and said wait until it gets night Annie, wait. I started to get creeped out again. I stayed on the boat while mom, Sylvia, Ryan and Jack went to get water. Jennah fell asleep. Max was in his hammock sweating. Dad and I went to the top of the boat. We sat there watching the people carrying cargo onto the boat next door. They were loading wheat on one boat and cows on the other boat. They came back with the water and I went with them to get the bags.

Life on the boat was like this: it was hot, very, very hot. There were a lot of bugs but they were not so bad but there were still a lot of bugs. We slept in hammocks. We were all together in this one space with our own hammocks with a lot of other people and a chicken and chicks. We had a cabin which was fancy for the boat but not for us really. The cabin had thin mattesses and when you closed the door it got really hot. The bathroom was at the back of the boat and open so you could see the river and we saw river dolphins. The bathroom floor was always wet because people took showers in the bathroom stalls and wash laundry. It was pretty nice to take a shower even if it was Amazon river water it still felt nice. The kitchen on the boat had cooks who made food. It was pretty good if when I think about it. Most people got into a big line. We didn’t have to because we had a cabin and got special treatment. What was for breakfast was bread and butter and banana milk porridge. Lunch was pasta and chicken and some other stuff with potatoes and peas. Dinner was the same.

The Beach House — Annabelle

admin — Sat, 11 May 2013 00:36:05 +0000

We left Chile very early in the morning at 4am. The plane was awesome! It had movies in your own tv, breakfast and drinks. It was very cool watching the sun rise. After 3 hours, the plane landed. We got off and got our bags and a guy came up and told us the dogs needed to see the veterinarian. I fell asleep for most of it on the luggage cart. Mom told us there was going to be a guy holding up a sign like in the movies that said DECORSO and he would drive us to our beach house! I woke up and we found him. A little bit after that, dad came with the dogs. He took us out to his van was and we got in it. It was a very long time until we got to the beach house. When we got here, I was so excited to see it. I ran into every room looking around. One room has 4 beds and another for mom and dad that had a TV. We had a kitchen with a stove, cupboard and sink. We have three bathrooms. There is one tiny room with one bed where my oldest brother Ryan slept. There is a living room with 3 couches and a tv and speakers. We have a dining room table. I looked out the window — and it had a pool!!! Mom, Ryan and Jack had to go to Bolivia so they left that same day, very shortly after. I wanted to explore the whole area because no one is staying here but us. The next day we woke up. We had Uncle Dicky eggs for breakfast. Dad said we needed to walk the dogs but I did not know where we would walk them but there is a grassy area right outside we can take them because Lucy can’t go to the bathroom without grass! We walked around and checked out all the little stores that are around. One store we called the avocado store because they always sell avocados. We bought bread, avocados, soda, pepper, water, eggs, Bimbo bread and if we were lucky, dad got us a candy bar. The best thing about the beach house is the pool!!!

One of the bedrooms!