Posts – Sylvia – The Blue Van – Overland Travels

Bike Accident

Sylvia DeCorso — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 18:44:29 +0000

Soooooooo today me and my sister Annabelle went for a bike ride for our once a day daily exercise. On our way home, a dog was sitting on the side of the bike path, the owner was off on the other side, as soon as I was about to go past it, the owner called it towards him, I was not able to stop in time, so I hit the dog. Happily, the dog was fine and it ran back over to its owner, I was not that good in shape, my knee was scraped and so were other parts of my body, I got the wind knocked out of me and I’m pretty sure I bruised my chest, it still hurts but not as much now. Other than that point I quite like biking, I learned how to ride a bike when my grandpa took me and my siblings biking when I was about six or seven, I could never really ride my bike in Alaska because it was either too cold or it was a dirt road, and we didn’t have the right bike for that, so it nice to be able to ride your bike down the streets of Edinburgh with hardly any cars on the road. Other than going out once a day for exercise, nothing really happens. I miss school and my friends, but I hope it’ll be over soon. One of the drawbacks of the bikes are the seats, there very uncomfortable, after you ride it for a long time, the next time you take the bike out you can’t really sit down on the seat, so that’s really the only bad part. I’ve come to realize that this so called social distancing it is quite different all over the world, here in the United Kingdom we are only aloud to leave your house once a day for exercise, other than that you can’t leave your house.

Social Distancing — Sylvia

Sylvia DeCorso — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 16:50:56 +0000

A lot has happened, such as, us going back to Scotland, me going to school, oh and well covid-19, how could I forget, well its not like schools shut down across the whole world and we’re only aloud to leave the house for exercise, but one of the lamest things is my school shutting down. I really love my school and my teachers, and it was so different than being homeschooled, you had to actually talk to people that wasn’t your family, it was such a big change, by the time school shut down I had only been in Scotland for a few months ( like two or three ) and so when I found out that school was going to close I was devastated, I had just begun to settle into place, this ment I had to say goodbye to friends for who knows how long, some of friends were supposed to leave at the end of term, and some people were leaving the country, they were horribly blue, they never might see these people again. Now I am simply locked up in my rental house, nothing to do except sit around all day, nothing interesting happens , just same old same, eating junk food and watching TV, this is the affect the corona virus has on people, ripping familys, friendship, relationships apart.

Bakeries Around the World

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 06:18:29 +0000

I have been to many bakeries around the world. I have been to bakeries in London, Dublin, Lima, Cartagena,and Wales and in a lot of small towns but I think of all the bakeries I have been to, Mexico City is the best. British bakeries tasted better than they looked. They had eclairs in every single bakery in the UK. In Melrose, Scotland, I got an eclair and so did my sister Annabelle. Everyone in my family loves eclairs. They are so good! We went home to the camper that day in Melrose and my mom twisted her ankle on a cobblestone and it hurt for months. In Scotland, most of the bakery things we bought were pies. You might be thinking of the kind of pies that have strawberries and cherries in them but no, these pies have mashed potatoes, minced meat, macaroni, and cheese, they were delicious!. My sister Annabelle loved them the most. In Wales, we went to a bakery in Conwy and I asked my mom if I could get a piece of gingerbread, gingerbread is one of my favorite cookies. It was soft, not too hard, I loved it, it was delicious! In Beaumaris, I saw happy meals at a bakery that had cookies, crisps, a sausage pie and a juice box. I wanted one so bad. We were about to leave and I asked my mom if we could get one before we left and she said yes! We ran down and I got one and it was scrumptious. I was happy for the rest of the day. Although I did not eat my gingerbread. In Peru, all the cakes looked awesome, cakes with beautiful round toppings with little points on top and strawberries but when you bite into them, they tasted bad. We ordered one slice and all of us could not finish it. Every single thing was bad. In Colombia, it was boiling hot and we had to drink water out of bags but it was fun in the end. The first night in Cartagena there was a bakery right down the street and the food was great! They had cheese bread and jelly filled bread but afterawhile, I ate there every night, I got sick of them and I ate more street food – my favorite was kabobs but everyone else liked these pastries filled with burger meat but they had onion in them. Nothing compares to the Mexico City bakery, Pasteleria Ideal. The bakery had a window full and stacked high with every kind of cookie you could imagine, chocolate chip, jelly filled, tarts, every single kind. It was amazing. There was a donut section filled with donuts and cupcakes, stacked high, it was beautiful. There were sections and sections and sections for sandwiches and empanadas, bread, jello cakes, it was amazing, amazing, amazing!

I know for sure that the Mexico City Bakery is the best one I have ever gone to in my travels.

Ireland Part One

admin — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:31:03 +0000

Howth by our camper

We went to Ireland on a ferry and it was very nice. It had games but they cost a euro each and a free movie, Ant Man. We landed in Northern Ireland which is still part of England. When Ireland rebelled, they took over every single part except this part, which is still part of England to this day and they called it the Easter uprising. It was filled with bombs and death. Everyone was afraid they would strike again on Easter,because was that was the 100 year anniversary. We were on our way to Dublin and we stopped in a little town called Annalong and we camped right in front of a playground and we met two friends there, Alex and Kora. We had fun there playing. We were trying to watch a movie that night and some people threw rocks at us, drunken teenagers. One rock hit right in the window, luckily it did not break. Then we left Annalong and drove to Dublin. We stayed in a little town called Howth on the outskirts of Dublin. We went for a carriage ride from the Guinness storehouse to Templebar. I really wan

I was happy

ted to go in a carriage, ever since South America, I wanted to ride in a horse drawn carriage! I got to drive the horse. It was great. When St Patricks day came, it was crazy and bustling. We each got a green hat and a green hoody to go to the parade. It was really crowded but we got there early and we got a great seat right in front of the bandstand where they filmed all the things and stuff. The parade was great, I loved it. Our friends were coming that day from Alaska. When we got to the bus station where we were meeting them, I started to throw up. I was sick, very sick. We started to walk to there hotel. I vomited a ton and the train station. We got to their hotel and I laid there in their bed, sick as ever. I threw up a lot. Then we had to go home to Howth. My brother and sister were staying the night. I did not throw up on the train. I laid down and went to bed. The next morning, we were going to go on rides for the Prawn Festival. We went on the

Driving through Guinness on the carriage

rides it was fun, I was still sick. The next day everyone came over and we got fish and chips. Dublin was kind of meh. There were parts of it with broken down windows and graffiti but parts were really nice, too. After Dublin, we drove around. There were thousands and trillions and billions of lambs , they were so adorable, I loved them and wanted to get them, Once I got stung by a stinging nettle while we were in Ireland and it hurt for days. We went to a little town where we hiked up to a cathedral and we got lunch there in a pub. I had chicken and chips, it was the town where my mom

Going past Saint Patrick’s. We went to Evensong there the night before Saint Patrick’s Day

and dad’s families were from

Temple bar was really crowded every night

Shetland – Sylvia

admin — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 14:05:49 +0000

We went on a ferry to the Shetland Islands, it’s a part of Scotland. It’s famous for the sheep that make beautiful yarn. These are special sheep they are not like any other sheep because this is such a tiny island that all the same here but different from every where else. It’s famous for these ponies that are very small and they have been here for thousands of years. They are very tiny and they have lots of hair. To get here, we had to take 2 ferries. One to the Orkney Islands that took 90 minutes and one to Lerwick that took 12 hours. It had a theater, gaming area, bar lounge, restaurants and a store. There was no people von the ferry at all. We slept in the theater, me and my mom but everyone else slept in this place called the Pod Lounge. The Pod Lounge cost £10 more to sleep in one but we didn’t have to pay because there was no one there. A pod was a chair that was comfortable and you can lean back. I didn’t sleep in there because I didn’t want to be quiet. The next morning we went to breakfast. It was all you could eat so I was excited. The food wasn’t v that good. I don’t eat eggs so I don’t know how good the eggs were. The bacon was Scottish and not like American bacon. American is fried in a pan and is crispy but Scottish bacon is more like ham and it’s called rashers. I didn’t like the bacon. I had cereal. When we got off the ferry we drove to a cliff over the ocean with no fences. My brother Jack got very close and I got freaked out. We found two fairy rocks! The rocks had deep puddles around them.

London by Sylvia

Michelle — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 23:35:06 +0000

London is great. We went out for Indian food. It was super awesome. My sister got butter chicken and I got a kebab. This something I got a lot in Peru and there it was on a stick. Here the stick was taken out but it was still pretty good. We had to go to this far away place to find the perfect food. I never had Indian food before but the first time I had it it was a good experience. It was my oldest brother Ryan’s idea.

Big Ben is very pretty. I didn’t know it was attached to the House of Parliament.

Instead of a subway there is the tube. At every stop there is a voice that says MIND THE GAP. That means there is a space between the platform and the train.

London Bridge is not actually London Bridge, it is the Tower Bridge.

We went to see the Tower of London where Mary, Queen of Scotts head was cut off. I will say executed because it sounds less creepy. We saw the grave of Anne Boleyn. Every year, since her head was executed, or chopped off, on the date, someone sends 2 dozen roses and no one know who sends them or who pays for them, it’s a mystery. Anne Boleyn is Henry the 8th’s wife and he had a new wife every day and every morning he executed his wife but Anne Boleyn told him stories every night and stayed alive, is that right? Some people say that if the Ravens ever leave the Tower of London, it will fall into dust. They keep some there in a cage because they don’t want the Tower of London to fall into dust.

Where they executed people

Buckingham Palace is where the Queen lives. The Queen has a dog, and I really like this kind of dog, it’s called a corgi. There is a princess and a baby princess. Every 24 hours, there is the changing of the guard. A giant parade, men on horses, a ton of men carrying guns and the whole thing is to change the guards protecting the Queen and the princess and baby princess.

We went to a museum and saw real mummies with bodies in them, real bodies. I thought it was kind of creepy. There was one real Egyptian person called Ginger, curled up in the fetal position, he had ginger hair that’s why he was called Ginger, and he was laid out under a stone and they brought him all the way to England and I thought it was creepy, too.

We took a tram like in a ski resort up into the sky to get across the Thames. It was a beautiful view. I took a ton of pictures. We also went to see a play called Wicked. It was very, very great.

Christmas Fairs in General

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:28:20 +0000

Christmas Markets are tiny shops that have tarps over them or some are board booths made out of wood and some are inside these tents that have a ton of tiny shops built inside. In Welshpool we got there the night they turned on the Christmas lights. They turned them on in the town center. We walked there and there was music and Santa was there! We got to see him. He was in the town hall under the stairs in a broom closet but they called it Santa’s Grotto. I think a grotto is a tiny house. While we were in line to see him, there was a dancing reindeer. Me and my sister danced with the reindeer. There was a candy store where we got a big cup of candy. We went to one that had only 10 booths and it was pouring rain, freezing cold and hailing and everywhere there were broken and ripped umbrellas, garbage cans of umbrellas, a shopping cart of broken umbrellas, broken because the wind was so strong it just tore them apart. It was windy and cold and hailing, that was the worst ever. We found a mall and went into it. It was kind of fun. It was warm for one thing. And it smelled like food. We went to Disney Store but it just had Disney stuff. We went to another toy store and it had a person who gave glitter tattoos. I got one, it was a penguin. We went to a Christmas Fair that was kind of fun. We all had some money to spend. It was in Nottingham. Nottingham is famous for Robin Hood, Robin of Locksely. I know he was pretty famous. It was back in the time of King Richard. We went to the forest he lived in, Sherwood Forest. We got to walk around and saw the great oak, it was an oak that had been alive for many, many years. It was kind of ugly. It had metal poles to hold it up because it was so old it was falling down. At the Christmas Fair in Nottingham, there was a giant slide that looked like a lighthouse. I got to go down the slide twice. It was pretty fun. Max got a sausage. My sister got hot chocolate, it had one of her favorite candies in it, a Flake Bar. It was all flaky and ground up and put into a bar. We stopped at a bookstore and there was a parade we heard but it came by and we missed it. We went to one Christmas Fair with my aunt Sara. She plays a violin in an orchestra. That was fun. We got to see her. It was cool and fun. We were in York. York looked old aged, like the middle ages. Stone walls, houses that were stone and brick and wood and painted white. While we were there, a flood happened on the River Ouze. The Christmas Fair was pretty fun. Aunt Sara bought us roasted chestnuts. I didn’t really like them. They tasted like potatoes to me. But sweeter. They had a slide there. My sister bought my mom a scarf there for Christmas. One of my mom’s friends told us to go to a pie shop there and it was actually pretty bad. It was not a sit down place and there were only three kinds of pie and they tasted bad, all of them had meat. I think meat pies are bad. The biggest Christmas Fair of all was Edinburgh! It had rides and tons of shops. There was one shop that sold really pretty cards, the cards were paper but it was like folded together so it popped up. When you opened them, there was flower bush or a reindeer or a heart or a ship or a ferris wheel. I went ice skating there with my brother Jack. I was really looking forward to ice skating. It was a big circle circling a building where you could go get hot chocolate or this stuff called mulled wine that is just like wine heated up. I got hot chocolate but my brother got wine. You only have to be 18 to have alcohol here. We got to keep the cup. My sister Annabelle, my dad and my brother Max rode some swings that were really high. I didn’t ride. I didn’t want to go. We went to see the light show, it was songs and music and a ton of lights, the lights were red, white and blue. All these Christmas Fairs were a little bit magical.

Castles, Christmas Fairs, Rain and Dr Who

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 23:26:25 +0000

Castles here are very interesting. They are quite fun and I had quite a fun time in them. But some parts are quite sad like war fields and battles and towers where people died. In one castle there was a display made completely out of thin wood and it looked like a merry-go-round and it told the story of a little Spanish Princess who married at age 11 to a 13 year old prince to soon become the Queen of Wales. At 13 she had a baby and at 15 she had another child that died at birth. She had 16 babies but only 6 lived. She came from Spain, a sunny place, to Wales, a dark stormy rainy every day place where the sun only comes out for 30 minutes a day and mostly it is just dark and if you were on the top of a castle, you would be blown away by the wind. She had a baby when she was age 20 and she was under house arrest when she was pregnant with her child and she had her child in prison and the baby died at 8 months old. That is pretty sad. At two of the castles, there was this game where you had to try to find stuff and you got a pin or stickers at the end, that was fun. In Wales, it was dark and windy almost all the time, There was only a few minutes of sunlight. The weather was rainy and dreary. It was mostly cloudy and rainy and if it was not cloudy, it was drenching rain like buckets being dumped on your head. We stopped at the store a long time ago and got nice rain jackets and a few days ago I got there really nice shoes that are like tennis shoes but waterproof and they match my rain jacket exactly. The wind is really windy here. We went to one castle when it was really windy. It was Harlech Castle. There was this one spot that if you went there you nearly got forced back. My dad took a video and it looks like my sister got blown away. My two brothers unzipped their jackets and the wind was blowing and it looked like a big giant marshmallow. We went into a hole that was sort of sealed off and it was dark. Every castle we went to had ancient toilets. They were big pits that leaded out into the moat. You sat on it.

We went to these Christmas Fairs that were really cool, they have ton of lights at them. We went to one that was where the book Alice in Wonderland was created. I bought a bag of chocolate there that was really good. It had a few long tents that were filled with tiny shops and there was a lot of cheese tasting. I liked that. Outside this church there was this guy who owned five or six owls. One was tiny and cute, I think it was an elf owl – could not have been one from the desert because it would be freezing cold. It’s freezing cold here. It’s warmer than Alaska but it is not warm.

We went to a Christmas fair in Cardiff and it was so windy that there were garbage cans of broken umbrellas and broken umbrellas on the ground everywhere. They were broken because it was so windy there. It was pouring rain. And then we went into a store and got an Advent calendar.

My mom & dad said they were going to give us a big surprise. They took me to a museum of my favorite tv show, DR WHO!
There was a museum and first you got to walk through an experience that made it felt like you were on the TV show itself. At the end, we got to go to a museum that had the real clothes from the show like the Doctor’s clothes, he was the main character in the show and he regenerated, and his companions, I remember everyone of them. The first one was named Rose. The very best thing was that we got to go there. It was really cool.

The Train Ride & a Castle

Sylvia DeCorso — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 21:46:40 +0000

We woke up really early in the morning, like 5am or something, to go to the train. We didn’t have any breakfast so everyone was really hungry. Mom made sandwiches but I don’t really like sandwiches. On the train, there was a cafeteria and a bathroom but the cafeteria was closed but in first class, they had food. So we had to eat sandwiches for lunch and I really don’t like sandwiches. The train took about three hours. It was night when we left for about an hour and then it started becoming day and then we switched trains. We got to Liverpool and we had to go to the bathroom but it cost 30 pence and there was a really long line. Liverpool was kind of ugly. When we walked around a mall and we went into a shop to use the bathroom. We saw a kit for a gingerbread house and I was thinking of buying it when we got our camper which was at a port. We walked to a dock called the Albert Dock and it had a lot of stores. There was a candy store on the dock and a store that was named after my sister Annabelle called Annabelle’s Accessories which my sister’s name is. After that, my sister and brother showed up. My sister and brother got to the dock because they came from John Lennon’s house. I don’t know who John Lennon is. We each bo ught a scarf and it was pretty. We walked about 2 miles to the camper and dad picked us up in our camper which had just been shipped. It took about an hour to find a place to cam p. We are camping at a beach with sand dunes and iron men made to look like this one man and there are 100 of them on the beach. They were creepy because they stand there and just kind of watch you. The next day, me and my brother and sister went out to explore the beach and we went way out really far because the tide was out and there was one iron man covered with barnacles and seaweed.

Before all this, we went to a castle back in our town. It was really fun. We walked around the dining hall and it was the castle where Queen Mary of Scots and her son lived and he made a coffin just for his mom, exactly of the perfect size of her exact face, eyes, dress and shoes. We went to where he made a building for his mother, because of her execution. She got executed by Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth chopped off her head. Before that she was in prison for 20 years. And there is a building made just for another mom, the oldest building in the castle and when the British attacked, they spared this one building. It was a tiny church. We saw the crown jewels of the castle. It was interesting. At the castle, we had snacks. My sister and brother had cake and my mom and dad had shortbread but I had crisps. Crisps are chips in Scottish. Later we went out to dinner and it was really nice. I got Bangers and Mash which means sausages and mashed potatoes. We were all really full. My brother couldn’t eat it all so he wrapped up his fish in a napkin and put it in his pocket and we called it a night.

Canada by Sylvia

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 00:13:56 +0000

The trip from Florida was fun. We got to camp on the roadside and we had a fun time driving and we finally reached our destination which was Canada! We went to the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tidal bores in the world. We got to climb around on caves and rocks and stuff. That night we reached Halifax. The next morning, the car broke down. We had to take it to the shop and it cost like $5000 (it’s like Canadian money is waaay cheaper). It took a day. We camped at a KOA. Once we camped at a KOA and Annabelle said they had a bouncy pillow and I do not remember the bouncy pillow because I was 3 years old. It would have been really great. I was probably not scared. I was hoping this KOA had a bouncy pillow. BUT it turns out it was DEFLATED for the winter. I felt sad. The next morning, we woke up and it was a really big rush because we had to go to the airport. Dad and Max dropped us off and we stayed there about 2 hours. We went downtown on a bus. When we got downtown we had to walk quite awhile to get the the beach where we met up with my dad and brother. We went to the Titanic museum. It had parts of the Titanic. It had stories about the Titanic sinking. The museum also had something about the Halifax Explosion where a ship blew up and it killed thousands and thousands of people. All in all, the museum was kind of depressing. Then we got pizza and we had a really big rush because we were going to miss the bus. We got to the airport and the plane started boarding. It was a 5 hour flight with TVs on it. We got to Glasgow and we had to take a bus here. It was cool. It had a bathroom. And first class seats. When we finally got to our flat, we settled down, watched tv and made dinner and walked around and went to bed.