Socks visits England

          Today I would like to tell you all about England and what I did there. The highlights of my trip to England were visiting London, Cambridge and Audley End. I did many amazing things while in England, but these events were the best.

We decided we wanted to go and see the city of London, we hopped on the subway and headed in. First we went to see Tower Hill, where the Queen’s crown is kept. Then we went to Buckingham Palace. That is where the Queen lives sometimes. We wanted to see the changing of the guard, but sadly it was cancelled so, we decided to go to the Royal British Museum instead. It was very interesting because it had parts of the Parthenon on display. The Parthenon was a famous Greek building that was destroyed a long time ago. I had the best time in London.

This is me at Tower Bridge, right beside Tower Hill

Another interesting place we visited was Cambridge. We went to the Geological Museum and I saw the most amazing rock and fossil collection. My favourite was a big brown rock with tons of fossils in it. Then we went and looked at the shops and bought a souvenir. We saw Cambridge University, one of the world’s best universities. I think one day I will move to England and go there. I was starving so we had fish and chips for dinner, I have never had that before and let me tell you it was great - far different than Canadian bananas. Cambridge was a great place to visit and I would go back in a heartbeat.

This is my human Dad at the Geological Museum - he loves rocks!

            We also visited a huge house called Audley End. The house was built in 1603, that was a long time ago. First we went to the service wing where all of the cooking and laundry was done.  It was all very different from how we do things today. There was no washing machines or dryers and all of the cooking was done by hand.  There weren’t any mixers, bread machines or refrigerators, what would we do without those today?  Then we went for a tour inside the house, unfortunately we were not able to take pictures but it was spectacular. There were rooms full of books and they had the fanciest beds. It was such a big house it even had its own chapel. It also had a large garden where lots of fruits, vegetables and herbs were grown. That was definitely the biggest and fanciest house I have ever been in.

Me at Audley End

            England was a beautiful place and I think if you were to come here that you would absolutely love it. In my two week stay in England I have visited the most castles and been on more roundabouts than I have in my whole life. Even though there was a lot of windy roads and roundabouts, it was a gorgeous place to visit.

Written in monkey by Socks, translated by Meghan.

Hello from Iceland!

Just dropping in to say Hi!

Hello my friends! My name is Socks the sock monkey. I am currently travelling around the world with my human family Ally, Meg, Mark and Lisa - for a whole year. I will be sharing my travels with you through this blog and when my journey is complete I hope to come and visit you in your classrooms. 

Our first stop on our world tour was Iceland. Iceland is known for its geothermal hot pools, waterfalls and glaciers. This past week we explored these things and much more.

 

My human family!

One of our first stops in Iceland was a geothermal hot pool. Geothermal hot pools are like pools in Canada except they are warmed by energy in the ground. One of the main hot pools in Iceland is called the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is amazing because the water is bright blue. I could not go in the water because I did not want to get by monkey ears wet. My family told me that the pool was very warm.

 

I took this picture of the Lagoon while my family was slipping into their bathing trunks.

I chose a massage while Ally had a silica mud facial!

Another really popular attraction in Iceland is the stunning waterfalls. Since Iceland has many glaciers in the mountains, there are tons of waterfalls.  When we were driving along the coast we would see many waterfalls coming out of the mountains.  Some were just tiny but some were very big. One day we hiked up to the top of a waterfall, it was called Skogafoss.  When we were visiting the biggest waterfall in Europe, called Gulfoss, we saw a rainbow form from the mist spraying up from the falls.

The mist and rainbows. 

 

We hiked all the way up this waterfall!

As we travelled through the mountains we got to see many glaciers. Glaciers are layers of ice piled on top of each other that formed millions of years ago - in the last ice age. They are grey at the bottom because the ice gets mixed with rocks, and white at the top. Sadly we could not climb them because none of the spiky shoes that you are required to wear would fit my paws, but we did see some interesting blue ice at the bottom of the glacier.  At one stop we saw icebergs floating in the lagoon water at the base of the glacier. 

 

The icebergs were floating in faster then I could eat a banana!

The hot pools, waterfalls and glaciers are very popular in Iceland and if you plan on going to Iceland you will get to see them too. I have to catch my plane to England now. I will write again soon.

Written in monkey by Socks, translated by Ally.