Summer On the last day of school I thought to myself, summer is

here. Throughout the 2 days it was chaotic in my house

because everybody was gathering up all their electronics and

packing clothes that we liked. On day 3 everyone woke up

at almost the same time, everybody was rushing around

doing their own thing and

unplugging all electronics and

then suddenly my dad called

out, “We`re leaving!” We all

got into the car, said good bye

to Humbug and I thought it

was all very sudden. The

thought which was going

through everybody`s mind was; Brazil here we come!

On the way to the airport I was making

silly accents of different countries so

time passed very quickly. When we got

to the airport we

said good bye to

Anna and we went

inside the

terminal. First we

went to Frankfurt. The stop over there

was roughly 2 hours but we only

spent a few minutes in the lounge. We

were about to board when we saw the

biggest passenger plane ever, the one which has 2 floors.

We all thought that we would be going on that airbus, so

when my dad asked the man at the desk whether we would

be fliying on that plane the man said no, we would be going

on another plane !

We all felt a little bit sad but when we got on the plane it turned out to be a Jumbo so we all cheered up a little. When we got Sao Paulo in Brazil we immediately had a connecting flight to Iguassu. When we arrived in Iguassu we were picked up by a minibus and our tour guide, (Alex) and drove about 20 minutes to our hotel right next to the falls.

We arrived at a **** hotel called Das Cataratas. As soon as we got there we had a shower and then we set out to do the four hour Brazilian hike around the falls which made us very late! We saw Devil`s Throat;

one of the three biggest waterfalls in the world and we could stand virtually on the edge. I was so scared because the barrier seemed so creaky so I dared myself to look over: it was truly amazing. When we got back from the hike we were all tired and soaking wet,

so we warmed up next to the log fire. We woke up early the next morning to go to Argentina. The journey took about an hour and a bit in the minibus. We started the Argentinian tour around the falls and it

began to rain and it looked like it was probably going to rain the whole time we were there. This was so amazing to see all the hundreds of falls in the rain.

When we returned to Brazil we went on a fantastic boat trip which went under the falls. Our boat was red and the Argentinian boats were yellow. It was still raining but by that stage I had given up trying to stay dry so I just enjoyed it. We went right under the falls so we got really wet!! A frog could have swum in my shoes.

When we got back to the hotel we went to bed early because we were leaving at 4:30 a.m. to go to the Amazon Jungle. We left for the airport but this time the journey felt much quicker than when we came. We said a big good bye to Alex

who was a great guide! We boarded the plane, a Gol flight which was a local airline in Brazil. We went to Brasilia, the old capital of Brazil, for a stopover, and then we went to Manaus. When we landed in Manaus we had a 3 hour and 45 minutes‟ drive into the middle of the Amazon Jungle. We stayed on the edge of the Negro river in a lodge

called Anavilhas Jungle Lodge. It was pouring with rain when we arrived and it was late so we went into our little, wooden cabin. When we woke up we had a buffet breakfast which was delicious, I loved all the twenty different kinds of local, tropical fresh fruit that had been

picked that morningand all the exotic juices. The first activity we did was piranha fishing. Krishna took us out on a little, local, wooden motor boat and we fished with bamboo sticks. No one was successful, except my mum and

another person. When we came back my brother and I and an American guy who we became friendly with, swam in the warm, red Negro River. It was

simply amazing,.

After spending an hour and a half jumping and playing tag we hopped out and got ready for a marvellous lunch. After eating we went out with an awesome guide called Krishna who taught us all the jungle craft and traps. For water we learnt how to cut the hanging vines and blow into the top of

the piece of vine and watch the water trickle into our hands for drinking, surprisingly it tasted like normal, fresh water. At the end of the jungle expedition we saw a wild tarantula and a poisonous snake!!!

After the hike in the jungle we got ready for a breath taking supper. At around 8 p.m. we set out in a small boat on the Negro River in the total blackness of the starry night. We were all extremely excited. That night we

met an interesting American family. I am still keeping in touch with one of the children. On the night tour we saw caimans, rainbow boas, sloths, it was simply fantastic. When we came back we went to sleep in our little cosy cabin. The next morning we got up at about 4:00 to go by boat to an Archipelago to watch the sun rise over the 185 islands. These were not the kind of island you would expect, some of

them you could not even stand on them because they were full of snakes!!! The mangroves

meant that you could not beach the boat or walk on the islands. You would have to have saw and a poisonous liquid for the snakes” ha ha”. Luckily, we saw a brief glimpse of a rare pink

river dolphin.

Afterwards we had a very good breakfast and later in the morning we set out on a 2 hour boat trip going through lots of alleyways through and under mangroves and the guide spotted lots of birds and a boa curled around a tree trunk.

When we got back to the dock we swam in the swimming pool, this time for about an hour. After lunch we went out on the boat to a big city called Novo Airão. Apart from that city there was not anything even remotely close for

about 6 hours away. When we got to Novo Airão we visited a young lady who had rescued the pink river dolphins from being hunted and eaten! We also played with the dolphins, including learning about them and petting them. We learnt to hold their bottom jaws and drop the fish into its mouth and take our fingers away quickly to avoid them being bitten

off:/ After we walked around the simple and poor city. There were stray dogs everywhere and it was very dirty. When we got back to the lodge we spent our last evening taking photographs of everything we could lay our eyes on. The next day we said goodbye to everybody and left. On the way to the airport we met someone who was going to take us for a private, little tour. First we went to see the giant lily pads, they were MASSIVE. Then we went to see a huge anaconda which was on a house boat in the middle of nowhere and there was a cute sloth, which moved unbelievably

slowly. After that we went to an island to try to

catch some humongous fish with big pieces of wood with a string attached and a dead fish for bait. We stood behind the safety barrier and

gently dropped the bait into the water and waited anxiously for something to happen. When the fish did bite it sounded like an underground mine going off. The first time that I heard it I jumped out of my skin. We hopped onto the boat and drove for about 10 minutes to the place where the rivers

meet, at that point I had no idea what the meeting of the rivers meant!!

We were in the River Negro which was brown and had lots of debris floating in it. The guy said to put our hands in the water for some reason (I had no idea why!) we approached the line where the two rivers meet. We slowed down now, still with our hands in the water and we went from the brown Negro River to the dark blue Amazon River and it went from cold to hot; the Amazon was the hot one and the Negro was the cold one!! After all this we went to a harbour and got into a minibus and drove to Manaus airport to go to Fortaleza!!!

We checked in our bags and got onto the plane for Fortaleza. We arrived at about 10 p.m. and we loaded all the bags on to the roof of the car and set off for a 5 hour journey to Jericoqcoara (luckily, I slept through it ). About half way through we had to deflate the tyres because of the sand on the roads in Jeri. When we got there it was 3:00am and we scurried into our room and we went to sleep (very quickly ha ha).

The next morning we went to have breakfast. After eating we explored the hotel and found out about all the sports around where we were staying. (These were all the different kind of sports: wind surfing, surfing, kite surfing, sand

surfing and body surfing, horseback riding and buggy tours). I went to try and negotiate the price down for some of them and ask the details. After lunch (which we had out in Jeri) we all had a snooze. We woke up so late that that it was nearly sun set so we went to watch it on a very big sand dune. We spent about 2 hours playing and jumping off the sand dunes. There must have been 100 people max there: children jumping off the cliff onto the sand (including me and my brother) and adults either lying on the sand or watching the children play! On the other side of the hill there were people trying to sand surf (which I tried as well). It was really good fun and then when the sun disappeared everyone came running or walked down, even old people. This was the routine every evening.

After this my brother and I would run through the shallow water and sprint back to the hotel on our own. We met up with our parents in their room because they didn't come to the sand dune. We'd change and maybe shower and then go

out to eat somewhere in Jeri. When we woke up the next morning we had breakfast and we looked further into wind surfing (our first activity) and we booked a time for around 2:00pm. My dad said that if we don't have a snooze then we can't go wind surfing and so of course we went to sleep. When we woke up we were all exited it was only me, my mum and my brother who went

to have a lesson. We spent 3 hours in the water trying to get our balance and get the hang of it. We all had some amazing falls and surprises but most of all we had an amazing time! After a quick swim in the pool my brother and I went to the sand dunes and played with our local friends which we had made.

On day 3 we went on a sand buggy tour around the lagoons and sand dunes. Our chauffeur arrived with a new white buggy. When everyone had settled in their places we set off on a day‟s trip. About 10 minutes had

passed we arrived at our first lagoon were they had red seahorses which are very rare. We had a private tour around looking for the sea horses. The man who took us on the boat really wanted to find us a seahorse otherwise he didn`t get paid. Luckily, he found some and they were amazing to look at! We got back and we set off in our buggy again through little streams of water, some of them were half a

meter deep. We couldn`t go through right away because our chauffeur had to check if the water was too deep for out exhaust pipe and whether it was quicksand or firm enough for the buggy to pass safely. He did this by getting out and carefully treading forwards. Then we saw a typical fishing practice with a very long net.2 men stood on a ragged raft, 1 meter square, one man punting out to sea, and the

other was holding the middle of the huge net. It took about 20 people on the shore to pull it in and when they had finished we saw so many different kinds of fish and even managed to touch some.

When we were riding in the buggy again we arrived at a river which was a bit too wide and deep for us to cross so there was a relatively small little wooden barge with two people on it punting. It was quite a long way to punt. After this we got into the buggy and said thank you to the people, and we vroomed out of sight. We went through a tunnel of mangroves and just when we were about to get out of the tunnel there was a little coconut stand in the middle of nowhere with no one there which was funny. Next we arrived at old Tatatuba which was almost all covered with sand; all the houses were covered up to the top with sand and only a few houses were left untouched. There was a place which we had special coconuts which are not as hard as normal ones. First we drank the milk from a little hole they cut in the top and then when we had finished drinking they would cut it in half and

we could scrape out the milky, white flesh.

There was a green parrot which actually went up onto your shoulder and did whatever you asked it do. We drove about 10 minutes until we got to the 2nd

lagoon and there for the first time that day the rain caught us and all the sand got wet

which was a great shame because there was sand surfing there but when the rain came the sand got wet. Sand surfing is like snowboarding except there were no buckles, just

foam straps on the boards and I had bare feet. When the rain went away I still tried it but it was not good because the board wouldn`t slide. We had to move on because

everybody was hungry. So we went to the next lagoon and ate lunch. The tables were standing in the water which was extra cool. My brother and I swam under the empty tables and swung in the hammocks

which were also in the water. We watched the wind surfing guys having a party because there was a storm coming so there was a lot of wind and they were exited. We saw them do a lot of tricks and go very fast, but we knew that if there was a storm coming that we needed to go home quickly. We got into

the buggy and we drove for about an hour in the rain and because our heads were above the roof it felt like bullets hitting our faces. We got home and the rain stopped. When we reached the hotel we said good bye to our chauffer who was very nice and my brother and I went to meet our friends and then went to the sand dune as usual. Day 4 was a very calm day and we didn‟t do much that day. All we did was change hotel from a ** to a *****in the morning. The new hotel was Chilly Beach Hotel. In the afternoon we went to do a 3 hour session of wind surfing and we learnt how to turn and do some speeding for 2 minutes or so. When we finished our lesson we went back to swim in the pool and at 5:30 we went to the sand dune. After we went out to eat like we did all the other nights. We went to a restaurant named Chocolat.

On day 5 we went wind surfing and we learnt more tricks and turns and of course we had our falls.

After wind surfing we were half way back to the hotel when we saw a huge crowd of local people shouting, while looking up a tree. When we got closer we saw a little boy. no more than 12 years old, who was up the tree and throwing coconuts down for the restaurant owner to catch. When he had thrown about 10 down for a local restaurant he started to climb down and everybody was telling him where to put his feet. After that drama we went back to

the hotel and straight into the pool. We swam for about an hour and then I created a silly hair style and that was how it all started. Then Munro, my other bother who‟s 3, did a Mohawk and my other brother Max, who‟s 9, did a scruffy one. We did that for about an hour and then as usual, Max and I went to the dune

for sunset and friends. On day6 we had an even lazier day than day 4, which

was actually okay in the morning. In the afternoon we went to wind surf for the last time, which I have to say was the worst lesson of all. That was a really great shame. It wasn‟t good because there was so much wind. Okay, usually you would say, “Great!” that it was a lot wind, but not for beginners and especially in a tiny area which was between two sand banks. This meant that the water was only half a meter deep and there were families swimming in it. It was so completely crazy. The families were just lounging around being very lazy and this was probably the thought which was going through their minds: “Hey look there`s a wind surfer coming in my direction. What shall I do? I know, I`ll get a photograph to show just

how close they came to me and then I`ll have another beer”. Max and I had to get off our boards every 18 seconds because of the families, the depth and the size of the area we were allowed in. It was about the length of a normal kitchen with 2 beginners bumping helplessly into each other. It wasn‟t really a lesson it was more like obstacle

course with lazy humans. Luckily, it was only my brother and me so it was only madness and chaos but if my mum had gone at the same time as us it would

have been highly dangerous. When we arrived back at the hotel, we packed all the bags ready for day 7 and then swam in the pool. After Max and I did our usual tour to the sand dune and said good bye to all our friends, using gestures. I was sad to say good bye to my afro friend who lent the boards to me for free instead of charging me. We did the dune routine one last time.

On day 7, at about 10:00a.m. a Land Rover, a really extreme one, came to pick us up. We said goodbye to the people at Chilly Beach and set off for another 5 hour journey

back to the airport. When we had gone about a quarter of the way, we came into a series of

villages. In the middle of the countryside we sow a little moped with two men on it which was pulling a trailer behind with a huge speaker on

it which was so loud and it was blasting Party Rock Anthem with the volume cranked up fully. It was in such an unexpected area. We were all quietly looking at the countryside and then suddenly we heard; party rocking in the house tonight. After we overtook it we drove through some more villages where we pumped up the tyres and it was another boring and quiet 2 and half hours with no more parties. We arrived at the airport but only in the nick of time and we just made it to the gate when they were calling our names in the loud speakers. At last we were on the plane to Rio!!

When we arrived in Rio at about midnight we got to our hotel and went straight to bed. We all woke that night to a strange sound, it was like a siren I woke up first to find the door open so I shut it so no-one could hear the noise and then I noticed a bag had been moved to a different place and it was open. A few minutes later when everyone woke up I told them what I had done. The siren was still deafening and so my dad went down to tell someone about what had happened at the desk downstairs. When my dad and the man came up the man did something and the siren stopped, and then almost immediately it started again so the guy who had come up called an electrician to come and fix it. When the electrician came, this was about 20 minutes later; we could eventually go to sleep in the sound of peace. We woke at 9:00am because we had to go on our tour and our guide was waiting for us. At breakfast we were talking, mostly about what had happened last night. After breakfast we went out to meet our guide, Lois and drove into Rio for our first activity. We visited the end of the carnival road in Rio.

Then we drove to the funicular station and went up to see Christ which took about half an hour. When we arrived at the top it was packed. Christ was fantastic. Christ is a huge statue on the highest point of Rio and so y u can see it from everywhere in Rio. There was also a little church at the bottom of Christ. At the station on the way down we saw a really cheeky monkey, which tried to steal a man‟s hat.

We drove back in the minibus to Santa Terrasa, which was the section in Rio where our hotel was and the only place where there are

trams. We just managed to hop on, as it was departing the station. The tram was

packed, so my mum, Lois and I hung onto the rail on the side of the tram. It felt awesome, just like in the movies. After the tram ride we went to see the local shops in Santa Teresa. On the walls there was some amazing graffiti and street art. After lunch, which we had in local café, we went to see the

famous Salaron steps which are covered in his colourful tiles which he imports from many different countries.

Then we had another late night in Rio.

On day 2 we started the day by visiting the famous Ipanema area. We rode on bikes, which we picked up from the beach of Ipanema. About half way through our journey we came to a fish market which was so fresh that

that some of the fish were still moving. This was really upsetting for me; people were actually buying slimy, wriggling fish. We rode for another 10 minutes until we arrived at some huge sand castles made out of sand and glue. We saw about five different kinds. Then we rode to Sugar Loaf Mountain, and went up on the cable car. This was somehow an even

better view than from Christ. After Sugar Loaf we went down to the port and bought some delicious sardines from a local, little restaurant which we then ate outside on a little wall just by harbour. After lunch, dad and Munro stayed at the hotel because Munro had to go to sleep. The rest of us went to a favela, which is

an illegal shanty town made from bricks and rubbish. When we entered we were all walking down a little alleyway and we suddenly heard; “STOP, put your hands up”. I then saw that there were about 20 policemen all pointing

loaded Thompsons submachine guns at us. I wasn‟t stupid so I immediately put my hands up luckily it was only the guide who took off his shirt and proved that he was innocent. He did this by showing a special mark on his t-shirt. When we were there we saw a project called Morrinho which was started by a teenager, when he first moved to Rio. It is a 320 meter squared miniature replica of the favela made out of single bricks, Lego people and toy

cars. They film little movies using remote control helicopters and their hands. We bought one of the films and a shirt. After the favela we returned to the hotel and we told my dad about the police raid. I explained to

him what kind of guns they were pointing at us. He didn‟t like the fact that I could identify different types of submachine guns (ha ha). Day 3 started early in the morning. My dad and I went to the local airport in Rio to fly to Sao Paolo for the day. When we arrived, we were greeted by Ian, one of my dad‟s colleagues. We took a 20 minute taxi drive to

my dad‟s new office in Sao Paolo. I met my dad‟s other colleagues, and one of them took me out to have a huge strawberry milkshake. We went out to lunch and we chatted for about 3 hours. Finally, we finished and we had to go back to Rio.

Day 4 started with a visit to the local market which had all sorts of fruits. Then we drove for about 2 hours to the famous Botanical Gardens. At the entrance we saw Avenue of Royal Palms which is 750 meters long and has a

hundred and 134 palms in it and they all grew

from seeds

from just one tree.

There are more than 6,000 different species of tropical and subtropical plants and trees, including 900 varieties of

palm trees. It was simply an amazing place to be.

Next, we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. After lunch my brother and I climbed a huge tree next to the place where we ate. We left there and drove in the minibus down a hill to a deserted beach where there were the biggest waves I‟ve ever seen in my life. I think the waves got to 2 ¾ meters maximum. We went body surfing in those massive waves which

was probably the best part of our time in Rio. We had to rush back to meet a special person in Rio to take us in another favela to see different project. Max and I played with the local children at the school in the favela. Day 5, our last whole day in Brazil, Ian and Camil, friends of

ours from Sao Paulo came for the day. We went to the seaside to

a fair and there we had a good

lunch listening to a solo musician who played for the restaurant. After we went round the fair and played a little. In the evening we went out to an amazing restaurant. The walls were completely covered with almost anything you could imagine; skis, boats, anchors, dog

leashes and curtains. Day 6 was our travelling day (back to Switzerland). When we got to the airport at about 12 o‟clock, we collected all of our bags. We were all very sad to be leaving because we had had so much fun in Brazil. When we arrived in Geneva Anna was waiting for us outside. We got home at around 1:30 p.m. A friend from America called Ben, arrived 45 minutes before us on the same day. He was already at home, asleep. When we arrived he had a skin jumping surprise when we woke him up to come up to Verbier, with Anna. Later on that evening my mom had to go to pick up my Hungarian cousins from the airport at 8 p.m. and then drive to Fechy.

The next morning we had a very lazy morning as we were all extremely jet lagged. After lunch we went to play tennis with Ben, our coach from America. The next day our cousins arrived in Verbier. My brother, Max, got a huge virus and he was very ill.

The weather was terrible, so almost all the time we were inside watching TV and building forts with house materials. After lunch I played tennis but Max couldn‟t play tennis because he was too ill the whole time Ben was here, so I had lessons on my own (he he). We played Wii and watched some TV but they didn‟t understand

English well enough to enjoy it so we changed to a Hungarian movie and talked about what was happening in Hungary and what they were going to do while they were in Verbier. I told them that the first thing that we would do

was to go down to Martigny to do a labyrinth. There were also a lot of slides, bouncy castles and weird vehicles which were really cool. We played for a little bit after the labyrinth on the slides and bouncy castles but we had to return to Verbier because I

needed to play tennis. After lunch the next day, I played tennis with Ben as usual and after that we all went to play minigolf. There were so many different kinds of holes so it took us quite a long time to get around. The next day was our first sunny day so we went on the cable car up to Ruinettes and then climbed up the mountain to Cabane de Mont Fort for lunch. We were all about 40 minutes from our destination. I was in front with Levi, my youngest cousin. My other cousin, Mathe was behind and my brother was with my mum and our dog, Humbug. We assumed that Mathe was with them. By now the visibility was very poor because the clouds had suddenly appeared. The weather had changed completely in just 10 minutes. So when my mum came into sight we called out, “Is Mathe with you?”

They replied, “No we thought that he was with you!” We said, “No he isn‟t.” So we all started to panic, especially when we found out from my mum that he had last been seen walking up the rugged mountain in the wrong direction following two total strangers. So Levi and I totally freaked out and started running through the dense mist upwards screaming “Mathe, Mathe”. There was no reply so of course Levi and I started running to Cabane de Mont Fort like we were demented freaks! Time accelerated as our beating hearts sounded like angry drums. At last the silhouette of the Cabane came slowly out of the heavy, grey clouds. We ran inside to find him perfectly okay! Levi and I found this very strange so we asked him what had happened he said “I was with Max and Humbug when I saw you guys so I asked your mum whether I could go with you for the last bit she said fine so I started walking towards you. When I found out that I had been following to strangers I started to panic and I started to walk on my own. I could see the Cabane but now it looked much further than it looked before plus there was huge clouds descending lower and lower so I ran faster and faster”. To our great relief he was. When my mum, brother and Humbug arrived a storm arrived as well. So we told Levi and Mathe (who did not know anything about mountain crafts) them the rules on the mountain; you should never go without someone with you and never go in an area where you are not familiar with because you don‟t know where it

could lead you to. My mum explained to him that the weather could change from a wonderful, warm sunny day to cloudy, grey weather with no visibility in literally in less than 18 minutes. By now the clouds were so thick and the light so dull that we couldn‟t see anything at all. When we had finished our ham and chips my mum‟s phone rang and it was my dad reminding us that I needed to go to play tennis. Mathe and I left to walk down by ourselves. The moment we left the cosy, warm Cabane I realised how dangerous the situation was. I tried not to worry him so I pretended it was a normal precaution to rope us together and told him that all families had special words for communication. As he only understands Hungarian I came up with our family word (he he), fank which means doughnut. I told him that if you say the word or tug on the rope 3 times it means you‟re asking if you‟re okay, 2 times meant that you needed help and 1 time meant that I‟m injured. He enjoyed all of this thinking that it was a real life adventure. I was really anxious but didn‟t show it because he had already had a big drama that day. So for me it was a huge responsibility, especially as we only had thin jumpers and no way of communicating with anyone. We couldn‟t see anything in front of our faces; we could just see a small area by our feet. We searched for the lift for about 15 minutes. Finally we reached the lift which felt like a great relief, as we thought all of our troubles were over!!!! In my head I was celebrating that we were both alive. (hallelujah!) The lift man was a grumpy old chap and was about to close the lift but with some persuasion and a little

lying from me he waited until my mum and a 3 years old and 2 other 9 years olds. When Mathe and I got down to the village it was raining. So when we arrived at my chalet I talked to my tennis coach and he said that tennis was cancelled because of the rain. All of the dangerous life killing choices were for nothing (argh). That afternoon it was still raining so we played hide seek all around the house. We got so carried away with playing that we spent about 3 hours. That night we all went out to supper with Ben and my cousins to Borsalino. When we woke the next day we waited until I played tennis. Then we went swimming altogether and did flips and jumps into the pool. We played Marco Polo and sardines at home. We had a lovely, lazy evening eating marshmallows by the fire and had a good sleep. The next morning, after breakfast we played on the computers and watched TV. I played two hours of tennis. It was another fantastic tennis lesson like every other one. After tennis my cousins and I went down to the Swiss

Vapour Park, It is a models village with the houses the same height as me. We had fun riding on all the little trains. It was cool because you could sit on top of tiny little replicas and it felt really real (but in mini land). Before supper that night it was my responsibility to take Humbug out for a walk so I asked if anybody wanted to come, but as I expected no-one wanted to come so I took Humbug out by myself. On my cousins last day in Switzerland we went down to Martigny to see the Monet paintings at the Pierre Gianadda Foundation. It was really good fun to see all the original paintings of the really famous painter and learn his history. The next day was a sad day because my cousins were leaving. We weren‟t too sad because we would be seeing them soon in Hungary. They left with Anna and Munro at around 8:00 to go to the airport. They were going to fly back by themselves for the first time. Levi was looking at something in the Departures area and wandered off. When Anna, Munro and Mathe arrived at the gate they realised that Levi was missing so they started screaming their heads off, shouting, “Levi, Levi!” so the whole airport could hear

them. The man who was taking the boarding passes thought that they were completely mad and everyone else just stopped and stared. Around the same time as Levi and

Mathe left, we drove to Gestaad to watch the Swiss Open tennis tournament. Unfortunately it started to rain so we only saw part of a match. This was a great shame for Ben because he had been w looking forward to it so much. Missing the tennis was annoying but we spent the time filling ourselves up with lots of cakes.

So that was the fun part of the day. On the way back to Verbier we went to a restaurant to eat supper. When we arrived at home we went straight to bed. The next morning, while I was playing tennis my parents left to go to Italy. In the evening, Anna left with Munro and Max to go to airport to pick up Eli and Istvan, who come to stay with us. They were Hungarian friends of ours who came to help Anna to look after us while my parents were in Italy. When Eli and Istvan came it was about 10:00 o‟clock.

The next day Max went to school for the morning as he normally did. Ben and I did not have tennis that day so instead we rented dream bikes and went downhill riding. I loved it but as neither of us knew what the colour codes of runs meant, we just vaguely guessed. First, we went down the blue for some warm up runs and then we wanted something a little bit trickier so the red looked like the next step up. It turned out to be some mad run with extremely dangerous obstacles so we ended up lifting our bikes down the whole run. Luckily the bikes were quite light but we did carry them a very long way because we weren‟t prepared to take the risk of getting killed!!!* After this experience we learnt our lesson not to go down something where we didn‟t quite know what‟s round the next corner! The yellow sign had three zigzags so as the red had only one; we presumed that it would be super easy. We set off relaxed and happy and as you may have guessed we finished feeling battered, bruised and with scars all over our bodies. I went for my paraponting with an instructor. First of all I strapped myself into the

harness, and then he told me to run as fast as I could down the mountain. We got up speed and the parapont filled with air. Suddenly, we just lifted off the ground and I was flying for the first time in my life. It was so incredible to be floating over the whole of Verbier. On the flight I did 360 turns and a back flip. When we were about 50 meters off the ground and he pulled out a 5 franc and threw it onto the ground and we bet whether we could land on it or not. We could see it glimmering and I did manage to land on the coin but I stumbled and fell forwards in a heap then he fell on top of me! Later, I told Ben how exciting it was and he said he just had to try it. So the next morning he went up the mountain and tried it. After his flight he admitted that he had been too scared to try doing a back flip but he did a 360 instead and really enjoyed it. The next day Ben left for Berlin to meet a friend. Anna took him dawn to the airport, and we went down to our pool to swim and use the exercise machines for two hours. When Anna came back we all watched a movie together and went to sleep. The next day was August1st, the Swiss National Day. The street in front of our place was closed because of all the stalls! We went up and down the street and looked at all the different stands and the activities. That night there were some magnificent fireworks which was simply amazing. It looked like God was painting the sky.

We drove back to Fechy and met my parents who arrived from their time in Italy. We had supper with my gran and another cousin who was my gran‟s temporary carer. So that was nice. The next day we played hide and seek with my cousin, Jamie. We swam in our pool and we went up to Signal du Bougy tree climbing which was very good fun and then we had another supper all together. The next day we prepared for the last part of the summer holiday-Hungary!!! My mum had to pack the car and put the roof box on our car which was full to the top. We set off for a two day journey. We‟d been driving for a long time and by now everybody was hungry so we stopped at our usual café and there we had an American breakfast with

blueberry pancakes. We headed off again and later stopped for lunch. As it was my dad‟s birthday we had a picnic which was really good fun because we ate right next to a big dam and had a delicious pudding.

My dad said that if we didn‟t get a move on we would be late for the hotel. So we packed up quickly and set off again to our Austrian destination for that day. As soon as we got there we rushed out of the car to the playground I usually don‟t like playgrounds but this one is fantastic. There are two slides that are really long. When you look at it from the outside it looks boring but when you go down the slides it is such fun. We‟ve always stayed at this hotel. I‟ve been going to it since I was a baby. So it kind of turned into a tradition to go break our journey there each time on the way to Hungary. That evening we had Wiener schnitzel and some homemade ice tea for supper. We had a good night‟s sleep ready for the rest of the journey tomorrow.

The next day we woke up and went downstairs to have breakfast and after we went to the playground again for the last time. We continued our journey to Budapest. When

we arrived in Vienna, my dad thought it would be a good idea to look around. So we went to Schonbrunn Palace to go site seeing.

We learnt about the Austrian Hapsburg Empire and how it affected Hungary. We also looked at some outdoor toy inventions. There were different types of mazes, some were good but some were boring. We met up for lunch in a small restaurant next to the palace which was delicious. After lunch we had to push on because we still had quite a long way to go. We were heading for my grandparents‟ house because my two brothers and I were going to spend the night there. When we arrived at their house we spent time settling in. My parents left to stay in our flat in Abonyi while we visited relations. When they had left, Max and I went out onto the pavements and rode on electric scooters, which my grandfather had made us out of an ordinary pair of scooters. We had fun and rode them for a long time. We watched some TV and went to bed. The next morning we had a traditional Hungarian breakfast which had; salami, lots of the best Hungarian cheese, fresh bread and paprika. After breakfast we went on the scooters again. Later we picked fruit and veg from their garden for my grandmother to cook with for lunch. We had the typical cold fruit soup which was absolutely delicious. After lunch our aunt, Timi came to pick us up to stay at their place for two nights. We said good bye to my grandparents. My grandmother gave us a big load of her famous fresh doughnuts. So we took them to their place to eat. We arrived there, said a quick what‟s up and settled down to eat the all the doughnuts. We played Halo Reach on their x-box. Then we went down to their school which

was about a five minute walk away to play basketball with Mathe and Levi‟s friends. But when arrived down there it turned out that nobody wanted to play basketball so we played football for an hour. Then that got boring as well so we walked back up again. That night we got ready for a party that they had been invited to and we came along as guests. We walked over to the other people‟s house and when we arrived there we played hide and seek. Although it was a small garden it had several great places to hide and we played on the Wii as well. For supper we had tasty barbeque on the grill. The next day it was a special hunting day and as Laci, my cousin‟s dad was a hunter we went to it. We drove for about 2 hours over army territory. We saw bombed up tanks and a soldier running with a gun totally on his own, in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived there we went and looked around to see what there was to do and Laci signed in. The first thing we did was archery. I really enjoyed that we used real hunting bows and arrows. After archery we walked over to the range where they did clay pigeon shooting. Luci signed in to try with his own double barrel shotgun. Mathe and I were very keen to shoot so we asked Laci whether there was a chance for us to have a go. Laci went and asked the judges if it was okay for us to shoot after the competition. We had to wait for a long time so we did other stuff like archery again and ate lots of food.We also looked at the knife and trophy stands. Then it was Laci‟s turn to go clay pigeon shooting. We still had about an hour

and a half hour left to wait, so we went for a walk in the forest and we saw some wild pigs. In the mud there were lots of different kinds of animal tracks such as deer and pigs and we ate wild black berries off the bushes. When we arrived back Laci told us about how big the recoil was and where we had to place the end of the gun. It was an amazing feeling to shoot with a real gun. I hit the box twice and we had three tries. On the way back we all slept in the car (I really don‟t know why!) The next morning we had another delicious traditional Hungarian breakfast. Afterwards we had a water fight with water gun. We had great fun watering their dog, Bator. At around lunch time we were picked up by my mum and dad to go to our place in BALATON. It took about two hours to get to our place. On the way there we have to cross the ferry over BALATON Lake. When we arrived at our small hut we were invited over for a barbeque at our only neighbours. Our location was in the hills, roughly10 kilometres away from the BALATON Lake and in the middle of nowhere. We were all ready to walk over there when the wind came up. We helped to make a huge fire. Because there was so much wind and I was the oldest child I had to have a hose ready in my hands for safety. So whenever the fire spilled onto the ground or sparks flew I would have to hose the grass down quickly because it was so dry and we could have started a serious forest fire! We had a delicious barbeque for supper (yum yum). That night we slept really well on our comfy beds!!!!

We woke up the next morning and as the wind was really strong we flew our kites for a long time. In the afternoon we played football and explored our surroundings because we hadn‟t been there for almost a whole year. We were all up at 9:00 o„clock the next morning. We all sat outside on our deck and ate breakfast. Afterwards, my dad and my baby brother went out shopping for food and on the way they found a horse riding place. So we thought of going that afternoon. When we arrived there they had already prepared the horses for us. So without further ado we set off on our horses. It was only my mum, brother and I who came because my dad doesn‟t like horse riding! We trotted, walked, galloped and traversed through trees. As I am an experienced rider I was given the biggest and most difficult horse in the whole stable. This trip was a much better experience than the last time we went riding in Hungary. The next day we visited Tapolca, a town close by. The best bit by far was the fantastic ice creams (Yum Yum). I chose a blue one with red spirals going up it. I had no idea what flavour it would be, I just loved the pattern. We drank an ice tea in a nearby café. Then we walked around the town a little more, looking into the windows of different shops. The next day we were all fussing about whether or not to go Go-karting. Eventually, by late morning we made up our minds to go. It took around 40 minutes to get there. When we finally arrived we had to wait because it was

busy. When it was our turn we sat in our Go-karts and vroomed off, around the dust circuit. We went as fast as they would go so that our 5 minutes was used wisely. I was the last one to set off so Max had a big head start but in the end it was a tie, so no argument happened. On the way back we talked about getting a Go-kart for us but as usual it turned out to be a big, fat NO. On our last day in our hut I rode down to our little local village. When I arrived at the shop I went in and bought breakfast. I wanted to buy a local magazine about second hand tractors for sale but they didn‟t have one. So I waited until my mum came in the car to pick me up. That was the good part ;) of that trip only riding downhill. It would have taken me at least 55 minutes to ride up on my little, wretched bike. Earlier that week I went and asked Sanyi, who looks after the hut while we are away, about whether I could drive his tractor. He arrived and I sat on the tractor and he showed me where the gears and the pedals were and told me all the other stuff you need to know. I drove for about 10 minutes and thanked him very much because I thought it was the best part of my stay at the hut. The next day we began our journey back to Budapest to stay with Eli and Istvan again. We didn‟t get to Budapest until late because of the traffic, so unfortunately Eli and Istvan were waiting for us for quite a while. When we finally met them, outside the mall, they took us to see a Lego exhibition. It was amazing that teenage kids could do such a

thing. My brother Max (who‟s a huge Lego geek) had his mouth open the whole time. Afterwards we went back to their apartment and we watched a couple of movies and went to bed. The following day we went to the cinema and watched “Mr Poppins and his Penguins” in Hungarian. When we came out of the cinema our parents came to pick us up and we drove to Szeged. It was a very hot day. For lunch we had the famous Szeged fish soup. We drove to south of Szeged, to have a party, with my whole Hungarian family. First thing we did was to jump out of car and play with our friends. We explored the hotel and we found 3 of the cutest puppies on earth. They were a cross between a black retriever and something else. Then we had supper and after we went catching frogs with our bare hands until about11:00. Next morning we woke up and fished in the pond. Unfortunately, we didn‟t catch anything. Our time was running out at the hotel, so the whole family moved out. We had lunch in another hotel. We played a good game of hide and seek. Sadly, it was now time to head back to Switzerland. It took us longer that we expected to get to the Serbian border. They wouldn‟t let us go a cross because we didn‟t have one of the papers that they wanted but my dad managed to persuade them to let us through. The view was very pretty and there were no cars on the motorway. We were all playing on our I pods when all of a sudden we saw a car driving in the middle of the road coming straight for us,

which was a bit odd! Then we came off the motorway and drove over the mountains. It was a long drive along the Bosnian border to Zagreb. My dad used to work in Zagreb during the war. The hotel which we booked to sleep over on the way was in the forest above the city. The temperature was higher than 40° c. Luckily, our rooms had air conditioning which was a great relief. The next day we set off to find some new tyres. Then we hit the road to Champron, which was a semi-medieval town. We looked for a restaurant but there were only café s which was a bit weird. So we had some hotdogs instead and drove to our destination that day which was Verona in Italy. We arrived quite late at night and we went to a café for a drink. I played on my skateboard on the road in front of the café. Later we went to a restaurant, which my parents had been to when they were younger. It was very good in fact but there was a slight problem with the wine, but apart from that it was a great evening. After super we were all very tired so we went straight to bed. On our last day of our trip we looked around more of the beautiful city of Verona and then set off for our final DESTiNATION. We drove on a very pretty drive towards the Mont-Blank tunnel but when we arrived we had to wait a very long time before we were allowed to drive through. It was worth the wait to see all that snow in the middle of summer. It felt just like winter! It took us about one hour to get home and we all started to get very excited to be home so we ran in and that was it….