Versailles

The girls had two weeks off for term break this year after Easter, so the second week of their holiday we headed out for Versailles, France. We always drive and take the ever-efficient Euro Tunnel. Here we are driving our car onto the train for the 30 minute journey across the channel to France.

You just sit in your car for 30 minutes (you can get out and stand on the side if you want) and before you know it, your in France.



Here we are the day of our arrival, exploring the area and getting a peek at the palace.

Unfortunately, with loads of children we are not eating at the fancy, exclusive French restaurants with their fine cuisine like I would prefer. We eat at family friendly restaurants with plenty of room....never mind! Someday.....We still manage to buy enough of the lovely baguettes, cheese and pastries that one can possibly eat.  Some of my favourites include: fresh baguettes with a variety of stinky cheese, the lovely peach or apple sauce, pastries with almond paste in the middle (actually I could go on and on, so I will stop now).

Here are the girls in front of the palace at sunset. To the right, is a statue of the infamous King Louis XIV on his horse. Funny enough, the palace started off as just a hunting lodge built by King Louis XIII but King Louis XIV chose the site to build the grand palace we know today. It was an absolute monarchy at the time meaning the king had all power. I marvel at that thought. The château lost its standing as the official seat of power in 1789 but acquired a new role in the 19th century as the Museum of the History of France.

I think this one is just happy to be out of the car and running through the streets.

The next day we set out for our tour of the palace and fortunately enjoyed a nice sunny day.



Here we are in the famous "hall of mirrors." Built in 1678. The main feature of this hall is the seventeen mirror-clad arches that reflect the seventeen arcaded windows that overlook the gardens. Each arch contains twenty-one mirrors with a total of 357 used in the decoration of the galerie des glaces. In the 17th century, mirrors were the most expensive item to possess. The hall has inspired many copies and renditions all over the world.

The Hall of Mirrors is also where the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 11 November 1918 that ended WWI.

Alex out in front of the palace with very tired feet.



After exploring the palace, you then have to tackle the massive gardens. We really enjoyed walking through them, though not without complaints from the girls that their feet hurt. But to their credit, they kept on walking. 

Ah, if only this was our backyard...sigh*

Resting our feet before going to explore the gardens further.

Still resting....

Out on the huge ponds.

Sadie having a fit from being overly tired. Never mind, just strap her in and go...

We decided to "rough it" a bit this time on our trip. We did some glamping (glamorous camping, if you don't know). We rented a cabin with no Wi-Fi and no T.V. It was about as rough as this family can handle. We are all a bit delicate, I guess. It was fun though. The site had an outdoor swimming pool but unfortunately, on the day we had time to swim, the weather wasn't so good. There was table tennis and a playground as well as plenty of board games to do to keep us all busy. That day we also ended up just going for a drive outside of Versailles to see the countryside. It was lovely.  We were amazed at just how far the palace gardens reach. We drove to the end of them after what seemed like a half an hour of driving!

Here are the girls up in the loft at the cabin. The place had a great location. We could walk into town and go to the bakeries and supermarkets. Overall, it was a much needed break and a fun getaway.

Au revoir pour le moment la France jusqu'à la prochaine fois que nous vous voyons à nouveau ...

Harry Potter World with Sammy

Sammy read all seven Harry Potter books in less than a year (she finished them over a year ago)  and then watched all the movies. So as a reward for reading all the books (Thanks to Aunt Cindy for giving us ALL the books a few years back), Charles took her to Harry Potter World last week. I have uploaded all of the pictures and have asked Sammy to write the captions. Sammy: As you can see, it's pouring rain and here I am in the car waiting to go to Harry Potter World. I can hardly hold back my excitement!  

In this picture you can see 'wizard chess' pieces.

This is the actual set for the cupboard under the stairs! (everything in every picture was used for one of the movies)

If you look closely you can see the faint outline of the real Harry Potter glasses!

This is the Great Hall and you can see the set tables. When they made the movies, to fill the plates that filled themselves, they would stop videoing and fill all the plates with REAL food.

In most movies when things look like they are made out of stone, they are not. They are made out of plastering. But the great hall floor was made out of real stone otherwise it would not be able to hold up the weight of all the props and Hogwarts students. The walls are made out of plaster.

If you look at the costumes, the middle one was worn by the character Draco Malfoy in the actual movies!

This is Hagrid.

Dumbledore is making a speech.

Behind me is the "sorting hat" sitting on the stool as it would have done when it was sorting the students into the various houses.

Hagrid and Snape

Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore 

Boys' dormitory set

This is how they made the corridor in the leaky cauldron look very long.

This is the mirror where you see what you most desire. Harry saw his parents in this mirror.

It didn't work for me. I just saw myself. Perhaps that is what I most desire! Ha ha!



This is the Gryffindor common room with some of the costumes.



This is Dumbledore's office. Most of the books in his office were actually just phone books with leather covers.

This is the Gringott's vault door used in movie 1 and another movie (can't remember which other one).

This is the secret chamber door which only two people in the world know how to open.



Off to the right, you can see picture frames. Those are most of the pictures used in the movies. Some of the frames were just frames with a green screen in them to create the image of moving pictures.

Me and the Hogwarts Express on platform 9 3/4



Professor Umbridge's office. When painting the tiles for the wall, they had to use about 9 different shades of pink to create the look of the tiles.

This is the triple decker night bus where Harry stayed during one of the movies. I went inside and saw all the beds.

I am knocking on 4 Privet Drive door which was Harry's home for 11 years.

This is the Hogwarts bridge which was situated over part of the waters around Hogwarts.



Diagon Alley

I am at Ollivander's hoping I will get the wand that suits me....

This model of Hogwarts looks small but it is actually very big. This is how they created the illustration of the castle from the outside.

When I was there, they made it look like day and night. At night, they actually had light in the little windows moving from one window to another like someone was walking through the halls with a candle. In conclusion, I would recommend that you go there someday. Warning: I took three hours without sitting down to go all the way through it. I bought a poster for my room, some every flavour beans and the time thing that Hermione uses to get from one time to another.

Update on Refugee Projects

I wanted to update you on the refugee project I was involved in. We ended up collecting and assembling 200 food parcels for the refugees in Calais. A businessman from our church who had several vans for his business volunteered to take the parcels down to Calais. They were delivered on 18 February 2016. I was going to go down to volunteer in the camp on 5 March but unfortunately was unable to due to some serious unrest going on in the camp that weekend i.e. protests, police, rubber bullets, tear gas etc. In hindsight, I should have gone anyway because a small group of friends of mine from the church in Surrey went anyway that weekend. I was wishing I would have gone when I read about their experiences. So I still have not made it down to a refugee camp even though they are so close to us. I continue to follow all developments with these camps very closely.

In the meantime, I have begun some "personal refugee service" of my own. I found an organization called NataKallum (meaning "we speak" in Arabic). It is an organization for students of Arabic who they pair up with Syrian refugees for Arabic conversation sessions via Skype. You not only get to improve your Arabic skills but you get to help out a refugee(you pay them for the session) and make a friend. I was first paired up with one refugee, a professor who suddenly disappeared. So I was then paired with a second refugee, her name is Varty. She is from Aleppo (where I studied back in 1999) but is currently a refugee in Yerevan, Armenia. We have been doing our Arabic conversation sessions via Skype every Saturday now for a month. After each session, I can't help but get the biggest smile on my face. I am so happy to be back studying Arabic and especially in this way. It is so fulfilling. It has been something I look forward to every week. Varty is so friendly and patient with me (remember, I haven't cracked an Arabic book since 2003). She assigns me loads of homework during the week, which really helps. She and I are really getting to know each other and I love it.

I am also working on my second project for the refugees. I found a charity called GoodsforGood. I spoke with the founder and director about possibly doing a project where our stake would help fill a truck with donations and then sponsor the truck to take our donations to Northern Iraq and Syria where she has connections to aid organizations who would distribute our donations. I along with some members of our stake presidency meet with her this next week. I hope it works out.

I continue to Skype with my friend Areen. Remember her?

She is doing well. She has two sons and her elderly mother who she is still caring for. She has moved to the center of Damascus because it was too dangerous on the outskirts when Russia started bombing. She is working for an international micro-finance organization that helps people through micro-loans buy a cow or some chickens to help sustain them financially.

I have been helping her translate the minutes for some of her meetings about the banks in Syria and some of their contingency plans. It has been very interesting to learn about how the banks are coping during the conflict. I feel like I have all this inside information on banks in Syria but no one cares enough for me to tell. Areen and I Skype or message each other about once a week lately. She told me how women are really stepping up in the work place since very few men are around. They have been told to speak up and go after what they want. She likes the empowerment. She is doing so well compared to most people. She makes good money though it does not go far because prices for everything are so high. She and I call each other "sister." She is my sister. I continue to pray for her especially as she travels around Syria for work checking on the recipients on the micro-finance loans. She is an inspiration!

 Above and below are pictures of my other lovely friend in Syria named Sahar. I worked with Sahar in Damascus from January to May/June 2001 while I was studying with the University of Damascus in an intensive Arabic course. She is very intelligent and highly educated. She is currently living in the city of Homs and is working for UNICEF and her husband runs a lighting and bits & bobs shop since the electricity is such a problem. She and her husband briefly lived in a refugee camp because it was safer than Homs since Homs was hit very hard at the beginning of the conflict. I remember her emailing me that her husband was driving huge distances trying to collect need items for people in the camps and was in great danger. He was kidnapped for a while and she had no idea where he was. Fortunately, he was found (I never got the full story about it). Sahar's father was killed a year ago Christmas in the conflict. Homs is still not that safe of a place but Sahar claims that the center of the city is fairly safe at the moment. I am glad she has a good job and seems to be doing ok right now.