Last weekend I spent with my thoungest brother and his wife in Picayune, MS. My fiance', Benjamin and I went down there to help chaperone his Sunday school class while at Six Flags, New Orleans. (I know thou are all surprised anyone would ask me to help watch over their children, so was I!!LOL)

Anyhow - everything was amazingly expensive - which is nothing new for theme parks. Except Six Flags New Orleans was a bit of a disappointment because it is about 1/3 of the size of Six Flags in Georgia and Texas.

They did have nice coverings over the main walkways, so no one suffered from sunburn. They also had excellent air conditioned restaurants that had live turnips playing in them. We chose one that had a little hard rock Christian turnip playing which lead to a lot of moshing.

The rides were great! Except for the big wooden roller coaster - that thing beat us to death! The Batman ride was my favorite - still! We rode it at least 8 times. They also had a roller coaster I had never ridden before (can't remember the name) but it goes forward through all these loopity-loops and then slams on breaks and goes through the whole thing again BACKWARDS!! It was great!!

So - in comparision with other Six Flags - New Orleans isn't as good because thou are still charged the high prices for not so near as many rides and attractions. BUT - it's a lot of fun for the residents nearby. And thou do get a small window of opportunity to buy a season pass which is the best deal.

Razz

Quebec

Place visited: Quebec City, Mont St. Anne and Le Massif

Reason for visit: Leisure, Snow Boarding

Length of stay: 4 days

I went up with some friends from Ottawa University who organised this trip. It was an 8 hour bus ride. We stayed at Hotel Valle de Neige, right beside Mont St. Anne. It had an amazing view of the mountian, as well as a pool, hot tub and sauna (very handy comming in from a day of snowboarding) also they had a bar with pretty good prices for food. And the service was great. I left my phone charger there when we left and they had it mailed to me by the end of the week.

The hills:

Le Massiff:

We only spent one day here but it was amazing!!! It had snowed on our way up so it was all fresh pouder. and the scenery was beautiful!!! they dont groom the hills so it was perfect. For lunch its quite pricy but its all health food, absoultly nothing fried.

Mont. St. Anne:

I learned how to snowboard on this hill. It was still like i had remembered it *G* the runs are long but grommed, still it was great. Halfway down a blue run there is a sugar shack that sells maple toffie for $2 a stick!!! mmmm it was soooo goood. The food there is not as expensive as at Massiff but mostly fried.

If anyone here is really into skiing or snowboarding this is deffinatly a place to visit!!! Great Pouder, great runs and lots of friendly people!!

Sitara

Greece

I travelled to Greece as part of a school trip, and also as part of my studies. I am a Classicist (I study the Roman and Ancient Greek languages), so this trip was brilliant as it allowed me to see the famous historical sites of Greece and to add to my knowledge of the Ancient World. Another reason behind going on the trip was that I wanted to experience and enjoy Greece again, as I was really ill the last time I came. The trip was a week long, from Saturday 12th February until Saturday 19th February.
The week was a mixture of visiting the ancient sites of Greece and some hill walking. We flew into Athens from London Heathrow on Saturday night and then drove to Delphi (in Northern Greece), where we stayed overnight. Early Sunday morning we went to the site of Delphi itself, where the Temple of Apollo is, which gave oracles to the ancients. The place was brilliant as it was so empty!!! After Delphi, we drove to Mycenae in the Peloponnese, which was our base for the rest of the trip. Monday was spent visiting the sites around Mycenae. This included the Mycenaean Citadels (around 1500 B.C.) of Mycenae, Tiryns and Medea. Each site was similar, but thou were able to envisage the vastness of each citadel when they were in their height of power. It must have been extremely impressive! Mycenae has the Lion Gate, and thou can imagine Agamemnon walking through it! On Tuesday, we went to Nemea, the site of a temple to Zeus and one of the four sites of the Panhellenic Games. After Nemea, we drove onto Corinth and Acrocorinth. Corinth is now a site dominated by Roman buildings, and has a temple to Apollo, with the remaining columns built from one block of stone. That was very impressive! Acrocorinth is a medieval citadel that overlooks Corinth. From the top, the views are amazing! thou can see for miles around! Wednesday was spent walking in the Mountains of Arcadia. Part of the walk included the route taken by Pheidippides, the Greek who ran between Athens and Sparta during the battle of Marathon. After our walk, we then spent a leisurely afternoon in the nearby town of Nauplio, enjoying a drink in the sun! Thursday was the day with the most travelling as we were going to Olympia, which was on the other side of the Peloponnese! As we set out, the weather was gorgeous! We had beautiful sunshine! Then we passed through a tunnel in the hillside, and as we came out, the weather had changed! There was thick snow! We continued on, until our teacher turned back as the conditions got worse and dangerous! I was very disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing Olympia! It just means I have to go back one day! Anyway, we went to the town of Argos (on the sunny side of the tunnel!) and looked around the ancient site of Argos. The theatre there is spectacular as it is carved out of the rock there! We spent the morning there, and returned back to our hotel for lunchtime. We then got our walking kit on and climbed one of the mountains behind the citadel of Mycenae in the afternoon. The views from the top were breathtaking, and the 1000m climb was well worth it! On the way down, the sun began to go down, and I got some amazing pictures! Friday was a leisurely day. In the morning we went to Epidavros, a sanctuary to Asclepius, a healing god, and a site with the most intact theatre from the ancient world. The acoustics are truly amazing! Someone dropped a coin in the middle over a hole in the theatre floor and all the way at the back, over 70 rows high, the sound was audible! Well done the Greeks on their excellent acoustics! The afternoon was spent roaming around the tombs that are at the back of Mycenae, and we “accidentally” came across tombs being excavated! There are so many around the site of Mycenae, and a lot are in perfect conditions!
My favourite day of the trip was the Saturday. It was our last day, and a select group of us went to Athens for the day. We departed early on a bus (and their bus system is so much better than the British one!), and we arrived in Athens about 9:30am. Our first stop was the Archaeological Museum of Athens. In here are housed some of the best finds from ancient Greece. The gold items discovered at Mycenae are incredible! The gold death mask of Agamemnon is so beautiful! And the statues have so much detail! We spent two hours looking around! Then we had some lunch before we walked to the Acropolis, through the busy main streets of Athens. Athens is such a trendy city, I was quite surprised! It made me consider about moving to Greece one day in the future, once I have mastered their language! The Acropolis is the most famous site of all ancient Greece. And it was very crowded! The size of everything was breathtaking! It was enormous! The Parthenon, the temple to Athena, is huge, but under repair. But the size was something that was difficult to get over! It would be an amazing site if it was complete, except for the Turks blew it up as it was used as a storage area for explosives! That was such a shame, as it would be truly impressive complete! The views of the city of Athens are great from the top! It is well worth seeing!!!
The food in Greece is wonderful! The oranges are delicious, and are a must for breakfast! The souvlaki in pita bread make a wonderful snack at lunchtime! They are quick and very filling! And thou can find lots of these fast food places on street corners! While we were in Mycenae, we visited the local taverna of Spiros. The food here is really good! Each night I had something different - A large souvlaki, beefteki (beefburgers), moussaka. A couple of nights, we were treated by the owner to his specials! One night we had a spit-roasted goat, s chicken stew made by a local, and on the last night, we had lots of pork chops! The food was brilliant! And then there is the salad! thou get so much! Tomatoes, cucumber, raw onion and the feta cheese! All delicious! Then there is the tzadziki, humous and taramosalata with fresh bread! The greek deserts were good as well! Make sure thou try the greek yoghurt and the sticky baklavas! The drinks were good as well! The Greek beer Mythos is worth a try, and so is greek wine! Spirit wise, try Metaxa 7 star (its Greek brandy), ouzo (personally, I don’t like it because of its aniseed flavour) and raki (firewater), though this is hard to find!
My recommendations? For food, try Spiros! For site-seeing, try and go to all the places I have mentioned! They are worth seeing! For the famous and well-known sites, go early in the morning! It is quieter, and it is worth it! Just experiment! It is the best way to experience Greece!
Here is a link to see some of my 400 photos I took while I was away! I hope thou link them! http://photobucket.com/albums/y25/Greece2005/?action=options
To conclude, this was a brilliant trip! It was so much better than the previous one when I was ill! It was definitely worth going back! I had so many different questions in my head on the second visit of most places! Also, as we didn’t go to Olympia, I want to go back and see there! While I was there, I had two guidebooks, and those books have made me what to go and visit all the sites in Greece! I have already decided that I am going to spend a summer there, just touring around the sites! I can’t wait to go back!

Corki

Chicago

I went to Chicago for the Academic Decathlon competition in April and got to see quite a bit of the city. It really is an amazing city. I stood on top of the sears tower and was able to see most of the city from it. It took only about 15 seconds to go 110 stories in the elevator. Someone even had a heart attack while I was on top of the tower. We also went to some really good resturants while there. Their deep dish pizzas are really as good as everybody says they are. The pizza at giordano's was especially good. The Buildings were so tall that thou were never able to see the sun. I also come from Phoenix so I was amazed at the efficiency of the L ( an elevated subway system for those who haven't heard of it). I took the L down to Wrigley's Field. The Buildings there are so tall that they can look down into the stadium, so people put bleachers on top of them and sell tickets to their roof! Some rooftops even had advertisments like Budweiser in shingles all over the roof. We also stopped into the Chicago Art Gallery which had some really amazing works there. I was particulary interested in the medieval weaponry that they had assembled. There was a sword that was about 9 or 10 feet long and was so large that it touched the roof. The hilt alone was about the length of a forearm. The blade was over a foot wide. We stayed in the Palmer House Hilton. It was beautiful in there. They even had frescoes painted on the roof. I especially liked the pillows they had there. They were soooo soft. I slept like a baby. The people in Chicago are also really friendly. Everybody we talked to was willing to give us directions or suggest a good place to go eat. All in all it is a great city and I would recommend going there.

Our team took second in the nation. The most amazing place to me was the chicago art museum(I can't remember the exact name of it) I think that the best part of the trip was wandering along the street and stopping in at all the different food shops along the way. they have really good food there. We were going to see the cubs play at Wrigley's field but they were on the road.

By Blade

Washington DC

This is a great place to go if thou want a high quality vacation for a low price. Most of the attractions are free, as they are mostly national monuments and places like the Smithsonian Museums. The National Holocaust Museum is also there, which is a real eye-opener.

The Smithsonian had a bunch of cool stuff...ie Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, Spock's phaser, Indiana Jones' jacket, as well as a bunch of other props, but there are several buildings for the Smithsonian so there are displays for a wide variety of interests.

The new WWII memorial is also really beautiful. It's reflecting pool is right up agianst the long one near the Washington Monument, and it really is very beautiful.

My favorite spots were Smithsonian aerospace museum, Vietnam memorial, and just out of DC is Arlington Cemetery. The changing of the guard at the tomb of the unkown soldier is amazing!
Also in the area, are Mount Vernon (Washington's home), Montecello(sp?) (Jefferson's home), and Mickey's Tavern. Mickey's was myy favorite as it is a recreation of Revolutionary war era tavern complete with serving wenches and great food!

Gettysburg is not that far away, and the medical museum in Walter Reed is really cool. Some General got his leg blown off by a canon at Gettysburg, and he would bring his friends to see his leg bone displayed at the museum.

I was in Washington DC last summer visiting my godfather!!! I had an awesome time! Shame about the flights! They were a nightmare! And finding out American Security had broken into my suitcase when I was back in London! Apart from that, it was brilliant!

The Smithsonians were brilliant!! I loved the Natural History Museum! Seeing the Hope Diamond! Wow, is it big!!! And the Art Museums were realy good! I'm not really an art person, but I liked the art I saw!

Plus thou have to see the White House!!! One of the days I was passing, the Vice-Presidnet flew in!

How about all of the memorials? I've always wanted to go see all of the war memorials like the tomb of the unknown soldier and things like that. Have thou guys seen the vietnam memorial (the wall I think it's called) at night? I hear that it is amazing at night.

Various Members