Londera!!!!!!!

Writing blogs are kind of like writing a journal. I have no problem writing a blog/jouranal entry as long as I don't have to write about anything super intense, like London. I will try my best. But between my blog and Taylor's blog you should be able to figure out enough about what happened.


We flew in to Heathrow Airport. When we got in to central London we met Tay and Dj who were just coming out of a production of Romeo and Juliet. We met them on the South side of the Thames river by Wagamamas. With Tay, Dj, And the Slovers by our side we, the Jacobys walked through Wagamamas big glass doors. I need to tell all the people who don't know about Wagamamas about Wagamamas. It is the biggest Asian restuarant that I have been to. Both in cases of HOW much food they give you and how many things you can order. I got the thing i usually order, Chicken Katzu Curry. After that we walked to the Tower Bridge tube stop and went back to our little Brockley apartment on the outskirts of town. We started the next day around ten in the morning. The first thing we did when we got to central London was get lost in the South Kensington tube station. Then we went to the Science Museum.
When the science guy was done we went over to Royal Albert Hall ans the Albert Memorial. Then we walked through the gardens of Kensington. When our stomachs ached with hunger we took Dj to our favorite restaurants including: Tazas and the Waffle House. Then we again went home to Brockely. I saw the play All is Well That Ends Well, Peter Pan, and the movie Coraline while we were in London. My sister and parents saw more plays, 3 about Afghanistan and one about intercity London. We also went the Imperial war museum which is one of Taylor's favorites. We also loved an interacitve exhibit at the Tate Modern where we got to tight-rope walk and try to walk up inclines. Tim SLover took us on a tour of the Tate Britain Museum. We reunited with an old Study Abroad student named Hyeku.

Ravenna and Co.

The Only fresco i saw.




The Monestary.



Ravennas famous stained glass windows. (in real life they look like blown amber.)


Jhon baptising Christ (mosaic)



One of William Blakes illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy


Today I woke up at six twenty-five to jaunt off to Ravenna. Second biggest comunne in all of Italy. It was a class field trip. Conected with the classes: geography, art and history. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics and is said to be the birth place of mosaics.

It is filled to the brim like any other Italian city with churches, cathedrals, and baptistries. And like any other Italian religious building it is filled with art. The most common kind of art you would find in an Italian church would be frescos. The chuches we saw in Ravenna had lots of the general art you see in other cathedrals. But no frescos. All the walls were covered in mosaics. Mosacics of Christ, the apostles, oh and they loved to make mosaics of birds and sheep.

We stayed in the city all day.(Until 8 O'clock.) We saw two cathedrals, one monestary, two baptistries, one orthodox church, and one (and not the only one) Dante's tomb.

Now let me tell you a little bit about this Dante guy. He wrote the divine comedy and many other poems. He wrote them in the Florentine dialect, which became the modern Italian. Which is why he is so important to Italians. He was kicked out of Florence and so he moved to Lucca, Pisa and later Ravenna where he died. When he died, Florence demanded his body back. They didn't get it. But that didn't stop them from building him a special tomb without any bones. This explains why the tomb in Ravenna isn't Dante's only one.

Today I Got My First Driving Ticket.

Today we went on an escapade to the downtown Florence ghettoes. Not just to admire their beauty but to go to a land, a land called Vigilandia. It's a bit like Trafalga except that the place was run by the police. It was a big obstacle coarse with bike lanes, pedestrian zones, and car lanes. The point of the game was to obey all of the traffic rules and signs while trying to get all of the plastic tiles around the course. Except, there were cops everywhere watching your every move. The people who work at "Vigilandia" all played parts in this educational game. Some drove Go-Carts in certain parts of the course, some were pedestrians waiting to be let across, and others were traffic cops. The reason we were down at "Vigilandia" in the first place was because of their (the kids at school) mechanic class. So they had all been studying what each sign meant. Knowing this I thought, that along with the detailed instructions and the fact that they knew what the signs meant they would be a safe bet. Because I didn't understand the detailed instructions, nor did I have tech (the mechanic class) like them, I followed along. And so when each individual was placed somewhere on the track I was lucky enough to get behind someone. When the whistle blew and the time we had to complete the race started ticking away I followed her every move. That strategy worked for about the first twenty min. Why I didn't stick with her is because: when I got back my ticket at the end of the hour all of the times I had been pulled over by the police I was with her. Luckily, after the first twenty minutes I realized, "she doesn't exactly know what she is doing. Does she?" so I left. Which was a good matter. Because at the end of the course when she showed me her tickets and I showed her mine she had been pulled over ten times. Yikes!

Galileo Galilei

Today we went to the exhibit on Galileo. We also saw lots of other works of astronomy by other cultures. We saw Galileo's telescope and his finger! In the flesh and the bone. I wrote this report about some of his discoveries. Enjoy!

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer Physicist, Mathematician , and
Philosopher. Born on the 15 of February 1564. He died on the 8 of January
1642. In Pisa. Pisa in those times was in the Duchy Of Florence. Galileo is known as “The Father Of Astronomy.” Stephen Hawking, a great modern physicist says that “Galileo, more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of
modern science.”.Some of the main things Galileo is known for are The Phases
Of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (which are
named the Galilean moons.),And the observation and study of sun-spots. Galileo was the favorite astronomer of one of the most powerful political families of his time. The name of the family was The Medicis. When Galileo finished his first major observation of the heavens he presented the lens from his telescope to Lorenzo the Magnificent, The Leader of the Medicis in the time of Galileo. He had it framed in a trophy of ivory and marble and placed in the Uffizi.(his familys private offices.) It was later dropped and broken. And so I end my Story of Galileo Galilei’s life.

Ciao Nonna!

Yea! Tomorrow my Grandma Terry comes to visit us. We are going to pick her up at the airport in Pisa and then come home. She is going to stay for two weeks. With her we are going to Rome, Pisa, Sienna. We are going to go to a lot of museums because it is free entrance this week! We will see The Accademia, Uffizi, Bargello and the Museum Of Archeology. At gym class on Saturday we played tennis which is my grandma's favorite sport. I had never played tennis before, but its really fun. And i got second place in the tennis game!! One thing I am really excited about though is that my grandma is bringing....
1. Peanut butter
2. Sunscreen
3. Books
and 4. Maple syrup!!!!
Everybody give her a round of applause

in the past

Last week Ingrid asplund came over from Germany. The first day she was here we wnt to the Duomo and the Uffizi gallery to see the Birth Of Venus. while we were at the Uffizi along with The Birth Of Venus We saw two paintings by Leonardo DaVinci and lots of Madonas. Later that week we went to the Academia to see Michael Angelos David. At the end of the week went to Siena to see some stuuf by a sculpter named Bernini who Ingrid likes. We saw the Sienese Duomo and the town square. In the town square there was a fountain called the fountain of joy. It was just a copy but it was still fairly old and very beautiful. It was a very beautiful marble fountain with stories from the bible carved onto the sides. There was also a faucet in the square by the fountaixn so you could drink water from the fountain of joy. The Sienese Duomo was also very beautiful. With lots of marble and stained glass windows. But along with the beauty it was a little gaudy. With green and white marble zebra stripes. Also in the Sienese Duomo was a library that a pope from pienza built in honor of his uncle pias the second. Pias the second was a great librainan and had a large collection of very expensive books that were going to be placed in the library. Unfortunetly none of the books ever made it into the library and now it is filled with extremely expensive and old chior books from the eighteenth century. Along the sides of the librarys walls are frescos of pias the seconds major events in life starting from when he went off to war as a young man and enading when he died ight before the sixth crusade against the turks.

San. Gigiminano

Today we went to the town of San.Gigimano. It is a small but popular town in central Italy. *History*. In Italy people started runing out of space to build two tto four storie bulidings so they started building them as great big towers. In Florence they made a law that these towers shouldn't be more than 20 meteres high so all the towers that were taller than that got knocked down to 20 meteres.the average hight for one of these towers was 60 meteres. It is one of the only citys in Italy with the original towers. Original hight stone etc. The tallest tower in San.Gigimano was fifty-four metres tall. Inside they had a small museum with a few paintings afew busts and some weapons and armour. We also climbed the tower and got a great view of the city as well as the Tuscan countryside surounding the small city. One of the busts inside the museum was of a teenage girl named St.Fina. At age ten she caught a very serious illness. she refused to stay in bed so she layed on a wooden table in the basment of her house for five years. After time her body started to bond to the board. Her flesh became food for rats and bugs. When she was buried Wisteria grew where she had layed. She died at the age of fifteen. When she died she bacame a saint imediatly because of her great faith. Sge was said to be the nicest person to ever have lived. Also in San.Ggmnano we saw a small cathedral. It had magestic frescos of stories from the old and new testament. In San.Gigimano we ate the world champions for gelato for the years 2006-2007-2008-2009. I got Rasberry Mint And Nutella. My mom got Pistachio, and Pear. Ingrid got Mango and Orange chocolate

6.3

this morning at 3:30 am in central Italy there was a six point three earthquake. near the city's of L'Aquila and Onna was the epicenter. Although the quake waves reached out to Rome and Florence more than sixty miles away. the quake killed at least a hundred and left one hundred thousand homeless. (we slept through it). yesterday we visited the town of Pienza only a few miles from the two most involved cities in the earthquake. we are alive and well. After shocks are likely. And we will see if our along waited vacation spot of San Gimignano is still standing. This is the first earthquake i have ever experienced. Although i slept through it it was very scary to hear about it through the English teacher and the news.

60 meteres up

today we had the unfortunate event of going to the old city of Fiorintina. Why was it unfortunate you ask? Well, we arrived at the museum at half past four. According to our book, the museum was supposed to be open until 6:30. According to the museum,it was supposed to be open until half passed one.(Never trust travel books when they tell you places are open). so we stood outside and admired medieval florence outside in the rain. Because we couldn't visit the museum i did some research on the old city. The houses that they lived in were called tower houses and were built at tops 60 meters high. Fiorintina started out as a fairly small city. One of fiorintinas countesses, countess matilda, had the walls of the city built to protect fiointina. Gradually, the city grew as it conquered more and more villages. But because they didn't have the money to build new walls they just tried to make the best of it. Soon the situation grew so bad that in order to build the houses they had to remove parks and forests etc. until the city was all buildings. Still it wasn't enough. Because the fiorintines couldn't build their houses over they built them up. they also built little enclosed balconies to the side of the house supported by wooden beams to supply as a waste room. They threw any kind of waste onto the streets from the balconies.(any kind of waste)(i don't think they took many strolls in the city). It was unusual for people to go out onto the streets very often because of enemy attacks.(rival families). So most of the people spent most of their time in the courtyard. The courtyard was a small square in the middle of the city with geese and grass. Probably like a small yard. Women and children were forbidden to leave the house because of the violence.

While we have been in Italy I have been to the Pitti Palace, Medici Palace, the Uffizi, and the Duomo. Soon we hope to go to the archeology museum. There are Etruscan ruins all over the hills by our apartment. My sister Taylor is coming to visit in April and with her we will visit Rome, Sienna, and Cinque Terra. I always liked pasta and pizza, but it really is so much better here than in the states. I had the best slice today at "Pugi's" which is famous for Easter cakes, so we just peaked inside to see them, but as usual don't leave without some snack. At my house here we just discovered that we have five tortises in our backyard and one is forty-five years old! Dad and him chat sometimes, being the same age and all. I enjoy walking to the library by my house in Italy because I love to read and we can rent DVDs to watch in Italian and English. My mom and I got a few good laughs out of watching Hugh Grant sing and dance in "Music and Lyrics," but could only get it to play in Italian (but after watching it twice we think we got the main idea and some good dance moves). If you need to share the amusement, watch link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvJw5OtpKc

i love lemons!

march 20-23

today (thursday the 20) we went to one of the Medici palaces called the Palazzo Riccardi. At the palace they had a chapel built into the palace because they liked haveing there own church so they didn't have to go out to another church with the commoners. But the Medicis did give a lot of the money to hire pepole like Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Ghiberto, to make the churchs and chapels. Something really popular with the palaces here is that they all have courtyards inside the middle of the palace so they aren't seen by commoners. Also a way you can tell a palace from the outside is that the windows are barred and twenty feet off the groung. They made there windows like this because they didn't want the same thing to happen to there palaces that happend to the statue of david. for those of you that don't know the story of the statue of david it is that the david used to stand in the middle of the piazza della signore until a mad "commoner" threw a bench at the statue of david and broke off its arm. Also at the palace they had lemon trees! I have allways wanted a lemon tree so this made me happy.

i welcome you gratefuly spring.

spring has hit fiesole and the tourists have started to gather, all of them thinking that they will come before the big crowds hit in april may and june when it is nice and warm. they think to themselves, "well, it may not be super warm but it will be at least 80." and right they were for the first few weekes of spring, but the springs here are very different then the ones at home in utah. i shall explain what the spring weather was like this week for you: monday:sunny. tuesday:sunny. wedensday:breezy. thursday:monsoon. friday:blistering bitter coldness called wind. saturday:snow. and the weather man on our small tv predicts in italian that tomorrow people might want to consider staying inside. the first two days of the week were lovly indeed. my school went on a teacher strike so no school monday. me and my mother went to the university where my father is working and had lunch with the partners group (the partners group is a group of some of the spouses that have significant others at the university). the following photos are from the last day of sunny delightfulness this week.

the week of 45 anni

march 15.
today is my papa' s birthday. we made a lemon cake in our very small oven. over the weekend there were many exciting events. the reopening of the piazza del fiesole which had been under construction for seven years. there was free food, marching bands, priests, and mayors. there is a new visitors center that shows the old etruscan and roman roads. everyone in town came to see the red ribbon be cut. the band played a lot of disney songs for some reason. we also went to a really cool antique market down in firenze. mom and I ate great street hamburgers (dad had sliced pig head). we hiked up to the top of the hill in fiesole and looked at the old church and the great views of florence.

A Taste of Tuscany

a day at the market.today we went to the central market, the main market in florence.we bought cheese,meat,dried fruit,undried fruits and undried vegetables. some of the meat tables got a little scary.we got tiny tiny clementines the size of golf balls.i found an exiting tree in our backyard today.while pondering during one of my bigest windstorms.from ten feet away it looked as if i could climb it easliy. but when i reached the touring albero(tree) i was displeased with my oponent. i realised this would be a little harder than i tought.i tried....footholds and handholds.but the albero was not going to admit defeat that easliy. my next idea was climbing on a stump. once again unsuccessful. so while knowing that that was the last safe option i sat for a moment at the base of the mighty albero. thinking out my gameplan.i knew a couple of things about this situation.A.no way would either of my parents help me up.my parents lived by a rule called"if you can climb it you can climb it" meaning i'm not gonna help you get up but if you can get up and down without my help i have no problem with you climbing that.B.i couldent let my mother catch me doing this until i was absalutley postive it would work.so walked over to the picnic table picked up an aditinol stump walked over to the tree with my second stump and placed it ontop of the other stump at the base of the tree. then i climed ontop of the stumps and lunged for the closet branch got up and down the tree alive.

ps it 's such a cool tree.

what i normally do every twenty-four hours

i say three sentences in italian, all of which are something like, non capisco-i don't know, si mangia mela-yeah i am eating an apple, capisca-i know. i sit through four classes in italian and one in english. i practice trying to make my hand writing look italian (all letters in capital and super simple, making my 4s looking like a question mark, and making my 9's look like backwards g's). in math i have been doing a lot of different things to try to figure out where my level should be. for PE we have played volley ball and a type of rugby. we do not have a lunch break, instead we eat a snack for 15 minutes. after school i walk home by the "casa di popolo- the house of the people" to buy a treat. i come home and usually watch lost, go to the library, or do italian lessons. most everything is closed from 1-4pm so we stay at home until 4pm, at least until the weather gets warmer. some of you guys said that we should go to school six days a week and i would like to advise you all that you would not like that system. how many of you guys want to wake up at 7:30am every day go to school get out of school at 1:30? be grateful for your M-F school week.

Another Pet?

My mom and I have found some amazing creatures in our new home. We did some research on these tile roaming bad boys. They are known as dust bunnies. Definition of dust bunny: A small clump of dust, fluff and particles of skin, hair, etc. that tends to accumulate in a domestic environment in places that are not dusted; reputed to be held together by static electricity.


In some regions of Britain, dust bunnies are sometimes called '''beggar's velvet'''.

A dustbunny cleaner has been invented. It consists of a robotic ball with an electrostatic sleeve that rolls about under furniture collecting dustbunnies and other material. A more cost efficient dustbunny cleaner is also in popular use within Northern America. (People call this invention a BROOM)

Dust bunnies have large digestive tracks that can smelt metals of various kinds, dust bunnies can leap over entire cities provided the wind is favorable and have been known to overpower electronics on frequent occasions. Reports say that dust bunnies have also been known to eat blueberry muffins while hiding in mufflers. The best thing about dust bunnies is that if your mom sweeps them up, they come right back.

sicilian oranges

the school bellhop man likes to bring us scicilian oranges.

his oranges are large,round and extra juicy.they come in big

wooden crates.i belive he has a farm down south west.

A discovery almost as important as
Amerigo Vespucci’s

There are a few things in life that at a point everyone
Must see or eat. these things are found only in London England, or so I thought. I will provide some of them 4
You. Big Ben, changing of the guards, lush the soap store, Borough Market, as far as eating goes…….
Tangfastics, chicken tika masala, blueberry shortbread, Beard Pappa cream puffs (strawberry) but not all in one meal. while pondering the surroundings of the duomo looking 4 the film store I taught I taugh a lush sign I craned my head a little to the left and sure enough on a small street hidin’ among the streets of Florence a small sized lush. i screamed the word ”LUSH!” and ran across the street to the small store full of soap wheels. while pondering I saw all the classics “honey I washed the kids” bath bombs goldys locks and chocolate soap. then in the glory and mist of it all I saw some purple, blue, white and pink jello. when about to reach out and eat a piece a employee walked over and asked me if I would like to try a piece. i looked at her and thought to myself a what do you think I’m doing lady and then, it hit me. i was in a soap store this jello stuff was soap and the employee was asking me if I would enjoy washing my hands with blue lemon scented jello. This wiggly giggly thing is now the closet thing I have to a pet. and don’t get me wrong she aint’ no muddy puppy.

carnevale

carnevale is one of the biggest holidays in the year for italy.

we went to a church carnevale party. jill my young womens

leader was a french maiden and i was minnie mouse...my costume made by an italian seamstress. at the carnevale party a man was going around with a big plate of foccattia and telling everybody to take a piece. finally i took one and underneath was a plastic piece of poo. we bobbed for apples and had a pinata. it was a gathering of all of the young men and woman in florence-there were about 50 of them. three who spoke english. we also went to a carnevale party in the city of florence the next day where we saw dancers and lots of costumes. there was a ton of confetti in the streets and kids loved squirting string.

this is a picture that i forgot to post on the last one

Buongiorno-school in a foreign country

today was the first day of italian school for me. they decided to put me in sixth grade, which means going to the middle school. in elementary school there is a uniform, but not for middle school. my parents were not allowed past the front door, so i was taken by the school "bell hop." he also brought me my lunch later that was delivered by my mom. i sit in the seat next to the door by a girl named cimalle, camilla in italian.
when the lunch bell rang i was shouted at in many exited italian voices,
then grabbed by the arms and swiftly shown around the school, only then did they realise that
i had not begun eating my lunch because i was being attacked and they all said eat
i ate about two bites, that was all i could manage because this is what the scene looked like
: my arms linked into italian girls and pe0ple of all sorts swarming around.
so you can i magine that i couldn't choke down much lunch. school started at 8:20 and ended
at 1:45. we have school six days a week monday-saturday. we have about 20 kids in my room. we stay in the same room and the different subject teachers come to us. we had three subjects italian history english and math. my best subject was english. tomorrow i have to bring extra clothes for "gymnastics." after school the cluster of girls held my arms and walked me outside. my mom was waiting and buying oranges from sicily from the school janitor.

Ciao, Kendall

asian adventures,airlines,and a bee"

today is Sunday and i just created my blog.Monday night at 5:30 pm my parents head of on Asian airlines which i personally think is kinda a lame airline name i mean if you got a whole airline to name why something so simple.of course there is Singapore airlines and American airlines but they fly to Singapore and America.i by far think delta is the most meaning full.they got it right when it comes to naming an airline it means "change" and your changing where your body and soul is living ,if you go from Provo to Washington which is the destination i will be proceeding before flying on American airlines to Italy you are going through a"change" any way back to my parents travels they will be traveling to Beijing china Bangkok Cambodia and a variety of other destinations.while they are on there travels i will be in the careful watch of my fathers mother
grandma"bee"(she gardens ALOT and it happens to be the first letter of her first name bonnie.)know let me tell you a little bit about grandma she weighs about ninety pounds but still thinks she is the largest living creature.she loves to garden and her passion is so strong that she is going to plant basil in a box while she is hear and if you ask her what flower is outside our classroom window she will no doubt tell you the name and i wouldn't be surprised if some scientific name that takes ten minutes to say comes out as well.she has a dutch mother and father but has lived in America her whole life.Christmas time for her was one present after Christmas dinner and all the hand washing of the dishes and a cup of droste cacao(it's dutch).she hates using a knife in the jam which she makes herself she always uses a spoon.she is veryVERY extremely frightened of germs she carries around of course lavender and uses it about every five milla seconds okay im exateratingbut you get the point.last but not least she is married to a guy who isn't my grandpa and has three very gigantic dogs but all of her sons and daughters are republicans but shes a hippy.(kinda)but all in all how could you not love her.





p.s. guarnteen you guys will all met her and no doubts you will all love her.