FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY

by adam and michael

Last summer, Michael and I went to Africa, headed back to Florida to explore the Keys and the Everglades, visited Antarctica where we settled war, Australia, and finally, Italy. When we first got to Kenya, we settled in a hotel and went on a safari in Kenya. What an amazing time we had!! We got up close to rhinos, lions and zebras. We even rode on an elephant!! That was uncomfortable!! Sleeping in our tents at night was a little scary, especially when we heard crocodiles and snakes hissing nearby. I never saw so many stars in the sky at one time. One star looked like it was moving really fast and our guide told us that it was a space station. How cool is that? 

The next morning Adam and I opened our eyes and the sun was shining, and I said, “Today’s the day we go on a trip to Egypt!!” So, we went on a wild trip to Egypt!! It was awesome!! There were tons of snakes. We went on a tour in some of the most ancient pyramids, and we actually saw King Tut, and a mummy of Potipher!! It was creepy!! When we walked near the Nile River, a Saltwater Crocodile lunged at us!! Fortunately, nobody got hurt, which was good. Later on, we toured around the Pharaoh’s house. It was big, but it was illegal to trespass, so we weren’t aloud to go in. I had a plan to try to sneak in, which ended up to be a really bad idea. When I tried it, guards with big muscles started to chase us!! They were threatening us, but we didn’t know what they were saying because they were speaking Egyptian. They finally caught us. They were about to locked us up when the Pharaoh spoke up. “Why did you trespass into my house?” Pharaoh asked firmly. “We just wanted to see what your house looked like on the inside”, we said. Adam and I were frightened, but I was grateful that he actually spoke a little English. “ You know what? I’ll let you stay at my house for the night, and you can have dinner and dessert. You can stay in my complex back bedroom. Pharaoh then told his guards (in the Egyptian language, of course) that we could be free. It sounded like they were questioning him. Then he said something that made them look scared, so they immediately let us go. So, we spent the night with the Pharaoh and his family and had dinner. We had a rattlesnake sandwich for dinner, and for dessert we had rattlesnake pie, which was good and filling. A Rattlesnake sandwich has honey wheat bread with chunky chocolate pudding. A rattlesnake pie is a crape with real blueberries, strawberries, and coconut shreddings, with caramel syrup and vanilla ice cream. They both are traditional foods from Egypt. We also had hamburgers. (Just a little hint: you never want to have an Egyptian hamburger!!! Not to be offensive, but it tastes like mud!!!) We thought that the Rattlesnake sandwich and Rattlesnake pie would be an actual rattlesnake, but it tasted awesome!!! We asked if we could stay for the night because it was getting dark out. The Pharaoh was nice enough to say yes. We stayed in the guest room, and it was SO BIG it seemed as big as the whole country of Egypt!! There was an indoor pool with a hot tub in it, and a waterslide that was three stories high!!! It was fun staying at his house, but we had to leave to explore more of Africa. We felt sad to leave. Pharaoh sent us with some leftover pie. He and his family told us to have a fun rest of our visit in Africa. 

When we left Egypt, we went to Madagascar. It was so awesome!! I think that there were more monkeys than people on that island!! They are really cool. The guide was holding a monkey and it was making noise because they make a lot of noise. We also saw lemurs, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, wildebeests, tons of species of snakes, and people that spoke French and Malagasy. That’s right!! Some people in Madagascar speak french!! Isn’t that weird? I also found out that Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world!! So it’s actually cooler than you think!!! The problem, though, was that it is very hot there. It was 113 degrees on the first day we got their!!! Can you believe that? When we went on our first tour in Madagascar, we saw a leopard chasing a gazelle. The gazelle barely got away, but the leopard was too fast for the gazelle. It was awesome, but I felt bad for the gazelle. Afterwards, a rattlesnake was playing dead, and a toddler went to see what it was. Luckily, she didn’t get hurt, but she was really scared and she cried. Once we saw a hippo fighting a crocodile!!! Both animals surprisingly did not died, but they badly wounded themselves. I never knew that Africa was so violent. After our visit to Madagascar, when we were on our way to the Keys in Florida, where we live, we visited the Everglades. We saw tons of crocodiles, panthers, gators, snakes like Diamondbacks, Water Moccasins, and Cottonmouths, sharks, bears, deer, otters, turtles, and hawks, Whooping Cranes, Great Blue Herons, Wood Storks, raccoons, and manatees. That’s a lot of animals!!! 

After that spectacular trip, which I wished would never end, we headed to the Keys. We went snorkeling after we checked into our hotel. While we were snorkeling, we saw a tiger shark!! It was scary but awesome at the same time. We went fishing and Adam caught a saltwater bass and I caught a gropper. We ate the fish and it was good. It was way better than that cheeseburger the Pharaoh cooked back in Egypt!! While we were there, we were in a boat out in the water when a huge squid swam at full speed to our boat!! It was so horrifying!!! I couldn’t bear to watch!!! Just as the big beast was about to knock our boat over, the squid spotted a really big fish, and went charging at it. We were so lucky!!! It was a sight not to miss!!! Anyways, we kept on riding our boat in the deep Atlantic Ocean. I did something really dumb and put my hand in the water, and I didn’t even know that there were millions of families of water snakes coming toward my hand!!! Luckily, somehow, not one snake bit me!!! It was a miracle!!!

Then, we headed to Antarctica, and it was so awesome!!! It was super cold, though. Since it was still summer, it was warmer than usual there, but it was still cold. It was cold to us because we lived in Southwest Florida. Along the way, we met this guy who said there were minion penguins who were out in the cold, who were out to destroy everybody’s homes, and the only way to survive was to hide with the Wisdom Polar Bears!!! At first we thought that he was crazy, but we were wrong!!! We found that out when we saw a woman being cornered by cute, chubby penguins with bulging red eyes. After we traveled for miles, we finally found the Wisdom Polar Bear’s homes, but they weren’t home, so we had to find them again. 

Finally, we found them!!! They were tough-looking animals, but they were kind and they had soft eyes, just the opposite of the minion penguins. They could talk and they were extremely strong, but the penguins were even stronger, so it would be very hard!!! When they heard about this, the Samurai Salmon united with the penguins, and the Super Japanese Spider Crabs joined forces with the Wisdom Polar Bears. The Super Japanese Spider Crabs came all the way from Japan to Antarctica!!! That’s a long trip!!! They said that they were going to fight for justice and freedom from trouble in Antarctica( by the way, the Super Japanese Spider Crabs were the strongest army in all of Japan, and they have always been allies of the Wisdom Polar Bears.) The penguins were the strongest in all of Antarctica, the Wisdom Polar Bears were second, the Samurai Salmon were third, and last was the Spectacular Shrimp, who used to be spectacular, but they have been around for so long they have become weak. 

Finally, the war started!!! There was no killing, but the animals were badly wounded. It was a tough battle to fight, even though the battle only lasted for 10 days. At first everything was going wrong for the Wisdom Polar Bears and the Super Japanese Spider Crabs, but in the end, they barely won the hard, short battle. We played just a tiny part in the battle. We made sure that enemies stayed out of our territory. The penguins surrendered and wrote an official apology. 

Next stop, Australia!!! We stayed in a nice and comfortable hotel. When we rode up to the second floor, we ran into Cody Simpson!!! We asked him what he was doing in Australia (he was born there), and he said that he was going to have a concert at the Sydney Opera House. He asked us if we wanted tickets, but we said no because we weren’t going to be here on the day of the concert. Then he asked us, “Aren’t you too young to be traveling the world by yourselves?” “Yes, yes we are”, I said. Cody was so excited when he found out that I was a Baltimore Ravens fan, just like him. He hung out with us for the whole trip. We also found out that his room is right across from ours!!! It was fun, but that epic week flew by fast. I felt sad to leave, but we knew that our final trip to Italy would be as fun as all the other trips we took. 

We loved the delicious food there. We were going to stay there for at least 2 weeks. I enjoyed seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa and having dinner with the Pope, but our last day was my favorite day, when a volcano erupted!!!! The lava flooded Venice, where we were staying. It was awesome but scary at the same time. People rushed out of their homes so that they wouldn’t be flooded by the lava coming their way. Buildings were wiped out. Luckily, no one got hurt, but now they lost their homes. Everyone was trying to run away from the hot lava, including us. We were lucky to escape just like everyone else. I had never seen an actual volcano before until that experience. That was my favorite part of visiting Italy. 

Next stop, home!!! That was the end of our trip!!! When we counted the days that we were gone, we found out we were gone for 5 months!!! That was the time we traveled from country to country.