A Present from Sparky

Today there was a beautiful card and a present from Sparky and his owner Laura for us.


It turned out to be three small bottles with precious stones in them!


Aren't they beautiful??!
Next to a pretty blue one, there was a purple one, which is my owner's favorite color, and a green one, which is my favorite color. How cool!

Thanks Sparky and Laura!

An Evening Walk

A trip to Rome - Homeward Bound

On the sixth day of our trip we were lazy after all that sightseeing. In the morning we went to a park and enjoyed the weather while reading and drawing. We also saw this cool mushroom fountain.

In the afternoon there was a big thunderstorm with lots of rain so we spend the afternoon in our hotel. In the evening we went out for dinner, but I didn't take any pictures.


The next day we had to travel home again.


We started with an early breakfast.
There were all kinds of fruit and cereal and bread.


After breakfast we had a last walk around the neighborhood and bought some souvenirs. We also spotted this fountain.


A mini van came to pick us up to go to the airport where my owner once again got frisked, although not as thoroughly this time. Then we had to wait until it was time to board.


We were driven to the plane in a bus again. I managed to get a windowseat again.


While we waited for our plane to take off I saw other planes drive by on the way to the take off lane.


And then we were airborne again!
Look at all those clouds.


The clouds did make it difficult to see the ground, and I so wanted to see the Alps when we passed them.


The clouds were beautiful though.

And I managed to spot the Alps through the clouds:


Can you see the Alps??


There were tiny TV's in the chairs that showed clips of movies during the flight.


What a weird feeling to be watching TV while flying high above the world.

After about two hours we landed at Schiphol airport.
We were in the Netherlands again.


After a quick bite we caught a train to Groningen.
Our week long trip had come to an end.


My owner did get me this small statue as a souvenir though, so I can look at it and remember our fun trip to Rome.

I had an amazing week.

A trip to Rome - Beautiful sights, weird food and more

After our visit to park Borghese we walked around the city, did some shopping and took pictures of course.


We saw the Spanish Stairs with the Trinita del Monti church at the top.


I spotted an old building with a really pretty mural.


Isn't it beautiful?


After a while we wanted to relax for a bit so we went to Il Gianicolo, a part of Rome that's on a hill and that gives you a great view over the city.


We spend some time admiring the view and also had something to eat and drink.


It looked like there was rain on the way though.
All those dark clouds...


But as we had planned a visit to a church we were not worried. We'd make it inside before the rain started.

Yeah...
Not so much.


This is the church we wanted to visit.
Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte. A church dedicated to prayer and death. It already started to rain a bit when we got there, but we made it just before it really got nasty...

Only to find the church was closed!
According to the sign on the door it should have been open though. But then it really started to rain. We luckily could take shelter under a sort of bridge together with some other tourists. The downpour was terrible and we all had to crowd together to stay dry. Finally after about an hour it stopped raining and... the church opened its doors.

We had a quick look, but we were grumpy about the church being closed when we needed it, so we didn't stay long and didn't take pictures.

We then walked back to our hotel and after some rest we went out for dinner.


They did have some weird food at the restaurant:
greed pepper?


After dinner we took some pictures of the Santa Maria Maggiore and the square next to it.




We had a fun filled day.

A trip to Rome - Park Borghese

On day five of our trip to Rome we started with a visit to a park: Park Borghese. It's named after the villa that's on the park grounds and that was build for cardinal Scipione Borghese.

There were some cool statues.


I really liked this one.


This was my owner's favorite statue.


We also saw a small temple.


It had all kinds of animals on the ceiling.


Can you see the wild boar?


I spotted a fountain with rabbits on it.


And there was a lake with a mysterious temple on an island.


In many of the trees there were cicadas and they were singing.


What a beautiful sound.


This is a statue of Nikolai Gogol.


He was a Russian playwright so that's why the statue had a mask in its hands.


All in all the park was lots of fun.

Another Mail Interlude

I received more cool mail this week.


Our friend Eve send this beautiful card.


It also has beautiful stamps on the back.


And Katie send us a card and some cool stickers!

Thanks Eve and Katie!
You are both awesome.


And today I got this really fascinating looking book:
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.


It has beautiful and weird pictures inside the book as well!

I've heard many good things about this book and it's even going to be made into a movie by Tim Burton. I'm looking forward to reading it.

A trip to Rome - Moses and the Vatican

After we left the cemetery we went for a walk across town because we wanted to visit the Vatican.

And what did we stumble upon on our walk:


Remember that fountain we saw from across the street I told you we hadn't seen the last of? It turned out to be the Moses fountain.


Legend has it that this statue started frowning right after it was revealed because he didn't like how he looked, but I think he looks rather cool actually.


And more lion statues spitting water.
They really like lions here in Rome.


These lions are replicas.
The actual statues that were here are Egyptian and are now in one of the Vatican Musea.


Replica or not I really like them.


After more walking we found ourselves at the Tiber again and across from Castel Sant'Angelo.


This building was used by the pope to retreat to and stay save when the Vatican was attacked. There's a private corridor that the pope could use to get there.


On our way to the Vatican we spotted a statue of Saint Katherine.


And there in the distance: the Vatican.


And here I am on the square in front of the St. Peter Basilica!

We thought about paying a visit to the St. Peter and the Vatican, but there was a really long line of people who wanted to go inside and because the Vatican is its own country you also had to pass a security checkpoint before you were allowed in. It looked like that might take hours, so we just admired the Vatican from afar.