April 2009 Archives

Hello people on the internet. This is Stefan and I'm going to tell you about my time in France. Our cousins, Casey and William, met us there and we had a great time with them. We started off in Paris, where we saw the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa, two very, very famous things. The Eiffel Tower is pretty cool and bigger than I thought it would be.
 
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, but a lot of people in Paris hated it because they thought it was big and ugly. When Paris got more advanced, they found out that it was a great place to put a radio tower, so that's what they did instead of tearing it down. The people of Paris, and the world, have loved it ever since. The Eiffel Tower is so big that it was the world's tallest structure until 1931. That's when the Empire State Building in New York was built.
 
We also saw the Mona Lisa, which is the very famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It was in a big crowded room with lots of paintings, but it was the one hung all by itself in the middle of the room with hundreds of people gathered around it. We got a good view. I was looking at it for a while and noticed that it was really pretty small. I was wondering why the most famous painting in the world was only the size of a cafeteria tray. Though it was small, it was still very pretty. I thought it was nice.

Hello everybody. I'm here in France, where we just arrived after being in the Seychelles. In case you didn't know, the Seychelles Islands are really hot this time of year and in Paris, it is pretty cold, so as you can imagine, we were really shocked when we got into the cold air.
 
In Paris, we met up with our cousins, Casey and William, who live in London. We went with them to the Louvre, a huge museum where the Mona Lisa is housed. We went through the Louvre until we saw a big room with a huge crowd of people inside, so we knew that was where the famous painting was. In the middle of the room is a huge wall that hangs this famous painting, the only one on the entire wall. There were a couple hundred people trying to see it at once. We eventually got to as close as you can get to the Mona Lisa, which is about 9 feet away since they have it roped off. It was very interesting to see since I had always heard about it and seen pictures of it in art classes. Now I finally got to see the real thing.
 

The next day we walked down the famous Champs de Elysees street to the Arc de Triomphe,which is a huge arch built to commemorate all of Napoleon's victories. It's a major landmark in Paris. It is in the middle of a major intersection and you have to walk underground to get to it. When we were leaving, it looked like they were starting a military ceremony in the middle of the arch to honor someone who died in battle. There was a big crowd around so we didn't see exactly who it was for, but we found out later that they do a ceremony there every night at the tomb of the unknown soldier, which is under the arch.
 
We left the Arc de Triomphe and took the Metro (which is the French subway) to the Eiffel Tower. I learned that the Eiffel Tower was built for the International Exhibit of Paris in 1889, which was a big Worlds Fair celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the French Revolution. It was supposed to be torn down after 20 years but instead it became a radio tower.

We had such a great time on the National Geographic Explorer as we sailed through the islands of the Indian Ocean. I had lots of fun with the people who worked on the ship. They were all great and two of my favorites were Mike Greenfelder and Dennis Cornejo, so that's who I wanted to interview. Mike was the Lindblad Photo Specialist on this trip and Dennis was the Undersea Specialist.
 
First, here's my interview with Mike Greenfelder:
 
Q: How old were you when you first started taking pictures?
A: I began in high school, but I didn't get really serious until I was 27.
 
Q: How did you get interested in photography?
A: I got really interested in underwater photography when I worked on Catalina Island and wanted to try to photograph the kelp forest there.
 
Q: What are you most interested in taking pictures of and why?
A: Wildlife in action interests me most since for me it's a challenge capturing something running, jumping, flying or swimming.
 
Q: Do you have any favorite photo tips?
A: You need to learn your camera and what all the buttons do and then practice, practice, practice. There are pictures to be taken anywhere, at home, at school, in your backyard.
 
Q: How did you get to be such a good photographer?
A: Practicing and being in great places and spending the time to take the photos.  For example, if you want to get great pictures of whales, you can't just take a one-day whale watch, you need to spend days and days with the whales.
 
Q: Did you go to school to become a photographer?
A: I didn't go to any special school for photography. I learned from my friends and from experimenting on my own.

We just spent two weeks on a Lindblad/National Geographic trip aboard the National Geographic Explorer. We were exploring "the fabled islands of the Indian Ocean." One of the things that made this trip so great was the staff. There were naturalists and specialists who knew everything about birds, plants, the ocean, and the islands we were visiting. There were also photo experts on the ship who helped us really learn how to use our cameras. There was even a National Geographic photographer on board, Michael Melford. Since I learned a lot from Michael and Guy Esparon, one of the naturalists who grew up in the Seychelles, I decided that for this blog I would interview them so that you could learn from them too.
 
So, here's my interview with Michael Melford, National Geographic Photographer:
 
Q: What is it like to work for National Geographic?
A: It's the best and worst job because I get to travel the world and share and photograph these wonderful things, but then the bad part is that I have children at home and I miss them.
 
Q: Is this your first time on a National Geographic boat?
A: No, I've also been to Baja, Galapagos, the Arctic, Antarctica, and Alaska.   
 
Q: What do you like most about photography?
A: My favorite part about photography is sharing all the beautiful things I see with millions of people.
 
Q: How long have you been a photographer?
A: 32 years
 
Q: What is the most fabulous place you've been?
A: I really can't answer that because every place is so different.
 
Q: What advice would you give to kids who want to be photographers?
A: My advice for everyone is to find what you love to do and find out how to do it.
 
Q: Do you have any photo tips for kids?
A: Yes, try and notice things with your eyes that you've never seen before and look at the world differently.

Hi everyone! Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you like it.
 
We were just on a Lindblad/National Geographic boat called the Explorer for two weeks. We got to go see lemurs and giant tortoises and even red colibus monkeys. We also got to go snorkeling and see lots of great fish.
 
The lemurs were so cool and this one small little island we went to called Mayotte, had so many of them. I got to feed the lemurs and get them to come on my shoulder. They are so funny because they have a face like a dog with a little wet nose and sharp teeth.
 
We also got to go see the giant tortoises. They are so BIG that you can ride on them, but I didn't do that. They eat a huge amount of food, like vegetables and leaves. I love giant tortoises because they are so cute and you can feed and pet them. They really liked it when you rubbed them on the back of their neck.
 
As you might already know, I love monkeys and on this trip we saw more of them.  We got to see the red colibus monkey in Zanzibar. They are called red colibus monkeys because of their fur color. Colibus monkeys don't have an opposable thumb, so they mostly do stuff with just four fingers.

Hello everybody, we are now in Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania, where we are about to board the Lindblad ship called the National Geographic Explorer. We are traveling in the Indian Ocean, where we will visit the fabled islands of Mozambique, Zanzibar, the Comoros, and the Seychelles.
 
One of the things we got to do a lot of on this trip was snorkeling. Some of the reefs here don't have the amazing colors like the coral in some other places around the world, like Australia, because a few years ago they had a lot of coral bleaching. This was caused by a combination of global warming (the sea temperature getting warmer) and the tsunami from four years ago. The fish are amazing though and they have some of the coolest colors I've ever seen. We saw tons of tropical fish.
 

Hello everybody. For now we start off in Amman, the capital in the country of Jordan, where we visited after Cairo. We found out that Jordan is MUCH less crowded than Egypt and it was sort of a pleasant surprise because you don't have so many vendors or as much traffic, so it really felt different.
 
The first thing we did in Jordan was go to ancient ruins in a city called Gerasa from the times when the Greeks rules this part of the world. The funny part about going there is that we ran into part of the National Geographic group that we were with in Egypt (and we ended up seeing them again in Petra). We toured with them around the Greek ruins.
 
After visiting the Greek ruins, we started on our way south to Petra. We stopped off at the Dead Sea, whish is the lowest place on the planet as well as the saltiest. The Dead Sea is so salty that you can float on top of the water and read a book. It's also so salty that fish can't live in the water there, so that's why it's called the Dead Sea.
 
By the time we got to Petra we were already asleep so we wouldn't see it until the next day. In the morning we started on our way to Petra, but before you get to the city, you have to go through a gorge in the rocks called "the Siq." We were on our way there and saw a bunch of caves carved into the mountain and later found out they were ancient homes.
 
The passage through the Siq is really almost a mile long and once we were in it we saw that on both sides are channels that water used to flow through to provide water to the city. After walking for about 20 minutes we saw the treasury building, which is the one you see in the Indiana Jones movie. But unlike in the movie, there is no city inside, just a big room with a few smaller rooms.
 
After the treasury, we went to a big open area where me, Stefan, my Dad and our friend Rob climbed up to a place where you could see all of the ruins. We did a lot of climbing while we were in Petra so we could explore all of the old buildings. We went on a hike up to a place called the monastery, where there was a large treasury-like structure carved into mountain that sloped down and you could see the whole valley from there. The way things were carved right into the rocks was really cool.
 
That's all for now!

Hi. I'm in the country of Jordan. In Jordan there is a place called Petra. Petra is a city that was built right in the rocks of a big valley. The buildings in Petra are made out of sandstone carved into the mountainside. The city was used for trading. People would go there and trade what they had.  
 
But before I get into the details, Jordan is also the place where Jesus was baptized and we went to the edge of the Jordan River and said a little prayer. It was really cool because water from the Jordan River was the water that the priest used to baptize Ty and me when we were babies.  
 

People have been living in Jordan for thousands of years. Petra is really, really old.  People started living there more than 2000 years ago. When you first walk to the city through a long pathway between the rocks called 'The Siq," the first thing you see is the treasury building. This is the only man-made carving in the world that was built from the top down to the bottom. It was done this way because they were afraid that if they did it from bottom to top, the rocks would fall and break the sculpture below. It's really not a treasury building because there was never any treasure in there, but when people rediscovered the city, that's what they thought. It was actually a tomb for a famous ruler.

Another cool thing about Petra is that the people carved caves in the rock and that's where they lived. We went in some of the caves and we felt like we were back in the Flintstone's age ... yaba-daba-do!

Hi people! I'm in Egypt now - land of the pharaohs, tombs, temples and pyramids. Egypt is a really cool place and I learned so much while I was here.

We were on a National Geographic Expedition tour, cool huh? We had the best guide ever. His name is Aki and he knew everything there is to know about Egypt. He made learning so much fun and told us lots of stories about the pharaohs and ancient Egyptian gods.

One of the first things we did was go to the three great pyramids in Giza. We took lots of pictures and looked at how huge the boulders were that they used to build the pyramids. Each of the 3,000,000 rocks were bigger than me!

Hello everyone. For this post, we start out in the city of Cairo in Egypt. This is where we met up with a National Geographic Expedition and were introduced to our guide, Aki, who showed us around Egypt. He was great and taught me so much about ancient Egypt. My mom was happy about this because ancient Egypt is something the sixth graders at my school plan to study this year.

First, we traveled over to the city of Giza, where the great pyramids are found. This city is built right up to the edge of the desert. The second you enter the desert, it is just nothingness for miles, with the exception of the pyramids. The closer you get to them, the smaller you feel. The first pyramid we went to was built for the pharaoh Cheops and it was HUGE - the largest of all the pyramids. There are three big pyramids here and in order to get a really good view of all of them together, we went for a camel ride on the sand dunes.