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London, England
May 12, 1999
Shakespeares Globe Theatre
This Friday night we are going to see Julius Caesar at the Shakespeares Globe
Theatre. The theatre is a smaller model of the original building that Shakespeare
held his plays in. The man who started the theatre was a Shakespeare fan and wanted
to find out what he could on the original theatre. He found the site where it had
been, but it was covered by a building, the closest space to the original site was a
parking lot, and land fill for the city. He raised enough money and spent the rest
of his life devoted to making the theatre. It was finished a couple years after he
died, and this September 16th will be the 400th aniversery of the first recorded play in
the original Globe Theatre.
Dad, Jessi and I went to get tickets yesterday and had the chance to peek inside. It
is designed to be as much like the first theatre as possible and 600 of the 1100
people have to stand in the front. Opening night is onTthursday and we have standing
tickets for Friday night.
May 3, 1999 Venice, Italy
As we stepped off of the train, I hadn't really expected to be met by boats
traveling through the canals. We came by train, and it was connected to the mainland
by a bridge. Our guide book says that the best way to explore the city is to walk
down the Grand Canal, and come back by boat. We started out, not really knowing
where we were going, but crossed the bridges and down the alleys to the plaza.
Lunch was sandwiches from the bakery and we ate with the pigeons. We went
into the a cathedral and then went down to where the canals met the open sea.
We decided that we should walk back to the train station so that we could get some
postcards on the way.
Tonight we will take the overnight train to Paris.
April 13, 1999 Beijing, China
A tourist trap? Yes. We drove off of the highway to a parking lot filled with
tourist coach busses, paid our fare, and we were in for a full day tour( which
turned out to last only one hour) of the only thing on earth that can be seen from space,
the Great Wall of China, which is actually a circle that isn't yet finished, but they are
still building a tower and another section of the wall. Our tour guide opted to stay
at the bottom, and laughed when we asked why he wasn't coming up.
The colorful flags that led us up the wall to the towers, filled with tourist, and armed
policemen, was a steep hike up, and rewarded with about the same view as the bottom.
It wasn't exactly what I expected, and a little too touristy, but it was still an
amazing experience!
Thinking that with out a doubt, we would get to see the other end of the Great Wall.
I enjoyed the tourist point of view of the wall, the pay toilets, and the souvenir
shops along the way.
April 8,1999 Going to Base Camp
Three and one half days, 5200 meters above sea level, in a jeep driving
up and down dusty, bumpy, curving, roads couldn't have been ended with a more
rewarding sight, the top of the world!
Mount Everest. We had been driving 6 hour days through Tibet's worst
roads. Not knowing if the clouds would be in the way or not, didn't stop us.
Three of ten people sick and one being the driver with a headache, didn't stop us
either Six hours into the 14 hour day we stopped at the monastery, picked up
our instant soup and yak butter tea waiting for us, and drove the next 15 minutes to base
camp.
We pulled up next to the cement building used for storage, and emergency
hotel, and set up camp. Sitting on the bottom of Mt.. Everest, we ate our soup and Tibetan
New Year's cookies, and talked with our new found friend, Russell Brice, about his up
coming trip to the top of the world.
He is bringing up five clients, plus his sherpas. He has climbed eight times,
and been to the summit twice. Russell was the guide for the expedition that took Rob
Hall up his first time. He hopes that the expedition will last 71 days, including
time to acclimate each step up the mountain.
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