Notice Anything Unusual??

In this short-but-educational video, Shawn takes a good look at the railroad track we will be traveling on to get to the top of a mountain in Switzerland.

Do you notice anything unusual about the track? 

Click here to watch the video then read Shawn's explanation of the difference between Canadian tracks and Swiss tracks, below:

"A Canadian train track goes like this: one straight line, another straight line the same size, and a bunch of little, tiny lines in the middle, which is the 'trapper' that keeps the train from falling in the mud if it's muddy.

A Swiss track is almost the same as a Canada track, but there's something different in the middle.  There are two straight lines, the same length, and in the middle a line and little bumps, pointed, that the gear under the train connects with.  And it's amazing that the Swiss train has gears on the bottom."

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT THAT IS CALLED, SHAWN?

He doesn't.  It's called a cogwheel train.  That would be something fun to research further...

A Child's View

After watching this video (click here), Shawn reminisced about what he was thinking the very first week we were in Dijon:

"I remember I felt like I was not living in the same place, and like I was learning a new language.  And I remember one thing: I was a little bit scared of what the robbers would look like."

Here are some more images of downtown Dijon, including the fountains (at their friendliest) in the Place de la Libération in front of the 14th and 15th century Gothic style Palais de ducs.

Measuring With Elephants

  

Click here to watch Shawn estimate the depth of the Cirque de Navacelles, a huge erosional landform in the south of France.

How many elephants deep do you think it is??

 

Ma Trotinette

We might not have thought to get Shawn a trotinette (scooter) had we been in Canada, but in Dijon  they are EVERYWHERE.  Kids ride them to and at our neighbourhood park, to and from school, they take them on the bus -- they are even allowed indoors in some areas, such as the downtown market.

We bought Shawn's from a sporting goods store called Decathlon, where the aisles are long and wide (even by North American standards!) and kids can try out the scooters and skateboards before they buy them.  Shawn instantly loved scootering, and he was good at it right from the get go. 

It is just one more way he managed to get exercise without a backyard to play in, and at the same time we as a family were able to travel more freely (not having a car).

 

 

 

 



Shawn quickly learned to run back down the ramps instead of sliding -- luckily for his winter coat.

Les Carottes -- Science in the Neighbourhood

Two blocks away from our house in Dijon, on the way to the tunnel that goes under the High Speed Rail (or TGV) train track, we discovered a very large garden with a single row of carrots.

The fenced-in yard of the house was quite big, and nearly all of it was tilled, but only one single row of lush carrots was planted.

We watched the stages of growth throughout our stay, and at long last could see some of the tops of the carrots starting to show above the ground.  They were green!



"this picshur is of me putting mi sord thro the fens to point to the carit pach."



The carrots never did turn orange.  They remained green!  Were they supposed to be green?  Or had they just not ripened?  (Annabeth says, "This is me and Shawn picking the carrots for the bunnies and deer and chickens."  Hmmmm... she has given us a clue to the mystery...)



 

"this is the carit pach."

We used this mystery as an opportunity to introduce ourselves to some neighbours, to ask them why the carrots stayed green.  Shawn recalls that they told us "the animals eat them."  You see, across the street there was a family that raised rabbits in their backyard, and they rented room in the garden to grow carrots for their rabbits.

And feed carrots (much like feed corn back in Canada), are different from regular carrots.  Mystery solved!

One day just before we left in mid-December, the carrots were all gone, and we knew that the rabbits had a tasty treat that night.




(We never did see the green carrots come out of the ground, but here is a hard-to-find photo from the Internet).

Bags of Flour

Hurray for Shawn and his lively imagination!

In Liverpool, England, we went to a museum and saw exhibits about the history of the shipping industry in this world-renowned port city.  Shawn was quick to incorporate his favourite part of the story into a game in our hotel room.  N.B. We're not certain the actual dockworkers fell down so much.

Comparing Neighbourhoods

Mommy: Hey Shawn, I found some videos of our neighbourhood in France, and our street here at home before we left Canada.  I thought it would be fun to watch them and talk about the similarities and differences...

 

SHAWN: The sidewalks are smaller and there's no boulevard. The garbage cans are different.  The mailboxes are on a post instead of on the house.  The fire hydrants are red and they're taller.  I like the sidewalks [in Canada] because they're flatter so I won't trip and fall.

Shawn says he was never allowed to run down the street in Dijon because it was too close to the road, and there is no grass in front of the sidewalk.  He likes the grass in case we fall: "We'll fall on the grass instead of the road."

In Dijon, says Shawn, some houses have back yards and some have front yards that are not sticking out in front of the house, so we can't see them the way we see everyone's yard in the video of our street in Canada.

"There are no cracks in Windsor houses, and cracks in all of France-houses," he adds.

"The ambulance is different than ones in Canada.  It was always on our street," we think, "because the ambulance driver lives at that house." 

We see walls all around in France, but never in Canada, he notices.

Shawn recalls a story: There was a not-so careful grandma with two little girls, and they were walking too close to the road.  One girl went too far into the middle of the road, and she was walking with her eyes not too open, and a bus was coming straight towards her.  And the bus driver slammed  on the brakes, and her grandmother came running to the child.  And the grandmother screamed at her!

What Shawn Took -- Lots of Transportation!

Hi Everyone!

Shawn Skyped with his class today, and there seemed to be interest in the trains Shawn has been on.  So we put together some photos of the many different forms of transportation that Shawn has experienced.

1) To get to Scotland, our first country here in Europe, Shawn flew on an airplane:

The chairs all have trays that you can pull down to use for eating.

We brought our own portable DVD player.

Shawn's mom sat in front of Shawn because we could not get seats for the whole family together.

Here is Shawn's sister, Annabeth.



Shawn has headphones on to watch a movie.  Not only is the sound of the plane very LOUD, but also, we don't want to disturb other passengers who are trying to sleep.

There are long, long rows of seats and the aisles are very narrow to walk down.

2) In Scotland, Shawn rode in a car.  Drivers stay on the LEFT side of the road, and they sit on the RIGHT side of the car, which is completely opposite to what drivers do in Canada.

3) We rode a double-decker bus in Edinborough, Scotland.  Shawn ALWAYS sat on the top deck.

4) We took the Caledonian MacBrayne Ferry from mainland Scotland to the Isle of Mull so we could visit a town called Tobermory.  Tobermory is where the show "Balamory" was filmed.  It is a famous kids show in Scotland.  We watched a lot of Balamory on YouTube before we left.

The ferry takes people and their vehicles from the mainland to the islands.

Goodbye mainland Scotland!

Shawn played games during the ferry ride.

Shawn took this picture of his family on the deck of the ferry.  Can you guess what the weather was like?

There are many staircases and levels on the ferry.  That day, most people stayed inside the cabins.

 

The next day, from inside our hotel room high up on hill, we watched the ferry load up and leave Tobermory.

This is Tobermory. Our hotel is the brown building up on the hill on the right.  It is not a pink castle.

 

5) We took the subway in London, England (known locally as "the tube") to get to the Tower of London.

6) We left London, England by bullet train, sped under the English Channel and arrived in Paris, France in just a few hours.

As you can see by the map, a lot of the trip from London to Paris is above-ground.  When you look out the window, it looks like things are going by a little bit fast; but when people outside watch the train go by, it looks REALLY fast!

7) Here in our city of Dijon, we take the bus almost every day.  We use it to go to the supermarket, the post office, downtown to play in the fountains and see special things, and to get to the library.

8) Sometimes we take the tram.  You can see a video of it on this blog.  Notice the fancy colour at the bottom of the tram: it is the same colour as currants, a fruit that grows in this region of the country.

9) In Switzerland, on our vacation, Shawn rode a train up to the top of a mountain.  The mountain is 4158 metres high, and is the very highest mountain you can get to by train in all of Europe, so it is called The Top of Europe!

10) To go straight up the side of a very steep mountain, Shawn rode what is called a funicular.  Can you think of any words that rhyme with "funicular?"


11) In Venice, Italy, the city built on water, Shawn had to take a water bus called a "vaporetto."  From the vaporetto, we saw police boats, mail boats and even an ambulance boat. 

12) He also rode on a gondola in Venice.  He loved it!

9) Shawn rides his trotinette to and from the park and at the skate park that is four bus stops from our house.  He always wears a helmet.  Do you believe that kids are allowed to ride their trotinettes inside certain buildings, like the market?  They even carry them on the bus.

13) While skiing in the winter, at the end of our family adventure, Shawn, his dad and his Grandpa rode a ski lift and a gondola up and down the mountain.  It is not the same kind of gondola as Shawn rode in Venice.