Our Trip Around the World

Some people take a trip as a part of their holiday traditions. So this year we decided to do the same thing. But this wouldn't be just an ordinary trip around the world - this would be one in where we literally touched 6 of the 7 continents, managed to squeeze in an outer space encounter, took a trip back in time and opened our eyes to things we might never have seen otherwise. The best part? We did it on a shoestring budget and still managed to have the time of our lives. Not possible, you say? Ahhhh, well let me introduce you to Holiday Folk Fair International.

We'll start our journey South of the border with an introduction to "Mexican Fiesta". Here is some traditional Mexican art work. The dragon has a wire frame and is a paper machete production. The smaller sculptures are done from tissue paper and wire. The paper is varnished and then shaped. And then it's varnished again. The colors are just extraordinary and it's hard to believe it's paper - it actually looks like a spongy, foam material. Below you will see some additional photos of the sculptures. You can click on any of the photos to make them larger for a better view. See the passports in the kids' hands? They collected about 35 passport stamps during our trip.






Our travels took us North and back in time to visit with the American Indians. Our guide for this part of the journey was from the Oneida tribe. It was fun to see how large a tee pee actually could be. Boy child was also enthralled with the prayer club, which would have been used as a war club in times gone by. It was an elk horn wrapped with fox fur. It was odd to see something so beautiful and know that it had originally been designed as a weapon.

Speaking of Indians, we also got some history lessons about the French-Indian War (also called the Seven Year War) as well as the Revolutionary War. Here the Colonial soldier (in the brown waistcoat) is getting a fighting tactics lesson from a French soldier. Because the French soldiers were trained for the Army as well as the Navy and the fighting tactics could be quite different depending on the battle location, the Colonial soldiers and French soldiers found it very valuable to share their training with each other in order to defeat the British. The strangest part of all was to find that it was only 12 years previously that the French and Colonial soldiers had been enemies instead of allies. I suppose that does provide hope for the future that wars can be put behind us and we can act together for global causes (we can pray anyway). Apparently the French ate pretty well while serving in the Colonies because the King had the foresight to send them with plenty of gold instead of colonial script. So they were able to purchase a good many provisions. Colonial soldiers, by contrast, ate whatever they could carry from home (bread, bannock, etc) and then whatever they could catch along the way. Looting from either army was frowned upon.


Ben Franklin even made his appearance to add to our education. And what Revolutionary War would be complete without the movement of the troops? We learned that the one room school houses of Historic America were very much like the home school room the kids have now - complete with rules and tests.


We then moved across the ocean and learned more about our Irish ancestors as well as were treated to some great scottish music and dancing - bagpipes, drumline, kilts and all. We learned about the Welsh tradition of love spoons - which while he doesn't have a sweetheart at this time was right up boy child's alley as he is into all things carved. We stopped into Italy for some Italian treats (which we took home for after supper). And we made a tour of Europe, girl child's favorite being Polish youth dancers.
She was in awe at the way one boy literally bent over backward and put his head to the floor while he danced using his hands and feet. (Break dancing a la Poland I suppose).
The children had Danish lessons and learned that there is more to being German than just coming from Germany and that Donauschwabens and Pomeranians are Germans too. Amelia learned that the Donauschabens have great struedel! They learned that there are 5 compulsary languages in Swiss schools (French, Italian, German, Romanish and English).


They played games with Latvian and Japanese animal sounds. The learned how to write a Chinese character. They saw their name written in Chinese, Korean, Thai and Japanese. They learned to count to 10 in Chinese.

They saw Christmas trees with traditional decorations from about a dozen different countries.
They ate Korean and Thai food for lunch and tried food from Eastern Africa.

They also watched Polynesian dancers.

They even got a small introduction to bonsai before the trip was over.

The other really cool thing was being able to touch rocks from all over the planet - and even one from outerspace. We literally were able to touch the world!

So while you're doing your own traveling this holiday season, I hope that your family has faces that look like this when all is done.