Greetings from Australia!

The Flat Stanley's went on a tour of Australia! click on the link for more information on this wonderful country

Australia!

relaxing on Bondi Beach!

From the Sydney tour bus

a view from Sydney Tower

The famous Opera House!

Canberra, Australia's capital

Surfers Paradise - The Australian Gold Coast!

Flat Caroline and Flat Chelsea going to a land down under

In the absence of their cousins (Lost in South Africa!) , Flat Caroline and Flat Chelsea have been created and have taken over the globe trotting mission. They leave for Australia next week and will be sending photos back soon!

Lilly and Macy have gone AWOL

Well, the original Flat Stanleys (Flat Lilly and Flat Macy) have gone AWOL in deepest darkest South Africa. While we hope for their safe return from whatever adventures they are encountering, backups have been called in to continue the globe trekking journey to lands far and wide!.....

Austria! December 2010

We took the Staleys to Passail, a little village in the foothills of the Alps, near Graz. It seemed not in keeping with the story for them to travel by car so we comprimised and the traveled in the glove box. The ski centre is where our friend Veronika had her PE lessons when she was a child.

Hungary! December 2010

The following entries were written, and photos taken, by Jen Law

Boots in the window.
Télapó(Tél=winter, apófather)ie. Santa, leaves presents in boots left in the window on the 6th December (Saint Nicolas Day). Santa doesn't come on Christmas eve in Hungary, those presents come from Jeszuska (little Jesus).

Szeged Synagogue
http://www.zsinagoga.szeged.hu/en/index.php?menupont=history

Anna Spa thermal Baths & Anna Thermal waters
The doctor recomended to us that we take 50 litres of water from here to bathe our son in to help his exema, there is often a line of people at the fountain fill bagloads of bottles for both drinking and bathing.
The water comes from thermal springs mearly a kilometre underground and is said to cure and prevent all sorts of illnesses.

Waldorf-Steiner School
Lily is in 1st grade at the Waldorf school here, Children start school here when they are 6. They dont start learning to read and write in waldorf schools until they are 7 though.In first grade they focus on oral, visual and bodily expression. There is an emphisis on language learning through imersion; the first graders are learning English and Spanish. There also do a lot of handcraft and art. They ahve been exprerimenting with watercolour techniques and have been learning to knit. They even spin their own wool and made their own knitting needles from wood.

Szeged Market
There is still a very strong culture of fresh produce markets in Hungary, they built a brand new market hall in Szeged that was only finished in October. We do most of our shopping here and dont really need to go to the supermarket very often. We get all our fruit and vegetables here, we het fresh goats milk and cheese, eggs and meat, including szalami (salami) and kolbasz (long paprika spiced sausages). The stall holders are always very friendly and were very happy to meet the flat Staleys.

Hanoi, Vietnam

welcome to Hanoi, Vietnam! With a population of around 6.5 million it is the 2nd largest city in Vietnam. Several of these pictures were taken in front of the famous Red Bridge over Hoan Kiem lake. Hanoi has also been the capital for over 1000 years The building in the background is Thap Rua, or "Tortoise Tower", a 3 storey pagoda which was built in the 1800s. As you can see the streets of Hanoi are bustling with scooters and street food. Popular dishes include Bún, a noodle dish, and phở, a flat noodle soup. Hanoi is twinned with several cities around the world, including Toulouse, France, and Ankara, Turkey.


Many thanks to Ailie Brown for taking these photos!


Next stop - Hungary!