My trip to Berlin, part 3: I learn about Jewish Berlin

As promised, here is my third and final post about my recent trip to Berlin. In this post, I'm going to tell you about some of the things I learned about the history of Berlin's Jewish community.

I told you before that sometimes history can be difficult to learn about because bad things have happened, but that it's important to talk about them nonetheless. That warning definitely applies to this post. Therefore, I would encourage you to read this post with a teacher, a parent, or an adult you trust. I'm not trying to scare you, but I do want to share with you some difficult things that I learned on my trip.

My trip to Berlin, part 2: I visit the relics of communism

As I promised yesterday, here is my second of three posts about Berlin. This post is about my visits to historical sites around Berlin that date from the time when part of the city was under communist rule. This meant that Berlin was under the control of the communist regime of the Soviet Union.

My trip to Berlin, part 1: I visit a lot of museums

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go with my new friend Maris on a trip to Berlin. Berlin is the capital of Germany. It is located in the eastern part of the country not all that far from Poland. Because Berlin has been an important city for many centuries, it has a lot of fun museums full of cool things for visitors like me to go and see. This is the first of three posts I'm going to make about my trip to Berlin, and in it I'm going to focus on my trip to Museum Island.

I watch the Olympic Torch Relay

It's a very exciting time to be in England right now! Everybody in this country is getting ready for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which will begin on Friday. The Summer Olympics are held every four years. Four years ago, in 2008, the Olympics were in Beijing, China.

It's tradition at the Olympics that a flame is lit before the games begin. Even during the original Olympics in Ancient Greece, a flame was kept burning the entire time that the games lasted. For the modern Olympics, the flame is lit in Greece and then carried by a relay of thousands of people to reach the place where the games will be held.

My trip to Belgium, part 2: Antwerp

The day after we went to Bruges, we headed on toward Antwerp. Can you find Antwerp on a map of Belgium? Like Bruges, Antwerp was a big commercial centre. Here, merchants traded everything from American sugar to South American diamonds. In fact, Antwerp is still a major port today. Ships can sail to Antwerp up the Scheldt River. Can you find on a map what sea the Scheldt flows into? Hint: it's the same sea I told you about when I took my trip to Scotland many months ago.

Here are some photos of me scouting out some of Antwerp's old buildings.

My trip to Belgium, part 1: Bruges

I just returned from a wonderful trip to Belgium with my new friends Alison and Duncan. We traveled to Belgium by train. When we got on the train in London, I was surprised by how big it was: there were eighteen carriages on this train! Can you find on a map how you would take the train from London to Belgium? You actually have to go underwater in order to get to the European continent from here. The train went south to Dover, then through a tunnel which goes under the sea. (Unfortunately, there was not much to see under the sea because the tunnel was very dark.) When we emerged on the other side, the sun was shining and the landscape was very flat, occasionally dotted with tall, thin houses.