Imperial War Museum

At the imperial war museum front entrance they had a humongous naval gun that was used in the war against the Germans and the shells were bigger than me. When we went inside we saw a giant spitfire, harrier and a flying bomb hanging from the ceiling. This had me very interested and excited to see more. This was one place I had read about and really wanted to see. I heard about in the book grandpa's great escape read by Elly in class this year.  

We first went down to the ground floor and we saw a jeep that had been hit by an Iraqi missile with two journalists inside. The journalists survived. Next we saw a v2 flying rocket and then Connor spotted a tank in the back of the room so we headed over to see that, it was a Sherman tank. Then we decided to head up another level as dad had spotted a motorbike with a sidecar and a machine gun. It was very cool. Then we saw a truck that New Zealanders had used in the desert wars. After that we had a look in the second world war exhibition, it was cool and explained a lot about this war and new Zealand's part in it. There was a big section on world war one which I found really interested. We heard a story about a soldier who popped his head up once and didn't get shot however when he popped his head up again and shot in the head by two different snipers. We then walked through some trenches in the and there was a giant tank over the trenches which was very cool. There were lots of movies to watch and it was really interesting. Me and dad really loved it and for both of us it was our favourite in London.

The museum was huge, there were six stories. On our first visit we stayed 3 hours and then dad and I went back to visit again a few days later for another two hours. I bought a book on Nancy wake who was a NZ born woman who was a French resistance fighter and lived in Marseille and a 150 page tank spotters book about tanks.

                                               Huge naval gun out the front

Spitfire

Jeep that got hit by a missile

New Zealand jeep

 

Normandy/D'Day

Normandy is a Provence in northern France where the allied services launched the largest seaborne invasion in history. On the 6 of June 1944 is when thousands of allied troops spilled onto Normandy beaches trying to drive the Germans out of France. There were five beaches the allies were trying to capture. Omaha and Utah where the ones the Americans were trying to capture. Gold, Juno and Sword were the beaches the rest of the allies were trying to capture. The Normandy sites are spread along 120 km of coastline. I was tasked to find out which places to go to and why. These are the places we are going to go to:

Juno beach because it has a Sherman tank I want to see.

Omaha beach has the American cemetery dad wants to go to because there is 10,000 head stones.

Utah beach has the landing craft they landed in and the Utah Beach Landing Museum, the best museum on D'Day.

Gold beach has the Longues Battery where the Germans were shooting at the allied.

Caen memorial museum is a museum in France..

Sundial

In Roussillon I found a sundial. The first sundials were created in 1500 BC by the ancient Egyptians. The Romans and Greek refined this in 200 BC. It is based on earths movement around the sun. The times are written on the base and the shade shades the correct time. At first I didn't know how it works but I look at the instructions and that made it clearer but now days you could just use your digital watch. Sundials are a bit large to carry round as you can see in the photo.

American Tank

A tank in the middle of the street! I wonder what that's about?! It still lays where it was shelled by the Germans in WWII in the liberation of the Notre Dame de la garde on the 25th of August 1944. It was part of the three armoured American vehicles that took part. It's a hero of freedom here in Marseille. They did not want to be separated from it.

Food in France

Here there is lots of food from France and beyond. Lots of croissants, waffles and baguettes. The croissants tender, the waffles delicious and the baguettes fresh and yum. The super markets are also allowed to sell liquor like rum and whiskey. At markets the are pizza trucks that have massive wood ovens in them. They cook your bit of pizza right in front of you. The dessert numbers in the super markets are over powering. They have four fridges full of desserts. It's crazy, chocolate ones, coffee ones, vanilla ones, caramel ones and even yogurt ones. But one thing that we can't fing is Heinz aioli, they have Heinz tomato sauce but no aioli.

New Zealand vs Marseille

I made a timeline comparing Marseille history and New Zealand history over the last 2000 years. As you can see by this timeline Marseille is all along it and New Zealand is bunched up at the newer end of the timeline.

Question

So many differences to your life back in NZ! Do you think you would like to live in a big city and catch a range of transport to go places? What would be the advantages/disadvantages I wonder?

 

I do not think I would like to live in a big city because 

a. there are heaps of slow moving traffic jams

b. if the lift breaks down in your high rise apartment and you live on the top floor you would have to walk up a lot of steps, we live on floor 5 of 8

c. too many people in things like shops so they get sold out of the good things/things on sale really quickly.

d. A lot of car and people noise

e. feels different

f. not much grass and no backyard at our place

g. we are having to walk a lot (a real lot) and carry our groceries home.  It is a lot easier to have a car. 

 

Some advantages

a. a lot more shops and different types shops

b. lots of things to do and see

c. really good trains, busses and trams

d. big football and rugby games

 

 

 

 

Boulangerie

Today I went to the boulangerie.  It is less than 100 metres from our apartment.  You have to order in French.  You say “je vondrais quart croissants sil vous plait” to get four croissants.  It costs 80 cents per croissant.  Overall it costs €3.20.  Perfect. The croissants are soft and better than they ones in New Zealand.