By Elizabeth Graeme

Hello Forks, this is Elizabeth again. Today I’m here to talk about what I did on summer break. Recently I came back from our post in Moldova (for those who don’t know, Moldova is a small country between Romania and Ukraine in eastern Europe). My dad got a month of home leave, so we decided to come home and stay here in America for the summer.

We arrived just before the 4th of July, which meant I got to be in the Forks Old-Fashioned 4th of July Parade again, and guess what? I got first place with my bike! They gave me a blue ribbon and we all got a little ribbon and free ice cream certificate from Sully’s too. My bike theme was “Fishing for the American Dream” and I was a fisherman. I also got to walk in the Fun Run and they gave me a medal for that too!

The fanciest thing we decided to do was to take the ferry to Canada because I’ve never been there before and because daddy wanted to take me to High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria! High Tea was interesting, they gave us these little tiered plates full of tiny foods. Some were sandwiches, some were little pies or tarts. There were lots of teas to pick from and hot cocoa for me.

Everything was on fancy china plates and we got to wear these tiny hats called fascinators that had feathers, flowers or nets on them. We also took a horse drawn carriage ride around Vicotria at sunset with a horse named Barney! The Empress Hotel was very nice, they gave me a stuffed moose and even lent us bikes so we could take a ride around the city.

But the fun didn’t stop there! The NOLS Library had a tide pool expedition in Clallam Bay at the Light House. We walked out over the tide pools and I got to see starfish, crabs, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea snails and some anemones. Because the tide was so low we got to see the psychedelic cave, there were so many colors there! Funny story, one of the urchins poked me! Its spine went right into my toe and boy did it hurt!

It was an amazing summer and I’m sad to go back to post, but I can’t wait to come back again next year! Thanks for listening.