139_3950.JPG We drove from Karlsruhe, Germany to Milan, Italy through Switzerland.  We did not stop in Switzerland.  The Swiss flag is the red one with the white cross in the middle. 

139_3961.JPG This is a Swiss Alp touching Lake Lucerne.

139_3965.JPG Another Swiss Alp.  On the grass on the bottom of the mountain you can see little Swiss houses.

139_3967.JPG A close-up of a Swiss building.

139_3968.JPG Our road went right along Lake Lucerne.

139_3970.JPG These are some pointy Swiss Alps. 

139_3975.JPG A waterfall triplet.  The first one is up high and kind of hard to see.  Can you find it?

139_3977.JPG At the cathedral in Milan we heard an American choir singing.  They sang in English and they were talking to each other in English without a British accent, so I'm pretty sure they were Americans. 

139_3979.JPG This is the inside of the cathedral in Milan.  It is the third biggest cathedral in the whole entire world.  I have seen the fourth biggest, in Florence. 

139_3980.JPG This is a mime.  A mime is a person who doesn't speak but can act as still as a statue or act out a story.  It was no use taking a video because this mime was very good at standing still, so we took a picture.

139_3981.JPG We took an elevator to the top of the cathedral.  Actually, we didn't go all the way to the top because they wouldn't let you get any higher than this.  This is the first place that Mariele got to go way up in.

139_3984.JPG This car is called a smart car. They are very convienent. A smart car holds 2 people, and it only takes up half a parking space so another smart car can park in the same space as it. I don't know why they don't have them in America, because they are so easy to drive and they don't take a lot of gas. These cars come in all colors. You can get them multi colored too!!!

139_3987.JPG I am in the National Museum of Science and Technology, in Milan.  They have a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit.  Leonardo da Vinci made a very famous painting called "The Last Supper".  This is a replica in the museum.  The original is in a nearby condo.

139_3988.JPG My sisters are in front of a glass-shaping wheel, one of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions.  The museum had a lot of his inventions.  These were built recently from his original drawings.  For the glass-shaping wheel, when somebody turns the handle, the grinding wheel spins and the glass plate on the bottom spins too.  That makes a spherical depression in the glass.  This could be used to make lenses. 

139_3989.JPG This was in the astronomy exhibit of the museum.  The glass sphere contains an actual moon rock that Neil Armstrong brought back from the moon.  They landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.  This was the first time that anybody had ever landed on the moon. 

139_3991.JPG In the background there are two old telescopes.  In the front, my sister Kylene is fascinated by the big pendulum.  It is called a Foucault Pendulum (named after its inventor, who was NOT Leonardo da Vinci).  This pendulum appears to change direction very slowly, over the course of a day, which shows that the earth is actually rotating underneath it. 

139_3992.JPG This is a bicycle they had a very long time ago, in the 1800's.  Before they had chains and gears, the only way to make it go fast was to make it have an enormous wheel.  So this was a racing bike, believe it or not.  This was very unsafe to ride.  It was harder to get off of than it was to get on! 

139_3993.JPG There were a lot of trains in this building.  We were able to find out how the steam from the boiler went into the piston-cylinders and made the wheels turn.  One of those giant piston-cylinders is right next to Kylene's elbow. 

139_3998.JPG This is a humungous boat that was actually used for sailing once.  This building was so big it contained many boats. 

139_3999.JPG This is an airplane.  It only holds one person, so it wasn't very useful for transportation.  It was used for fighting in the military. 

139_4000.JPG They had a lot of old cars in this exhibit.  This is one of them. 

140_4001.JPG This is a race car.  It is streamlined, which means its shape is designed to slice through the air without pushing a whole lot of air along in front of it.  This means it can go faster. 

140_4002.JPG This race car is powered on rocket power.  You can see the rockets in the back. 

140_4003.JPG This toilet was in the museum. The big black button at the top is what you push on to flush.

140_4005.JPG After the museum, we went on a very long walk in search of gelato.  We finally found it. 

140_4008.JPG This fountain kept changing where the water came out.

140_4010.AVI A video of the fountain.  Sideways. 

140_4011.JPG I carried my little sister Mariele a long distance on my back because she was tired. 

140_4012.JPG This toilet was in the hotel we stayed in in Milan.  If you look carefully you'll see five stars on the lid.  Does this mean we were in a five-star hotel, or just a one-star hotel with a five-star toilet?

140_4013.JPG This toilet was found in the Milan airport.  The way you flush it is to hold the lever and push down. 

140_4014.JPG This toilet was found on the airplane from Milan to Athens.  The room was so small I couldn't get the flusher and the toilet in the same picture. 

140_4015.JPG This toilet was at the Athens airport.  You push the panel on the bottom to flush and you push the panel on the top to stop.

140_4016.JPG This one was found at the Heraklion airport.  You push the lever down to flush and let it go back up to stop. 

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