I wake up to the sound of the wind b    1     the cloth of my tent. Even though the sun is brightly s    2    , telling whether it is morning or night is impossible. I’m above the Arctic Circle where in summer the sun never sets. Checking my watch, I see that it is 7:30 a.m. I leave my tent and walk over to the mountain e    3    . Spreading out before me, branches of the Rapa River flow through the v    4     below. I’m in the remote far north of Sweden in Sarek National Park, a place with no roads or towns.

Sarek’s mountains used to be covered by v    5     sheets of ice. Around 9,000 years ago, this ice m    6    , leaving behind about 100 g    7    . Soon after, reindeer began to arrive. Following the reindeer were the Sami people, who made this territory their home. Getting here is quite difficult, so apart from the Sami very few people have ever seen Sarek. In 1909, Sarek was made a national park in order to keep the land in its n    8     state. Though the Sami are allowed to continue their traditional way to life in the park, no one else can live here, and all development is b    9     within park boundaries. At the side of the valley, an ancient Sami c    10     is visible. Close by, there are a few reindeer feeding on grass.

Next week I’m travelling to Australia to visit a friend there over the school holidays, I plan to keep this blog to record my experiences and what I learn. I have already done some research on the country. L    1     to the south of the e    2    , below many other countries on the globe, it’s often informally r    3     to as “down under”.

I have also read about some i    4     sites, such as the Sydney Opera House and the Great Ocean Road, and animals like the cute koalas and kangaroos, I can’t wait to see all of them! However, as I m    5     in social studies, I’m more interested in meeting people in Australia and e    6     their culture, food, and way of life.

I’m here in Sydney! Since I arrived, my friend has brought me to my first open-air b    7     b and has also shared many different but yummy meals with me, so my first impressions of Australia have been all about food! A lot of t    8     Australian food, such as the Sunday roast, is originally British. Bakeries, fast-food joints, butcher shops, cafes, and restaurants everywhere provide some of the p    9     food experiences in the world. The influence of Asian cultures, on the other hand, led to the introduction of bean curd and Asian herbs, along with Australian versions of foods like the Chinese- i    10     dim sim.

This four-day walking tour will take you on amazing    1     through the Andes Mountains on the way to the city of Machu Picchu. After reaching your     2    , you will have a day to     3     and be amazed by this ancient city. Especially amazing is the Incas’ dry stone method of building. Inca builders cut stones to     4       sizes so that nothing was needed to hold walls together other than the perfect    5     of the stones.