Marco Polo

Marco Polo has influenced other travelers from his book that he later published. He was originally from Venice but actually spent a huge part of his life in China.  His story really starts even before he was born with his father and uncle’s travels.

Marco’s father uncle’s names were Niccilo and Maffeo. These two men were Venetian merchants. They ended up in war and had to find a detour route to return back home. From trying to find a different route, they were captured for three whole years. Fortunately they were rescued by Kublai Khan’s soldiers who got the two men to visit China with them before returning.

When they arrived in China they were warmly welcomed by Kublai and were treated like royalty. While they were visiting Kublai requested certain things that should be brought back to him from Venice. Two of the things that Kublai asked for were for the Pope to bring 100 monks and some holy water from Jerusalem. To please Kublai the two Polos did what they were told and went back to return to Venice to retrieve what they were to bring back to him.

Marco was now born in 1254. He might have been born in Venice but we are not sure. He was not living with his father obviously because his father was in China, so he was living with an aunt and uncle. When his father returned Marco was 15 years old and it was the first time he ever met his father.

Going back to what Kublai requested from Marco’s father and uncle it took them two years to complete this task that had to be done. They began their journey back with Marco this time in 1271 but it took them three and a half years to arrive in China. When Marco was tagging along with them he decided to keep a journal all about his travels.

All of the Polos were welcomed royally once again and Kublai ended up adoring Marco and actually sooner or later appointed him part of his council. Marco thought that the palace was so grand that he had to write about it in his journal.  As Marco was staying in China he started to notice some differences between Venice’s culture and China’s. First, there was no silver and gold being used for trade, it was paper money. Then he never had seen burning coal before because they might have not done that sort of thing in Venice. He actually described coal more like, “stones that burn like logs”.  

Marco liked traveling all over China and was very impressed by the Mongol Empire. At this point Kublai Khan decided to appoint Marco into his Privy Council in 1277. Marco did not decide to return to Europe until quite later because he ended up staying in China for a very long time. To be exact, the Polos stayed and served in the courts of Kublai Khan in China for 17 years. Marco eventually ended up being able to speak four different languages. As all of the Polos were staying in China they were accumulating lots of wealth.

Marco, his father, and uncle later decided that they wanted to return back to Venice after such a long time but they were very worried that they were not going to be able to return home or take the riches if a new Khan rose to power. They requested to Kublai that they wanted to leave China. At first, Kublai refused that they should leave. But, sooner or later he let them leave but they had to make an agreement upon their departure with Kublai. The agreement was to accompany a Mongol Princess who was on her way to marry a Persian Prince. They agreed and took the princess with them.

They were finally on their way back home but they had to stop at Persia so they could bring the Mongol Princess to her Prince. At first, they had 600 passengers with them, but only 18 survived. That shows that they probably did not have a very good trip back home.

They finally reached their destination in Venice. There were a total of 25 years that they were gone from Venice. They ended up having trouble speaking Italian at their home because they were gone for so long.

War broke out and Marco became captain of the galley ship. That did not last long because he was captured and was held prisoner for three years. Maybe to entertain everybody, Marco told all about his traveling stories to his fellow prisoners.

Peace sooner or later ended the war and Marco was able to publish his book, “The Travels of Marco Polo”. Many people nicknamed his book “The Million Lies” because very few actually believed in his amazing traveling stories. But Marco did insist that all of his stories were true and it did inspire other travelers later in history. He later married and had three daughters. He ended up not ever leaving Venice again.  He fell ill in 1323. He died in 1324 at his home.

Marco did want his book to lead other travelers to follow in his footsteps and be inspired by him. Marco’s wish did indeed come true because one of the most famous travelers in later history named Christopher Columbus made his own journey in 1492 and he had Marco’s book with him.

St. Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi was born in 1182 into a very wealthy family. He lived mostly a carefree life but later that changed completely. He was the founder of the Franciscan Order. He faced lots of changes in his life after a certain chain of events.

When he was older he went into the military, but unfortunately he got captured and was held in captivity. They don’t know for sure when Francis converted but it is said that he converted while being in captivity, but the only reason why they are not sure is because when he returned home he went back to his original lifestyle of not having a care in the world.

St. Francis became ill about a year later. But again he decided to join the military in 1204. After that he had a vision. That vision ended up leading Francis to go and learn more about Christianity at Assisi. He started to worship God and ask him for wisdom.

This is when his wealthy lifestyle changed dramatically. When he returned home his parents were not very happy about his new decisions for his life. But, even though they were not happy detached himself from them and went on to start his new lifestyle as a beggar in Assisi. He decided to live his life in poverty and worshipping God.

This is when he started to get followers that followed by the same lifestyle; they were the Franciscan Order of monks.

Francis always preached to nature no matter if there were people around or not. He claimed in 1224 that he got the same wounds that Christ experienced in his body. Not long after that in 1226 he passed away singing to Psalm 142.

After he died he was declared a saint by the Pope himself. It has been said that St. Francis of Assisi led the lifestyle of Chris extremely well. Even though he died his followers still kept to following the same lifestyle and still promoting and living by poverty, preaching repentance to all, and caring for others. The Franciscan Order of monks was allowed to live in the Holy Land.

My Successes and Failures Compared to the Crusader's Succcesses and Failures

A project that I have planned out has had some successes and failures along the way. I decided to make a YouTube channel about 1 year ago. I still am doing it today. Planning out how to set up my YouTube channel was a complete success because it kind of just happened before my eyes. For fun I decided to make some videos (this was before I started my YouTube channel). Then when my Mom saw them she thought that I should post them online for the public to see. I thought that was a great idea. So it didn’t take so long to figure out name for it because just like before...It just came to me. But during the posting of all the videos to this present day there are some successes and some failures.

When I first started my YouTube channel I just posted randomly whenever I wanted (that changed later on). I would plan out what I would do before each of my videos. Some of them I would get done with and say to myself that it wasn’t such a good video and so I decided to not post some. Sometimes I can be a little bit of a perfectionist and I could say that the video wasn’t so good when it probably was okay to post but I just didn’t think so. Some videos that I make I feel so good about it and I can’t wait to post it. So there are some ups and downs to making my videos.

I now do videos with a voiceover connected to it. That is just when I tape my video and not say anything during filming. After that I put the video in an editing program and tape my voice to go along with it. When I do voiceover to be honest, I don’t plan out any of it, but it still comes out great. Not planning it just works for me because I have an idea of what I want to say during the video and I just say it off the top of my head. But sometimes I do have to do it over and over because I do make some mistakes here and there.

Before, I mentioned that I decided to just randomly post my videos, but now I planned out that I want to post my videos every Thursday.  I think having a scheduled time is a great idea, but for the past few weeks I haven’t been posting every Thursday. So I do slack on that which is not a very good thing. That is one of my failures recently with my YouTube channel. But I am going to try to get back on track with that schedule soon.

When I compare my successes and failures to the crusader's successes and failures I think that it is very similar in a way. The crusaders had failures and successes all throughout every one of their battles. I have had successes and failures all throughout my journey with my YouTube channel.  Sometimes when you plan out things (like how maybe the crusaders planned out their battles) they don’t come out the way you expected them to or it did come out the way you expected it to, it’s all trial and error. You don’t know how something is going to work out unless you do try, its okay if you take a risk for your plan to come out as a failure but that just means you learned something coming out of it. You might have learned how you could have done something a bit different than you did with your original plan. So that’s how I compare my successes and my failures to the crusader's successes and failures.

Cathedrals

Cathedrals are magnificent and beautiful but it also takes a long time to build. Sometimes people can’t even see the finished cathedral in their lifetime. Part of the word Cathedra is Greek for “chair”. Cathedrals are built surrounded by the rest of the town. Cathedrals were a staple of most medieval cities.

The common type of cathedral was called Romanesque. That style was developed around the 12^th century. Instead of having rounded arches cathedrals had pointed arches. They had a certain type of support to the thick and high stone walls and they were called flying buttresses. They had very high ceiling but they needed no interior support. The architecture is very beautiful in cathedrals so the builders took lots of time into the architecture. Sometimes, what were added to the architecture were gargoyles. These were stone beasts that sometimes were put on the flying buttresses. These stone creations had a symbolic purpose.  One of the reasons that they had gargoyles was to divert water away from the cathedral. There was also a spiritual reason as well. They were to keep the evil spirits away from the church.

They of course need a lot of money to build the cathedrals because they were very expensive to build, so they had to raise money. One of the common ways that they raised money was by selling indulgences.

The largest cathedral is located in Cologne and that church took about 600 years to finish. So the first people who were starting to build could not see the finished cathedral in their lifetime, but at least the future generation could enjoy what beautiful cathedrals they created.

Rescue Search Gear

Assignment: You are getting ready to leave after camping with friends at Ausable Chasm Campground. It is a sunny fall morning with expected afternoon showers. Temperature is expected to drop to 50 degrees during the night. Suddenly a woman comes up to your camp area inquiring about her 6-year-old daughter. She explains that her daughter (Jane) went missing about 10 minutes ago. The girl ran off into the woods with her dog.

The terrain is rocky and bushy. The girl has black hair, a blue shirt, and blue jeans. The dog is a golden retriever (Silver). Your camp leader says he will contact the camp authorities. In the meantime, he asks you and three of your friends to conduct a hasty search in the area the girl went missing. You need to inform other campers of the missing girl's name and description. If she if found, she must be brought back to your campsite. Otherwise everyone must return to the campsite in 30 minutes to go over a new plan.

Everyone must call her name and the dog's name and listen for a response. Look for clues.

• What do you need for the first 30 minutes?
• What clothing and equipment do you need for a longer search later if she is not found? Think through your clothing, shoes, and ready pack items. Also the weather, terrain, and possible needs of subject.

The things that you would need for the first 30 minutes are good hiking shoes. Obviously you would not be wearing flip flops during this search. Next you would need water resistant clothing just in case you will perspire while you are searching during the day. You would definitely need lots of water because you cannot be dehydrated throughout the whole search. You maybe want a whistle on hand. If there are rainy showers during the search you will need raincoats or ponchos. You should have a ready pack to put all these extra items somewhere so your hands are free.

If the Jane is not found yet and you need a longer search time then you will need others items in addition. If the search goes for a long enough time that it starts to get dark and the temperature starts to drop you will need some other layered clothing on hand. Another thing you will need when it gets dark is a flashlight. You still of course need your hiking shoes because it is a rocky and busy terrain (try to pick the easiest path if you can). Have more water on hand throughout the rest of the search because being hydrated is a vital state you should be in. If you don’t necessarily have a ton of water bottles you could have a water filtration device to make other water around you clean because even if the water looks clear and not dirty there might be bacteria in the water that you should not consume.