BBC and Wicked Fun

On Friday we went to London. We have been to London many times, but you can never get tired of it. We first were at Trafalgar Square. It is a big square right in the heart of London, and there are four big bronze lions in the square that I like to climb on. Right now there is also a big Olympic countdown clock that is ticking down the time until the Olympics start. The Olympics will be held in London so everybody is excited. After spending a little time in Trafalgar we went to the Thames, a river in London. We went on a river cruise! The Elsea family had been in London and we met back up for the cruise. Our ship was called the Symphony. When we got on we were assigned our seats and off we went down the river. We passed Big Ben and the London Eye, but the highlight was going under the Tower Bridge. I have walked around and over the Tower Bridge, but I had never seen under it. It was cool because everything went darker as we went under the bridge. Next it was time for us to say goodbye to the Elseas and for my mom to put on her professor hat. She had arranged for her classes to go on a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) field trip and the students met us there for a tour. I got to see so many amazing things. I got to stand in TV studios. I also got to stand in a green room the Beatles were in. A green room is where actors sit before their show. Many of the actors were picky and had to have everything their way. We learned about one singer who had to be carried everywhere he went! He refused to walk on the stairs or take the lift (an elevator). Can you guess who it was? I will tell you in a minute. At the BBC I also got to be on a trivia game. I lost, but it was fun. I have heard lots of great things about BBC and I agree that they are all true. We next went to Wicked the musical. Wicked is like the Witches side to the Wizard of Oz. It was amazing. The singing was Wicked! The day was perfect. And for my friends who are having Spring Break this week, I hope your days are perfect too. The person who I was talking about being picky and having to be carried was Prince.

Cambridge

Cambridge is a town about an hour and a half train ride from Grantham. It sounded like a fun place to go to so that is where we went. When we got there we headed toward the Eagle Inn. The Eagle Inn is an awesome 600 year old Pub. It is where DNA was first discussed. DNA (DeoxyriboNucleicAcid) is a self-replicating material. It is the key factor to life. James Watson and Francis Crick were the first people to discuss DNA. At the Eagle I ate Fish and Chips (fish and fries). It was delicious. After the Eagle we went to the Market. Next we did a small treasure hunt that was meant to take you around Cambridge. It passed us by buildings that looked like mini castles, King's College that looked like a HUGE castle, and lots of other cool things. King's College was beautiful and is one of 31 colleges part of the University of Cambridge, one of the best universities in the world. I loved Cambridge!

Segovia

Segovia was our destination. Segovia is a town my parents fell in love with about twelve years ago. And it is the town I was created in! I had heard so much about it. Segovia is known for its Roman Aqueducts and castle. An Aqueduct is an old Roman water system. Water will slide down a series of stones into a water house. Then the water would be collected. The Aqueducts stand tall in the air and they are held up by arches. There are 167 arches in this Aqueduct. On part of the Aqueduct there is an arch in the middle too. The Aqueduct was made almost 2,000 years ago. I climbed one of them and I felt like king of the world (stone). By the Aqueduct we walked around in a square called La Plaza del Azoguejo. After the Aqueducts we steered toward the castle, called an Alcazar. The Segovia Alcazar dates back over 800 years ago. It was made upon a hill so that everyone for a long ways could see it. After the Alcazar was used as a castle it turned into a State Prison. In 1762 the Alcazar changed again into a Royalty Artillery School. About a hundred years later a fire burned down lots of the Alcazar. The Alcazar was fixed and later turned into a Military College. It is now a museum. We walked around the Alcazar. I got to see cannons used in the Royal Artillery School. They were huge. After sticking my head in a cannon and trying to make it fire we walked up the tower. The tower is the tall part where guards would patrol. We had to walk 152 stairs to get to the top. What a climb! At the top you could see miles. I could see every part of Segovia. From the view I could see lots of big birds nesting on the tops of trees. They were storks. Those must have been the birds that delivered me! The castle was great. We went to an ice cream shop two different days. On the last day I had a cone with a scoop of strawberry cheesecake and a scoop of white chocolate ice cream. I liked it so much that I can't wait to go to Segovia again.                         

Madrid

Madrid is where the Elsea family and my family went after Barcelona. Madrid is the capital of Spain. We first went to Plaza de Sol and then went to Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor is a huge courtyard with a big arch to walk on each corner. Lots of street performers were walking around. There was a big statue of a man riding a horse and a pretty clock on one of the buildings. The statue was King Philips III. He was king when the Plaza was created. Next we headed to Restaurant Botin for linner (that's what we say is lunch/dinner since we ate in the middle of the afternoon!). Botin was Ernest Hemingway's favorite place to eat in Spain. Hemingway is my mom's favorite writer. In one of his books we have at my home he describes the restaurant, and my mom wanted to go back there because she said the food is delicious and that it is the world's oldest working restaurant (since 1725). I was excited. Inside you walk down a spiral staircase into a room that has rocky, old walls. It was cool. I ordered King Prawn. I loved it. Madrid was great!

Barcelona, Spain

The Elsea family and my family explored Barcelona. There were lots of things to see and do. We first went to the La Sagrada Familia (the Sacred Family), who were a super rich family who wanted something to be remembered by in Barcelona and all the people in it. The Palace is huge. The Palace was started in 1909 and it is still being worked on today. You can tell why too. Every square foot has multiple designs. Two big towers shoot up from the top of the roof. You can see two more being worked on. what makes the Palace the most beautiful is the fashion. Since many different people have worked on the Palace there are many different designs. There will be a square pattern and then all of a sudden a triangle pattern. This is the cause of many different designers. After the stunning Palace, we walked on the La Rambla. La Rambla is the busiest and most popular street in Barcelona. People walked up and down the street. Next we went down to the sea by a port. The sea we went down to was the Mediterranean. It was so pretty. By the sea was a huge aquarium. We went inside and looked around. I saw cuttlefish, sharks, octopi, and lots of other cool fish and mollusks. A fish that got me excited was the Long-horn Cowfish. I had done a report on them at school. We took a picture and that is the yellow fish you see in the picture. Our next stop was a Picasso museum. It had many of his paintings. Picasso lived in Barcelona for part of his life. Many of the paintings were made by him at age 15! You could see how he changed his style completely over his lifetime. I liked the museum. I thought Barcelona was great!

Barca Footy

GOAL!!! I went to a Barcelona match! It was amazing. I felt like I was in a wave of blue, red, and yellow. It was ten times better than I thought it would be. When you first see the inside of the stadium it takes your breath away. Barcelona is my favorite team. Lionel Messi who plays on Barcelona is my favorite player. He is so good that Barcelona signed (recruited) him at age 13. The stadium was HUGE!!! Here is a comparison to the Lucas Oil Stadium where I have cheered on the Colts and the Barcelona Stadium. The Lucas Oil Stadium has 63,000 seats and the Barcelona stadium has about 99,000. Barcelona played Granada. Barcelona beat them 5-3. The first half Barcelona dominated scoring two beautiful goals. The second half had a turnaround. In the first five minutes Granada scored off of a cross. Then only about ten minutes later Granada got a penalty and they scored! At that point it was 2-2. Barcelona needed to pump it up. That is exactly what happened. Messi came in and dribbled between two defenders. He fired it in and the crowd erupted. On top of the goal, Messi had just beat a Barcelona record for the most goals! Messi broke Cesar Rodriguez's 57-year Barca record. Not long after number 23 on Barcelona scored again. Granada was still fighting strong. They got another penalty and they scored! 4-3 Barca. Right at the end of the game Messi scored again for a hat trick! I was so happy. The game was GREAT! 

London for Mum's Day

This weekend we went to London. In London we went to Camden Lock Market. It is called the Camden Lock Market because it is right by the Camden Lock which is a waterway. Camden Market is one of the biggest and busiest markets in London. It has over 1,000 different market stalls. Camden Market has food, book, clothes, shoes, knickknacks, and toy stalls. At one stall I got a chicken kabob! It was so good. We walked around for a long time and we did not even see half the stalls. At one food area, they had motorcycle seats for chairs. That is what you see in the bottom picture. In one store there were walls of old sewing machines, at least 100 or maybe 200 of them. There is also a bridge that goes over the canal so you can get from one side of the market to the other. You can see boats going through the locks. The Regent's Canal was opened in 1820. After Camden Market we went to see Billy Elliot the Musical. Billy Elliot is an Irish boy who wants to dance. The only problem is no one will support him. Even his family is against him dancing. Then one day he meets a dance teacher. After that his adventure soared. The musical was amazing! I could not get the music out of my head. Lots of the dancing involved doing flips and twirling and at one point they used a rope and he flew around the stage. Billy Elliot was EPIC! We went to London for Britain’s Mother's Day which is celebrated a different day than in America. My mom will get two Mother's Days this year since she is two times the fun.

Lincoln

Yesterday the Lothamer family and my family took a small day trip to Lincoln. Lincoln is a town about an hour from Harlaxton. Lincoln is what the area, Lincolnshire, is named after. Lincoln is a town known for their huge hill with the gigantic cathedral at the top. We took a small train to Lincoln. When we got off you could see the hill. As we were walking up we stopped in a small, pretty building. We found out it was made around 900 A.D. It may have been the oldest building I had ever stepped in! Then we started our trek up the hill. Lots of people bustled up and down the street that went up to the top of the hill. On both sides of the street there were shops. We saw toy, candy, food, clothes, and electronic stores. We walked up and up and up. At about half way we ate lunch. After lunch we walked up and up and up some more. At a few points it was really steep. Finally we reached the top. If you looked left you could see a castle. If you looked right you could see a HUGE cathedral. We went straight to the cathedral. As soon as we stepped inside our mouths hung open. It was huge! There were big stone arches at the top to hold it up. At the sides there was loads of stained glass. The first thing we did was light a candle for my grandpa. We had lit one already in Paris, but we decided we could never light enough candles. It made me feel good. We walked around and learned lots of fun stories including one about an imp (a magical creature) who was turned to stone by angels. After the visiting the Lincoln Cathedral we stopped and peeked in the castle. It was big! Unfortunately our train was going to leave so we had to head back, but the castle did look cool. Lincoln was great! That night Harlaxton had a huge bonfire. They had been saving up lots of wood and grass since last year to make it burn. The fire was almost 20 feet in the air. Sparks were everywhere and everyone made a circle around it. The cold night turned into a steamy, fun glowing night.

Paris

Our family friends, the Lothamers, and my family went to Paris, France. Paris is an amazing city known for its art and food. I was so excited. I had been to Paris before, so I knew how excited I should be. Our first destination was the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was made for the 1889 World’s Fair. The Eiffel Tower looks like the ultimate skeleton building. Other than a few spots you can see through the whole Tower. The whole Tower stands over 1,000 feet tall! We walked around and then headed to the Arc de Triomphe. It is a huge arch and is located on the Place Charles de Gaulle on the western end of the Champs-Élysées. The arch is in honor of the people who fought for France during the Napoleonic Wars. The next day we headed to the Louvre. The Louvre is a huge museum. It holds many famous paintings including the Mona Lisa. It was so cool to see. Then we went to Notre Dame. It is a huge church. Inside we lit a candle for my grandpa. It was sad, but then again happy because mom asked us each to whisper a happy memory about Papa. It made me feel good. You might have heard of Notre Dame because it is the setting for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a book that Victor Hugo wrote (the guy who also wrote Les Miserables). After Notre Dame we ate lunch outside at a nice restaurant. That night we went back to the Eiffel Tower. We got to go up it. We had to take multiple elevators to get to the top. You could see for miles. At night the Eiffel Tower lights up.

Fussen, Germany

We took a train to Fussen, Germany. As the train drove up you could see mountains everywhere. Fussen is shadowed by the Bavarian Alps. The Alps were covered with snow. Fusson is small and quaint. We decided to walk up the Alps. Our destination was Neuschwanstein Castle. Neuschwanstein Castle is beautiful and famous. It is the castle that Disney uses in Florida. King Ludwig II built it in the 1800s for his summer house. He died before the castle was finished being built. As we walked up toward the castle, you could see lots of mountain peaks. Our first sight of Neuschwanstein made us gasp. It was beautiful. It made all the other buildings look small. We walked all the way to the castle, with horses and buggies walking beside us carrying some people. The view was amazing from the castle. We took a tour of the castle. We got to go in the throne room. The one catch was there was no throne. Since King Ludwig II died before the castle was finished, they never finished the throne. On the walls there were lots of paintings of other kings. In the middle there was a huge chandelier. The chandelier had 96 candles on it. A lot of rooms had items with 96 things because it was a special number in Byzantine myths. In the living room, there were 96 huge ceiling tiles. After exploring the castle we walked back into town and stopped at a shop in Fusson where my mom bought a cuckoo clock that was made out of wood from the Black Forest.

Munich

Some family friends and us made a plan quite awhile ago to travel to Munich. Munich is a city in southern Germany. We went to see the Olympiaturm. The Olympiaturm is a huge tower. It is one of the tallest towers in Europe. At the top there is a rotating roof. We got to eat on it! The top floor is about 190 meters high. The very top is another hundred meters. You could see the whole city. The tower weighs about 52,500 tons. It takes 53 minutes for it to fully revolve. The Olympiaturm was made in 1968. It was made a few years in anticipation of the 1972 Olympics. The Olympiaturm is inside the Olympia Park. All the things in the Olympia Park were made because of the Olympics. Inside the park there are the Olympic swimming pools, tennis courts, and fields and we saw ice hockey too. While I was busy climbing hills and big trees with my friends, this is a photo my mom took of the Olympiaturm. We walked around Munich in the city center area, and we saw street performers and looked at the buildings. We ate Haagen Dazs ice cream and then that night we had German food. 

Isaac Newton

My mom, sister and I went on a field trip today with a class at Harlaxton. We went to Isaac Newton’s home. In the house you got to see where he was born and also where he made some of his experiments (learning about spectrums). We also got to see the famous tree. It had fallen down in a storm, but it lived. It still produces apples today! You can see the apple tree in one of the photos we took. In the other photo, you can see me as part of a human sundial. The sundial was in the backyard. I wrote this story below from Isaac Newton's point of view.

Hi, I’m Isaac Newton. I’m going to tell you a little bit about my life. I was born on January 4, 1643 (or Christmas Day 1642, depending on which calendar you used at the time). I was a weak baby and people tell me I could have fit into a quart pot. My father died three months before I was born so I never met him. My mother left me with my grandma at age three and she went and married a clergy man. At age eight she came back with three more kids. The man had died. A few years later I was sent to a Grantham school. I was a poor student and I often spent time inventing my own knickknacks while the teacher was talking. One day a bully kicked me. I was mad so I fought him. Even though he was bigger than me I won. I wanted to be better at him in everything. From then on I always tried my best in school. A few years later my mom took me out of school to help her on the farm. I was not great at it and after I persuaded her I went to Trinity University. In 1665 the University closed down because of the black plague. I had a bachelor’s degree, but I had been planning on going farther. I went home and this is the time I learned about gravity. One day I watched an apple fall from an apple tree. As I watched the apple speed up before it hit the ground I thought about what made it speed up. I decided it was gravity. In other words, “What goes up must come down.” Little did I know I had just made it possible for many things including space travel about three hundred years later. After the plague I went back to Trinity and I got my master’s degree. After going to college I worked more on gravity. Gravity fascinated me so much my first few years out of college I studied it. I also practiced Alchemy (like chemistry but working with potions and things) even though it was banned in England in 1404. Through the years I invented many things. Two of the inventions are telescopes and pi. I was in the Parliament for one year and the whole time I only said one sentence. I asked for someone to close a window! In 1705 I was knighted by Queen Anne. I went from Isaac to Sir Isaac. I died in 1727. I am probably the greatest scientist that ever lived.

Papa's Boy

I wrote this because this blog is like my journal. My grandpa has died. I loved and respected him. I would go fishing, boating and shooting at a range with him. He took me to my first Blue Angels show and he got me my first tricycle and foosball table. Every Saturday my family and him would have cappos (cappuccinos, and I would have juice) at my house. Every Father’s Day my mom would rent a boat. Sometimes we would go to Patoka and sometimes to Kentucky Lake. It was always so fun. When I found out my grandpa died, I bawled. I was sure the phone call on Wednesday couldn’t be right. He was too awesome to die. We would always have Christmas with him. It was a tradition that we would always eat shrimp. We also always played Christmas songs on the guitar. We are back in the U.S. now, and we will fly back to England on Sunday. In the pictures, you see one with my grandpa and I wearing matching hats. We didn’t even know it, but we each bought these hats from different places and then on the same weekend ended up wearing them for cappos. We couldn’t stop laughing that I bought a hat in Chicago and he got one from someplace else and we looked alike. The second picture is of Papa’s famous teachings. Every cappo visit he would teach us something new. Sometimes it was something funny like how I needed to stop slurping my juice and start appreciating it by slowing down. Many times the lessons had to do with money. When I was younger it was that two pennies is not as good as a nickel. As I got older it went more to how to count out money into rolls. That is what Papa and I are doing in the picture. He was the one that started me on my huge quarter collection.