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.

Southwell Workhouse

We went to the Southwell Workhouse. It was built in 1824 and is one of the best preserved workhouses in the country. A workhouse used to be where poor people worked and lived. People used to think that if you were poor it was your own fault. Workhouses were feared by all ages. You would work around 16 hours every day and would eat the same meals. For children under nine a typical supper was 4 oz. of bread and 1 pint of milk porridge. You would get roast beef once every year on Christmas. Everyone wore the same clothes so everybody would know they were poor. The workhouse had a nursery and a school-room for kids and a laundry and tailor area for women. Men would do shoemaking, baking, farm working, and building. The workhouse was about as close to a jail as you could get. The only difference is that the people working got a very small wage and that at any time you could choose to leave. The only thing is where would you go? You would have a small amount of money or no money at all. Because of this, families who started poor usually were poor the rest of their life. At the workhouse, families were split up and would get punished if they tried to speak to each other. When we pulled up in front of the Southwell Workhouse my first thought was of how big it is. It really was big. I found out that it was thought of as small. Some workhouses could hold over a thousand people. The Southwell Workhouse only held up to 158 people. When you walk inside you feel like you are in a prison or in a dungeon with light. You walk through rooms where the people slept, ate, and worked. The people untied huge rope. The work was so tough your fingers would bleed. I thought it was interesting how some people thought that it was a good thing while others thought it was bad. I think it had good intentions, but the intentions needed a little tweaking. What do you think?

York

We went to York. York is a town North of Grantham. York is a big and beautiful town. York is known for their huge Roman Walls almost 2,000 years old. As you drive into York you will see lots of smaller parts of the stone wall. Some of the pieces left are only a few yards. Others go almost a mile. As we drove around trying to find a good place to park we saw a big castle looking thing on a hill. This castle looking structure was Clifford’s Tower. Clifford’s Tower was starting to be built in 1068 A.D. It once was right next to a graveyard. We took a small tour and learned that it was once a jail. The reason the tower is missing a lot of bricks is because the jailer took off some of the bricks for some extra cash. After going to Clifford’s Tower we set of looking for the York Minster. The York Minster is very easy to find because it looms dramatically over all the other buildings. As we stepped into the Minster we were met with a beautiful sight. The walls were covered with many bright colors. As we read we found out there was a big fire that burned much of the York Minster. As you look at the marble on the walls you could see the pinkish parts which were where it was partially burned. Then we headed toward the Roman Walls. The Roman Walls are one of the parts of the York Walls. All together the York Walls go two miles. In the walls there are 45 towers and 5 bars. Bars are places that people can get in and out of the York walls. When we got to one of the Roman Walls we walked up the steep and narrow stairway to the top. When we got to the top we came up into the first tower. We walked around and that is what you see in the picture. At the end of the wall we came to a bar. It was cool. After that we went to our final destination the Viking center. As we got inside you could see what a house would have looked like. We learned in 866 a Viking army attacked York. They called York Jorvik. At the end of the day I decided York was one of my favorite cities.

Footpaths

Unlike in the States, all the towns in England are connected by footpaths (sidewalks). These paths are often grass or gravel. There are some footpaths that wind through fields and towns. Our favorite is the footpath that you take until you get to a meadow with two horses. On the way we pass ducks, chickens, and sheep. We always feed the horses apples. The big horse is the mum and the small one is the baby. The mom eats as many of the apples as she can. The little one spits the apple out and tries to eat your coat! After seeing the horses we like to walk to Denton reservoir. It has lots of geese and ducks. It was so beautiful we decided we would come back another time for a picnic. The path takes you all the way to the middle of Denton. Denton is a small town not far from Harlaxton Village. When we go there we head straight to the Denton Church. It has a very pretty golden clock. From there we go to an area with huge trees that has tree limbs that touch the ground. It is fun to sit on the branches. On the way home we pass through a sugar beet field. There is nothing like the English countryside.