Shining Friends

I am lucky to have good friends back in the U.S., and I also am happy to have made many friends at Harlaxton. I go for walks and watch movies (like Tangled and The Neverending Story) with Riley, Anna and Bill. Sarah helps braid my hair and she shared her favorite book with me that I am now reading (Inkheart). I also like to laugh with Craig, Jack, Christy, Jordan, Dex and Eric and some others. It is great having friends here in the UK. I also have many friends that are the faculty children, like Maddie and Laith. Some of us played a baseball game out on the Harlaxton College pitch the other day, and I have a photo of that. I also got a chance to make British friends through my Brownies troop. I do miss my friends back at home, but I enjoy having new ones here very much! I will miss England, and I will miss working in the library. I have been scanning books and the noise it makes is so comforting to me. Just the beeping makes me smile. I also create infos for students and faculty when they have overdue books and to remind them to please keep quiet in the Library in case they get rowdy! Linda is the librarian and she lets me come up with whatever project I want. I don't have ability to work in that Library again, and I already miss her. The last surprise in Europe before we head home was that I got to see Mama Mia (Muma Mia!) in London. The musical had so many funny details. I love the sheep in England, the shows, the horses we see and pet when we're walking on the footpaths and the people. It is now time to get home and hug the other shining friends and people I love.

Chess and Bridges

We’re on the go today, so we don’t have much time on the computer. We (Brock and Layla) are doing this blog together! Today we were heading into London. As we were leaving Harlaxton Village, we remembered we’d never blogged about the twist that is on the chimney pots on top of houses here. Most chimney pots just have a boring old rectangular shaped one, but the ones in this village are not plain old normal chimney pots. They are chimney pots in the shape of a chess piece. The ones we could see easily were the rooks and pawns. The idea was made in the 1800s. Since both of us are fans of chess we thought the chess pieces were so cool. They were meant to be guards, but all we were thinking was how to get on the roofs and start playing. If you ever need giant stone chess pieces, you know where to look for them. In that same little village there is a small little post office that we use for most everyday foods because it is like a mini grocery store. You can find these chess chimney pots all over England. Speaking of which, you can see them in London. That’s where we spent most of the day. One of our favorite places in London to see is Tower Bridge. We learned it used to be the largest bascule bridge ever. That is interesting if you know what bascule means, but we had to remind ourselves by looking it up. It is French and means "see-saw". The bascules were operated by hydraulics and used steam to pump the engines. The bascules still run by hydraulic power but starting in 1976 they use oil and electricity and not steam to power the engines. It took 8 years and over 400 workers to build Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge is on the River Thames. As a special thing, in 1977 the Tower Bridge was painted red, white and blue for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebration. This year is the Queen’s 60^th Jubilee which is her 60^th year as Monarch. They call it the Diamond Jubilee. There are things all over England celebrating this. Maybe they will put diamonds on the Tower Bridge! When we saw it in person, though, it had bright blue trim and was beautiful.

Lake District

Noticing we didn’t have much time left in England was super sad and we were looking for a good place to hit as one of our last trips. We chose the Lake District. Here is a little hint; it was so fun and crazy cool. We got to an area called Barrow-Furness a bit before dinner but still had time to go around a little bit. We walked about 2 miles. We didn’t truly know where we were going other than we wanted to end up at the shining sea. It was beautiful. We went down to the dock and saw live clams, dead clams and we even saw some tiny Jellyfish. The day after we went straight to a fun little sports day. We had so much fun playing golf, tennis, badminton, and football. For a break we went down to the beach to collect shells. Later that day we went to Elterwater in the Lake District. As we were driving on the big road to get there, guess what we saw? We saw what looked like a zoo, but it was right out by the highway. There were giraffes, rhinos and lions! The main part of the Lake District was beautiful. We saw sheep and we saw lambs. We saw two huge waterfalls that were amazing. One of them went two separate ways down to the lake. Under the other one there was a giant glob of mush! The sound the waterfall made is like the waves crashing and pebbles clinking down.

Prime Meridian

We went to Greenwich! In Greenwich we went to the Royal Observatory which is the Prime Meridian of the world. The Prime Meridian is the place where East and West split. It was so cool. At one second I was standing on the East, wait, the West. I couldn’t believe it. This is called longitude. Longitude measures how far something is East or West from the Prime Meridian. Longitude lines are the lines on a globe that go from top to bottom, so East to West. Latitude lines go left to right and measure North to South. The equator is 0 degrees latitude and the Prime Meridian is 0 degrees longitude. The Prime Meridian line goes through the UK (that is the place that we saw it in!), France, Spain, part of Africa and Antarctica. The Prime Meridian line also controls time. Everything is based on the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. There are different time zones based on longitude. That’s why in my United States home it is 6 hours earlier than in my England home. In all, there are 24 time zones in the world. When we were in Greenwich, we had lunch at The Greenwich Tavern. At The Greenwich Tavern, we ate Fish & Chips. Fish & Chips is popular in England. It was super good. But think about it, I wasn’t eating chips, I was eating French fries! In the restaurant we saw actual puppy dogs laying down while their owners ate lunch. They were big, adorable dogs.

Rutland

We went to Rutland. It was so much fun. Rutland is the smallest county in England. The place we went in Rutland was a large manmade lake. It was so beyond lovely. I went on a walk with my mum and my brother around it. For a little bit of time, we sat and gazed at the sparkles coming out from the water. For lunch we ate at Chandlery Sailing Club. On our walk on the footpaths we saw some sheep. In the country side you see it a lot. The sheep seemed to like to baa, because when we went up to look at them they started baaing away! We had lots of fun on the paths and skipping rocks by the sand. What a gorgeous and fun time we had!

Bats

At Haraxton Manor there is a group of endangered bats. We even got to see some! We saw UK’s smallest bat. I could have made a stuffed animal out of it. It was called the pipistrelle. Its ears were so huge it seemed as though it were the size of her body! There are 18 types of bats in the UK and 11 in Lincolnshire (Lincolnshire is the county where I live). We got to see a few types of bats. The thing with the long eared bat is that it is 1/3 of its size when it is in sleeping mode. In 1981 all of the bats in the UK became protected. When the bats turn three weeks old they start flying. After six weeks the baby bat gets weaned from its mother’s milk. Bat milk is one of the richest types of milk. A normal pipistrelle weighs about 5 grams. That’s about the weight of a small coin. We also got to see upclose the UK’s largest bat. It is called the noctule and weighs up to 40 grams. It was an awesome (very cute) experience to get to see the bats like that.

Stratford-upon-Avon

We went to Stratford-upon-Avon! Stratford-upon-Avon is not only where Shakespeare was born, but he grew up there and was there when he was an adult. I got to see the home where he was born. William Shakespeare was a playwriter. My mum has been explaining lines from Shakespeare and certain plays to me and my brother, and our first night in Stratford-upon-Avon we went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and saw Twelfth Night. It was so cool. The people that were acting came out of real water because the play starts off with a shipwreck! My favorite characters were Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, Malvolio, Feste and Viola. Sir Andrew, Sir Toby and Malvolio were really goofy and made me start to burst out laughing. I liked Feste because he did some good things in the play, but my favorite part about him was when he sang (especially the tune of “with a hey ho the wind and the rain”). I liked Viola because she made the whole entire play go into a big mess because she dressed up exactly like her identical brother and caused lots of confusion. The play was fantastic! For Easter Sunday we went to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare was baptized, went to church and was buried. We even got to see his grave. Shakespeare created 39 plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar. At the River Avon, there are a lot of boats. There is even an ice cream boat! 

Burghley House

My mum, brother and I went on a Harlaxton field trip to the Burghley house. It was so cool. The person who built the Burghley house was William Cecil. William Cecil lived from 1520-1598. He was the Principal advisor for Elizabeth 1. During his lifetime, William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley, was one of the most powerful men in England. He built the Burghley House for his family, not himself. He only came here occasionally. The journey to London (about 85 miles) took two days on horseback. Queen Elizabeth 1 came to throne in 1558 and died in 1603. Another person that later lived in the Burghley house was Lord David Burghley. Lord David Burghley won a gold medal in the Olympics that were held in Amsterdam in 1928. In the Burghley House we got to see the things he wore in the Olympics including his cleats and uniform. We also saw the hurdle that Lord Burghley would run full speed and jump over. In the Burghley House we saw where Queen Elizabeth would have stayed, wow! In the Burghley House there are over 300 paintings. There was this one place in the Burghley House that had an old chess board. Instead of rooks, the pieces were elephants. All the pieces were of the Indian army because India was one of the first places to play chess, and the kings would choose how the pieces look. In most of the rooms of the Burghley House there would be a door for the servants to slip in and out of. Here are a few words from the Elizabethan time and what they are now. The Elizabethan word for why is wherefore. An Elizabethan word for very is verily. An Elizabethan word for away is aroint. Isn’t that interesting? After everything it was Tea Time so we went into the little café and had some proper tea (my mum had cappucino and almond cake with cream, my brother had milk and a brownie and I tried tea and a brownie)!

Grantham Fair

In Grantham there is a fair that reminds me of the Fall Festival just a little bit. They had bumper cars, adventure rides, funhouse mirrors and other things. They also had a ride called the Big Ben, which is funny since the real Big Ben is in London. At the Fair there were many food booths. I had a rainbow slushy and some fudge. It was super fun to be at the Fair. We also played this game where you would try and get the ring over the box and win a huge thing of chocolate, soda or you would win some type of technology. The Grantham Fair has been going for 600 years now. In Grantham, there is a market held outdoors every Saturday. That is where the Fair was held.

Costume Ball

At Harlaxton Manor on Saturday night there was a fun time where a whole bunch of college students and faculty came out in super funny or traditional costumes. I dressed up as Rapunzel, my mum dressed up as a hippie and Brock dressed up as a Gladiator. My costume was bright purple and I had an extra maybe 5 inches of blonde hair. My mum’s costume was super fun. She had a little handbag with a peace sign on it, a really fun headband that went around your head in a circle, a fun shawl, sunglasses with a peace sign in front of each shade and rainbow pants! My brother’s costume had a cape, headpiece, shin guard type things that had spikes on it and armbands. Some of the college students had these costumes: a cat, Tommy Pickles, dinosaur, Japanese Girls, Caveman, a group of Coca-Cola cans, the Blue Man Group, a cowboy, people with masks and many more fun things. When we danced to the music the lights were pitch black and the DJ made it so that the room (the Great Hall) was flickering with colorful spots. It was super fun.