Cambridge

We went to Cambridge! It was so pretty. For lunch we went to The Eagle. At The Eagle is where they first discussed DNA. DNA stands for Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid and it is about genes that are in our bodies and makes each of us different and special. For lunch I had Fish & Chips. Fish & Chips are popular in the UK. In Cambridge there is a Sunday market. We saw so many street performers that played music. Some of them were jazzy. Some were pop. Some were slow songs. We also went to King's College. King's College is a gorgeous college in Cambridge that was founded in 1441 by Henry 6. Trinity College is also in Cambridge. That is where Isaac Newton went to college. King’s College and Trinity College are 2 of the 31 colleges that are part of the University of Cambridge. In Cambridge people walk and ride their bikes everywhere. It was so neat to see how people put all their bikes next to each other!

Book Fun

I decided it would be nice to get some people out on such a great day and enjoy talking about books and reading books. The reason I am saying “great” day is because it felt like 80 degrees! The first two things we did were set out blankets and all of the people that were a part of the group ate homemade cookies that were fresh from the oven, mushy and made specially from my mum. The next two things we did were writing our own little books and talk about each other’s favorite authors, books and why they are our favorite books. I learned that Riley likes The Twilight Sagas. I learned that Julie likes Chocolat because she likes the descriptions of the small chocolate shop in a village in France. I learned that Nancy likes Junie B. Jones and it reminds her of the students she has taught in the last 29 years. Brock likes the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. My mum likes a Hemingway book called The Sun Also Rises and a book called A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I like Charlotte’s Web that I read with my mum, Treasure Island that I read with my class and the Grandma’s Attic series that my Grammy got me. After we talked about books, we played a matching game. The things you had to match were the author and a book they wrote. We had things like Jules Vernes and you had to match him with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You also had to match Rick Riordian with Percy Jackson and Barbara Park with Junie B Jones. There were other matches too. We also read books, and some people drew flip books. Poem made one with a sheep. We had so much great fun. I might do another book picnic again someday.

Segovia

We went to see Segovia! It was such a quaint little town that I thought was so super cute. We went and saw the Alcazar and the Roman Aqueducts. In the Segovia Alcazar (castle), we saw giant cannons that looked two times the size of me! We also saw outfits that soldiers would have worn. The main colors were blue, red and yellow. In another room we saw lots of armory. The reason they had these things was because they were very protective of the castle because it was huge and on top of a hill that stood in an honoring spot, and different royalty lived there. In one of the bedrooms we saw so many neat painted designs on the walls. The bed was crazy beautiful. It had great drapes. At the Aqueducts I got to climb up into one of the giant arches. It is made of plain stone and has 167 arches in it. There is also a hidden route called the Canal Madre (which stands for Mother Channel) that helped give the city all its water. On the street we saw lots of performers. One of them was doing a puppet that was of a girl playing violin. The person doing the puppet had a dog but it looked like a lazy dog that was asleep. When Brock went up to give some coins to the street performer and also to pet the dog, the dog bopped its head up and barked. It surprised us and made Brock jump. It was so hysterical!

Madrid

 We went to Madrid. We visited several places and spent the most time at Plaza Mayor. The streetlamps have what looked like an ancient design pattern that is wavy and gorgeous. At most plazas there are street performers. We saw one that was a goat with lots of streamers and sparkles. We saw another street performer that I thought was very, very cool and it was a guy making music out of glasses. The way you do that is use different sizes of glasses with different amounts of water in it and it makes a different tone. At Plaza Mayor people do different things. It not only has street performers and shops and cafes, but it has held markets, soccer games and bullfights. From the Plaza Mayor you don't have to walk a long distance to get to where we ate. It was at the Restaurant Botin. It is the oldest restaurant anywhere in the world. Ernest Hemingway used to eat at this restaurant. My mum has read all his books and she visited this restaurant before and couldn't wait to go back. Ernest Hemingway even wrote about the restaurant in his book The Sun Also Rises. We ate in the downstairs where it was all brick on the walls and it looked like a wine cellar. I ate scrambled eggs with green asparagus and my mum ate cheese and bread and a fish casserole. Last year we went to a Hemingway Museum in Chicago.  

Barcelona Aquarium

 

Barcelona, Spain

We went to Barcelona! We didn't do it alone though, we went with the Elseas. It was awesome. Barcelona is located on the Mediterranean Sea. On the first day we were there we went to La Sagrada Familia. It is the Family Palace. It was made by a family that wanted honor. It had a mix of dark brown and lots of happy colors. At the front there were four straight up poles that looked almost as tall as the whole building. That night we went to the Barca Game!!! It was so amazing. If it helps to say this, Lionel Messi is on the team. We went to just the perfect game (match) because Messi scored a hat trick and beat the record of goals that players on the Barcelona team have made! OMG. It was Brock's dream to see. We also went to the Picasso Museum. Pablo Picasso was a very famous painter. We saw so many amazing paintings. Some of my favorite paintings were of a portrait Picasso made of himself. Another was of an old man in a beret. In one of the rooms there was a big chandelier. We also went to a big aquarium. Inside of it we saw: sharks, eels, puffer fish, zebra looking like fish, squid, sea horses, and many more fun types! Something I was fond of was one of the types of sharks. It is called the Black Tip Shark. The reason is because if it stopped swimming it would drown and die. We saw baby fish and star fish too! What a time!

Billy Elliot and Camden Market

We went into London. It was so much fun. We saw the musical, Billy Elliot. It was the best one of all time, or at least to me! Billy Elliot is about a boy who is around 12 and has lost his mum and wants to dance, but the rest of the Irish that he lives with won’t let him. That includes his family and other people in the village. One of my favorite lines was when he and his ballet teacher were talking about his mum and the ballet teacher said to Billy, “She must have been very special” and Billy Elliot said, “No. She was just my mum.” It was one of my favorite lines because Billy loved his mum very dearly and missed her. The music and dancing was something I had never seen before. In one part Billy jumped off a wall and did a back flip. My favorite song from the musical is called "Electricity". The song is about Billy trying to explain what it feels like to dance. In London we also went to Camden Market. It is the biggest market in the world. I can see why. The reason, there are 1000 stalls! Mum’s Day in Britain is on March 18, which was yesterday. My Mum keeps on teasing because she will get celebrated twice this year. Brock got her a ring from one of the Camden Market stalls and I got her some fun clothing that has lots of British Flags on it. Mum had to give Brock and me most of the money but she said the gifts were special since we picked the stuff out and we spent the day together.