Lachlan's blog so far.Jun 10, 2010
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| Hi Everyone It has been really busy since we left New Zealand. We are half way through our trip and mum is helping me to write my blog. When we left New Zealand we flew to Glasgow, where my mum is from. We spent two days visiting our family and getting over our jetlag. It was also my mum’s birthday so we went out for dinner. We visited the town that mum came from, and visited the house where my mama 2 lived before she moved to New Zealand, and the house where my other great grandparents lived when they were alive. We also visited the school my mama and papa went to, and where they lived when they first got married. It was very small. We had a car so we drove to a town called Strathaven (pronounced Stray-ven) where my mum’s family comes from as far back as 1600; 400 years ago. We also visited a town called New Lanark where there were cotton factories that were the first in Scotland to let children go to school and children were not allowed to work in the factory until they were 12. They worked 6 days a week, from 6am until 8pm, and had 2 days off a year. It was a really good place to work. After we left Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and visited Stirling castle on the way. We visited Stirling castle because that is where my great, great grandmother was born. In Edinburgh we saw Edinburgh castle and visited a flight museum that had a Concorde. It was really cool. We visited some of mum’s old friends, and we went to St Andrews where mum went to school, and saw her old school. It was pretty but I wouldn’t like to go to school there. It was really cold in Edinburgh, but we went down to the Scottish Borders and visited one of mum’s friends on a farm, and then went mountain biking. After we left Scotland we went to Cumbria in England to stay with mum’s old friend from school. They live in an area called the lake district and we went to a castle called Muncaster where they have an owl sanctuary. We saw lots of owls and birds of prey, and I got to hold an owl. The castle is supposed to be haunted. Then we drove to London, which took 6 hours. We gave our car back and had to take the tube to our apartment. It was really small. We did lots of things in London. We went on the London Eye and saw the Tower of London, where people used to get their heads chopped off. We also went to a castle called Hampton Court, where Henry VIII used to live. It was his favourite castle. He had 6 wives. The castle was good because they had real people in the kitchen cooking like they used to do when Henry VIII was alive. We found out that ‘banquet’ means ‘sugar’, and that when the king had a banquet everything was made of sugar, including the plates, knives and forks. We also learnt that hamburgers were food for rich people. They had really bad teeth because of the sugar so they couldn’t chew their food, so if they were really rich they would have their food minced up so they didn’t have to chew. We went to a theatre called the Globe, which is where Shakespeare performed his plays. It has no roof in the middle, and was cold. We went to see a play called ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ which was really funny. We had blankets and hot chocolate to keep us warm. We went to a church called St Pauls which has a big dome on the top of it, and we climbed up to the top. We also saw Big Ben, and went to the science museum and the National gallery. We saw lots of paintings by famous people like Monet, Rembrant, Cezanne and van Gogh. After London we caught a ferry to Denmark. The ferry took all night and we had a cabin with 4 bunks in it. The ferry rolled from side to side during the night, and there were sick bags in the corridors in case we needed them. When we arrived in Denmark we had to catch a bus to Legoland, where we met some friends from New Zealand. It was really, really cold in Denmark although Legoland was cool. There were lots of things made out of Lego and lots of rides to go on. We played with our friends from New Zealand, Natasha and Femke. They live in Holland now. After two days we caught a train to Hamburg. The train went onto a ferry which was really cool. We spent 3 days in Hamburg, and the European Soccer cup final was on. There were lots of police and they had really big guns. I got a free football. We then went to Holland to stay with our friends. They live in a city called the Hague. Their house is really skinny had has 3 floors. We stayed in the top floor in the attic. We went to Amsterdam for the day and we went to some museums and on a tour around the canals on a boat. There was also a rubbish strike and there was rubbish all over the streets and pavements. All the bins were full with piles of rubbish at the bottom. We went to a place called Madurodam which has all of Holland in miniature, It was really big. We went to France and stayed in a flat in Paris for a week. Paris was alot of fun and we visited lots of churches. There was a church near our apartment called the Sacre Coeur, and we climbed to the top. We could see all of Paris and the Eiffel tower. We also went to a church called Notre Dame but we didn’t climb up to the top because the queues were too long. We went to the Eiffel tower and climbed up the stairs, and there was lots of graffiti. We went on a bike tour around Paris which was good. The tour guide was from New Zealand but he’s lived in Paris for a long time. We saw a cannonball in a wall, but no one knows why it’s there. We also so lots of bullet holes from world war 2 in the buildings. We went to a cooking class and made bread and croissants. After Paris we went to a small town called Beaune. It is in a place which makes wine, and we hired some bikes and cycled through the vineyards and villages, which were really old. We stopped lots of times so mum could take photos and mum and dad could try wine. The area is called Burgundy, and it is famous because it makes lots of wine. We had a bakery at the end of the street so we bought lots of baguettes and croissants and pain au chocolats. We went out for dinner and Imogen and Dad ate snails. We got another car and Dad had to drive on the other side of the road. We drove across France for 7 hours to a place called the Perigord Noir. We stayed in a town called Sarlat. It is famous for duck and walnuts and truffles. We went to look at houses to buy but mum and dad didn’t like it so now we are going to buy a house in Beaune. We went horse riding and kayaking on a river called the Dordogne. We saw lots of castles and cliffs, and there were lots of houses in the cliffs. We kayaked for 5 hours and we were really tired. We went down into a cave which was really old. The house in Sarlat had a swimming pool and we went swimming every day when it wasn’t raining We are now going to Spain to a city called Barcelona. It is a long train trip to get there and it will take us 10 hours. I am having lots of fun on this trip. My favourite castles are Hampton Court because they were cooking in the kitchen and there was heaps to do. I also liked a castle called Linlithgow Palace near Edinburgh because you could go up all the towers. From Lachlan |
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