Joel & mom take trips

Joel's 5th grade class took a trip to London for a week and at the same time, mom had a trip to Lyon (France). Joel's favourite part of the trip was getting to share a dorm room with his three best friends! His diary is added below (images not included, sorry!)

Here's a picture of Lyon by night (not that mom had a lot of time to enjoy the Lyon nightlife). She was at a weeklong meeting with the Dylan consortium.

My London Diary

By Joel

Day 1

I got up very early in the morning. For breakfast my mom fixed toast but I wasn’t hungry. I don’t know why.

I went to the Prat Airport by car with my mom. We met at the big fat horse statue.

When we got into the airplane I did a bit of my London book. I asked the air hostess some of the questions about the airplane like ‘What type of airplane is it?’ On the airplane, I sat next to two stinky old men (they really did smell bad). But about in the middle of the trip I got to switch places with Berta Huarte who was sitting next to Max and Tommy. They bought a donut, but I didn’t buy anything.

After the flight, the teachers gave us some money (5 pounds per person) and we had about two streets to go eat something at any restaurant or food place we wanted. Almost everybody went to McDonald’s, including us (me, Tommy, Max and Pol). I ate six chicken nuggets and some chips. With the chips, you could win a prize and Max won another free hamburger and we made it into four quarters and each of us ate one.


Later on we went to Windsor to see the Windsor castle. On the way to the castle I saw a red Porsche. I don’t remember much about the castle because I was tired but I’ll explain what I can remember. It had lots and lots and lots and LOTS of rooms but we didn’t get to see St. George’s Chapel. There was lots of armour and I liked them a lot. There was room that had lots of guns hanging on the wall, forming something like a giant spiral drawing. There was also a minature palace. The Queen’s closet was as big as our living room – it was enormous!


Then we got back on the bus to go to the residency. The bus driver’s name was Mr. Darren. It was kind of strange to see how everybody was driving on the opposite side of the road and that the steering wheel was on the left. At the residency we had to wait a bit outside while they were giving out the rooms and when we got inside, we went upstairs to our rooms. My room was 134. We took all the bags up and unpacked. We went down to eat supper. For supper I had fish with potato chips and a Sprite. We were supposed to go to Regent’s Park but we didn’t go because it was raining and at the residency there was a fire drill. It was real cool. Max told me he was scared that if we had to go outside because he was in summer pyjamas with shorts and short sleeves and he was afraid he’d get cold. After the fire drill, Mr. Joe told us to go to our rooms and write about it on our london Books.



When it was time for bed and they had turned off the lights, our group would just start talking and laughing quietly. At the end, the teachers made us shut up and go to sleep.



Day 2


My day started with a hard shake and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Max’s two legs on my bed! He had jumped on top of my bed to wake me up. I got up, got my clothes on and went down to eat breakfast.

For breakfast I had two pastries. Breakfast was like a buffet. We would get in line and grab what we wanted. Then we went to the cash machine and paid with our residence card. For breakfast we had 2.50£ to spend. Then we went upstairs to brush our teeth and get our coats and bags. Then we went down to the TV room while some kids and teachers were out shopping for our lunch. At the TV room we watched an interesting show called Boogie Beebies and on that show they would give a song called Dig it that all the class really liked. We even used it for our songfest on the patio.

After the kids got back from shopping we went to the Royal Mews. There weren’t any horses because they were on vacation at Windsor. There was a horse called Stevenson and I thought it was a weird name for a horse because it sounds as if Steve was his father. After I got home, my mother told me that my grandfather’s middle name is Stephenson.

The Gold State Coach was made of gold and had nature beings that had a meaning, for example, there was a lion that supposedly meant strength and courage and all that. The Queen rides in the Gold State Coach sometimes. I would really like to ride in that coach.


We saw a Rolls Royce parked in the mews and I saw a Bentley drive past. After the mews, I was starving. Luckily we had lunch at the British Museum before we started our visit.

Later we went to the British Museum and we saw mummified animals, mummies, canopy jars with livers, lungs and hearts in them, the Rosetta Stone, an Easter Island statue and the Man from Gebelein.

This man wasn’t mummified. He had been buried in sand and when they found him he had hairs and skin and teeth and was really disgusting.

After the museum, we were supposed to go to Waterstone but we didn’t go because there wasn’t enough time. So we went to one of the most famous toystores in the world - Hamley’s!
It was awesome. When I first walked in the door, I went straight to the Lego section with Tommy and Pol. Max couldn’t go with us because he had to call his mother and he didn’t have a mobile phone so he went somewhere to call his parents. There was a huge bionicle made up of little legos. It was really neat. The shop had five floors plus the basement. The lego section was in the basement. I bought two bionicles and a lego kit.

I couldn’t buy the cool things because they were too expensive.

After Hamley’s, we went back to the residency to have supper. Then we went to Regent’s Park where we played a lot.

Day 3

Today when I woke up, Tommy was still sleeping but we woke him up quickly by tossing his Homer doll at his face. Then all of us went down for breakfast.

To start our day, we went to Hyde Park. It was full of people and dogs. There was lots of grass, trees and bushes. London seems to be full of parks. We walked through the park to our next stop – the Natural History Museum (NHM).

In the NHM we first went to the earth gallery. In this gallery, we could see and feel what it’s like to be in an earthquake. It was just a bit of a tremor really. It wasn’t scary at all. After the earthquake, we went to have lunch outside. Mr Joe told a joke and then we went back inside the museum. The best part of the museum was the dinosaur section, where there was a mammoth skull.


There were loads of dinosaur skeletons – T-rex, allosaurus, triceratops, brontasaurus, iguanadon, ankylosaurus and velociraptor.

After the skeletons, there was a special room for the Tyrannasaurus. There was lots of information about T-rex with drawings. The drawings were really funny because they were like cartoons. After going through a little hall, there was a giant Tyrannasaurus that was moving. It had a sort of laser in its eyes that could detect people and when it detected someone, it would roar at them.

The questions we had to answer in our workbook about the dinosaurs were very easy. I had already answered them before we even got to the NHM.

There was another section for dried animals. The neatest animals for me were the prehistoric saber-tooth cat, a bat and an enormous rat about the size of cat. We also saw the famous blue whale. It was the length of the room and it was a very, very, very long room! Seeing it made me feel really small.

The next section was about the human body. There were some mirrors that made you look deformed and it was really cool. There was also a video that would repeat itself that showed what happens when you are scared or excited. For example, if your heart beats faster, you get a pale face, you sweat and your muscles contract and your heart pumps more blood.

There was also a section about optical effects. There was one with a hole where you could see a shape with another shape behind it. But if you looked through another screen you could see that the one you thought was in front was actually in back and vice-versa. There was another one that looked like a duck and also looked like a rabbit. It was impossible to know which it was.

After the museum we went back to the residence for supper. This was not a good day for supper. I had a disgusting salad that tasted like plastic and the lettuce was limp and kind of slimy. Yuck!

After supper, we went to the theatre to see The Lion King. My favourite song was Hakuna Matata and my favourite animal was the elephant. The show was very well made because there were lots of special effects and I actually liked it better than Wicked. The way they made the animals was very artistic and creative.

Even though it was a very long day, I wasn’t tired at the end of it. But when we got back to the residency, we went to bed and I went straight to sleep.

Day 4

Today, as usual, we woke up and went down for breakfast. Today I had toast with scrambled eggs. It was rather tasty.

We went by bus to the Big Ben.

On our way there, we passed the Houses of Parliament. They were big but they really just looked like normal houses.

From there we went to the boat ride. On the boat ride we saw a lot of boats and bridges. There were two floors on the boat. The top floor was uncovered and the bottom floor was covered. On the bottom floor there wasia place where you could buy snacks but I didn’t have any money.

After the boat ride we visited the HMS Belfast. First we went to a cabin on the ship where they explained to us why this ship was so important. It had been a long time in the sea and it had only been hit twice. It was very powerful. Then we separated into three groups and I went with Tommy. We visited all around the ship and we had lunch on it to. Our group couldn’t find our way out. We went up to a second floor but then we couldn’t get back down because we couldn’t find the stairs. It was kind of funny to be lost in such a small place – we just kept going around and around and around. We saw a torpedo on the ship too.

After leaving HMS Belfast, we took the boatride again. While we were on the boat someone stole Tommy's wallet. He was really angry but they took all his money.
Our next stop was Madame Toussaud’s. I think it was a cheat because there were only four rooms and one of the rooms only had three characters. But I still think it is better than the Barcelona wax museum because the characters are more interesting. For example, there was a giant Hulk, Indiana Jones, Shrek and the Pirates of the Caribean. We couldn’t go to the scary part. Only people over 13 could go.

After Madame Toussaud, we went to the residency and had supper, or dinner as they call it in London. Then we went to Regent’s Park to play. Then we went back to the residency and went to bed.

Day 5

First I got up like every day and I did all the morning routine. Then we went down for breakfast. For breakfast I had cereal and then we went to Covent Gardens which is a famous garden with a famous shop that sells magic tricks.

Over there I bought three magic tricks because I only had 5 pounds and each magic trick cost 2 pounds. But if you bought three, you could get them for 5 pounds. I bought a dog poo that I lost in the bus, a calculator that squirts water and three stink bombs that got confiscated at the airport.


At Covent Gardens we had lunch outside of a restaurant, sitting on the window ledges. We were supposed to go to the London Transport Museum but we didn’t go because it was closed.

Then we went to the Science Museum which had five floors. At the entrance there was a satellite that was really neat. First we went to a place called Who am I? This was all about genetics and things like that. There was a really cool frog that had six legs. Actually it was both disgusting and cool at the same time. There was also an albino peacock!

We were supposed to go to the place where you could touch things but we couldn’t go. So instead we went to a place where there were lots of interactive games and this was really fun. There was a game where you had to save the city from an electrical breakdown and I did it. That was really fun. Most of this part had ecologic games. Tommy found a game that was really funny. Then we went into a room where there were all the types of materials you can think of and you could touch them all. There were also coats, jackets and shoes that were made out of recycled material. After that we went away. We were really lucky because of all the pages from the Science Museum we only had to do one and it was the one of saying which displays each floor had. If we had had to answer questions about the displays that were closed, we wouldn’t have been able to.

After the Science Museum we went to a Pizza Hut restaurant for supper.

Max ate five pieces of pizza and an ice cream! I couldn’t believe it! It wasn’t really fair because our table didn’t get pizza passed to us as much as the other tables and that was why I only ate two pieces of pizza. I think Javier threw up from so much pizza but I’m not sure.

Then we went to the theatre to see Wicked. It was pretty amusing and had lots of special effects. But I still liked the Lion King better because it had more imagination. We already knew the story about Wicked because we had studied it in class. It was a bit different of what I had imagined.

After Wicked we went to the residency to go to bed.

Day 6

We got up as usual and we went to breakfast. For breakfast I had toast and egg and then we went to the most exciting part of the trip. Legoland. I was one of the people who was punished and had to do a work first and lose some of the time of Legoland. Tommy and I finished early so they let us go out for a bit of time and then go back to the restaurant that was in Legoland for Pol and Max. They told us we would come back at half-past but they still hadn’t finished so we waited for another 15 minutes. And then we lost another 15 minutes waiting for a ride so in the end we really lost one hour.

The problem is that the first ride we wanted to go to was on the other side of Legoland so we wasted another hour going to the other side of Legoland.

On the way, we bought only three frankfurts because Max didn’t want one. We passed Miniland. Miniland was London in miniature, made out of lego pieces, which was just awesome. Even the cars and boats moved! And there were beefeaters and there was even a terrorist that was trying to shoot the Queen. On a little lake where the boats were, a duck had got in there by mistake and it bumped into a boat and also almost bumped into the bridge.

Finally on the way to Jungle Coaster, which was our destiny, Max decided to have a frankfurt so we went to a different frankfurt shop. When we bought Max’s frankfurt we saw that his was bigger and cheaper than the ones we had earlier. Then we went past a real-size lego dinosaur. It was pretty cool. At the end we finally got to Jungle Coaster.

We had taken an hour to get there. Then it took two hours waiting in line to get on it for five minutes of fun. I kept telling the others to go back but they didn’t want to and so in the end we just wasted all that time.

After the Jungle Coaster we chose to go the Viking’s Land and to see what was there because it looked like fun. When we got there (luckily it wasn’t an hour to get there, just half an hour) we decided to go to a ride that I don’t remember how it was called that was a lot of fun so we repeated it two more times. On the way we found Ona and Claudia on the ride so we all went on the ride together.

The ride was really neat because first we went under a bridge then we went through a part where people were shooting water at us with weird pistol thingies that you pay 50 cents to use. Then we went under a giant rib cage that would sprinkle vapour at us. After that there was a Viking that would spit at us. Then there was a dragon that would send cold air at us because it was an ice dragon or something like that. Next there was a sea monster that would spit every now and then spouts of water and then there were some mice who would spit water at us too because they were drunk. Just when we were the next ones to get off, the ride just stopped for about two or three minutes. Finally we were able to get off.

When we got off the ride we decided to go to the shop because we didn’t have much time left for more rides. On the way we went to the museum that was in the park. In the museum there was a real-size cockpit made of legos. It was really complete. You could go inside and touch all the controls and buttons and there were even windows made out of transparent legos. And there were also a real-size beefeater.

We went to the shop and Max bought a small lego kit of aliens. Pol and I found a free star wars game and since we only had thirty minutes left, we stayed there and played. When it was time to go, we went to the meeting place. Berta Huarte and Julia were 10 minutes late and they got scolded and on the bus we were making jokes about it on the way to the airport.

At the airport, we passed security and everything and when we got to the waiting lounge we did some of our London book. Since we had finished our questionnaires, we asked one of the people in the waiting lounge some of the questions. When we were in the airplane I sat next to David Martín and Toni. Toni had some cards and we played cards part of the trip and we worked on the London book.

The plane left thirty minutes late. On the trip, everyone bought some water but I didn’t have any money. So I asked the man how much water cost and he told me I could get it free. So he brought me a cup of water. I also had a bag of chips.

When we got to Barcelona we had to circle around the airport for thirty minutes and then when we finally landed we had to wait for the bus another thirty minutes so we were really late when we finally got into the airport. We grabbed our bags and then my mother and Pablo picked me up and we went home.

Joel had a great time, especially sharing a dorm room with his three best friends.