Science and Natural History museum in London

Yesterday we visited two museums; the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. In the Natural history Museum there 69 million different objects including dinosaurs, a giant cocoon shaped building that scientists work in, and a evolution of humans exhibit. When I went to the Evolution of humans exhibit I was able to relate some of the information to my Social Studies class when we studied early man. I also enjoyed seeing the dinosaur exhibit. There was a complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They also built a life size robotic T-rex it roared and moved it’s head.

The Science Museum was also really fun. There was a lot of hands on stuff. There was a space section, energy section, automobile section, a plastic section, and so much more. My brother and I had a great time. It was also a adventure to ride on the underground trains. The day in London was really fun.

Longleat and Nunney Castle

Before it slips my mind I would like to tell you about Nunney Castle. This is a French stye castle that was built in the 14th century by Sir John de la Mere. This castle was used in the civil war, but was destroyed soon after by a blast from a cannon. When I visited, I could clearly see the huge hole in the side of it. This castle was only functional during the war for a few days then destroyed.

Another thing we visited was less of a historical building and more of recreational area; it is called Longleat. Longleat house is a huge house with many historical objects. But when its owners couldn't pay all the bills for the house, they decided to open a safari park so they could pay the bills. Longleat has now become a main tourist attraction; it gets 300,000 visitors every year! I enjoyed driving through the safari park and letting animals come up to our car. When we drove in to the monkey jungle, several moneys jumped on our car. I also got to feed some colorful birds. I got them to sit on my hand and shoulder when I held out the food. It was a great safari adventure. We also got to go in the Longleat house. Some of the rooms in it are bigger than my house. There are so many different kinds of rooms, such as dinning rooms, libraries, breakfast rooms, bedrooms, meeting rooms, and more. We didn't even see all of the house because part of it some one lives in.

Cheddar Gorge

Yesterday we visited cheddar. If you are wondering why this town is named after cheese--it's because cheddar was invented here. One method that people used to age cheese was to lock it in caves. The reason they did that was the caves kept a even temperature of 11° C. It was a perfect temperature for the cheese. I also got to tour around Cheddar and look at some cool stuff.

Cheddar Gorge is a really old rock formation, it took 300 million years to form. It was carved from the melting of the glaciers. It is made mostly out of limestone. When archeologists where exploring Cheddar Gorge and its caverns, they came across England’s oldest complete skeleton; they named him “the Cheddar Man”. Another interesting tourist attraction is Jacob’s Latter, it is 274 steps leading from the bottom of the gorge to the top. People that live in Cheddar say that “ how long the human race has been on the face of the world is about as thick as a piece of paper, then look down the stairs. All of those stairs is how long the the world has been around; 250 million years”. If humans have been on earth for about 5,000 years, I calculated that all that paper would not



stretch down the whole flight of stairs. 250 million years would only be 5,000 sheets of paper; that amount of paper would only cover about 10 steps instead of 274.