Guest Blogger Rayna

Of course, part of our Homeschool ELA program has been to journal, write reports, etc. So, I (Bev) thought we should make use of one of those reports here. Why reinvent the wheel? It may be interesting to hear an almost-eight-year-old's perspective anyway. So here is Rayna's latest writing assignment.

My Time on a Cruise Boat

In the beginning of May, we went on a cruise boat for five nights. The ship left from Barcelona. Barcelona is a three hour train ride from Madrid.

The Ship

On the ship there were 4000 people and 15 floors. We were on the 8^th floor. Our room had bunk beds that came out of the ceiling. Very cool! Our room was very small and had no windows, but it was good enough.

The first thing we did was explore the ship. There was a climbing wall. I climbed to the very top and rang the bell.

There was also a sports court and a Flo-Rider for surfing and boogie-boarding, but I was too short to go on it. There was a mini golf course. I played on it only once. It was fun. I really liked playing in the Arcade. I played air hockey twice and Mario Kart 2 two times. It was fun. I was in a class every day at 8:00 pm that was called Adventure Ocean. You would play games, do crafts and learn a little bit of Science every day. There was also a water park, a whirl pool, swimming pools and hot tubs. The whirl pool was really fun!

There was a dining room that was very fancy. The waiter would pull out your chair and put your napkin on your lap for you. I dressed up for a few suppers. I loved the pineapple and lychee chilled soup! I tried the garlic soup, but it wasn’t my favourite. I always ordered off the adult menu because I wanted to try new foods, not macaroni or chicken nuggets on the kids’ menu.

There was even a skating rink. I skated for an hour…it was super fun!!!!

Oh, how I loved the ship!

Shows

I had fun watching “In the Air”. People danced and sang and climbed ropes and swung on them. It was awesome and so cool!

Another show was figure skating. It was also awesome!

I also had fun watching “ImaginOcean”. It was a glow in the dark puppet show. Very cool!

Places We Went

We rode the ship to France to a place called Cannes. We walked up a lot of stairs and saw a view of the city. It was beautiful!

The next day we docked at La Spezia, Italy. We took a train to Cinque Terre which is a park of five villages in a row by the sea. We hiked on a skinny path up and down the side of mountains.

After, we ate Italian pizza and Italian ice cream called gelato. It was delicious!

The next stop was Civitavecchia, Italy. We went on a train to Rome. I was expecting it to be greater but it was still exciting. We saw where the pope lives and we saw him do a speech.

 There were so many people in Rome that we could not see things properly. We took a double decker tour bus around the rest of the city. I thought the Coliseum was awesome!

The last day we sailed and stayed on the ship all day.

Barcelona

When we got back to Barcelona, we stayed in a hostel which is like a hotel, but different. It was my first time in a hostel. It is like a house with many bedrooms and a few bathrooms and a kitchen. Our family all shared one big bedroom.The breakfast was really good!

We saw Sagrada Familia which is a church, but it was cool and really really big.

We also saw where they had the Summer Olympics in 1992. They were making it into a motorcross course or something for the X-Games in a few weeks and a half-pipe.

This is where the Olympic Flame would have burned.

At Park Guell, we saw interesting things. Most of the things were made by Gaudi, who is an artist and architect. He does lots of mosaic art and his stuff is very unique. I loved it!

 We went on a gondola across the harbour area. I thought I was going to fall off, but it was just because I was a little afraid of heights. It was very high and we looked way down. It was creepy and fun!

This trip was awesome and fun and exciting and a good experience, the best week ever!