San Francisco

San Francisco
In San Francisco we did not stay at a hotel so we stayed with our cousins. They were very nice and fun.
We tried lots of different foods and drinks and we even had donuts for breakfast.
In shops we saw so much things we wanted to buy in one candy shop they had so much candy they had Bertie bots every flavored beans from Harry potter duff beer from the Simpsons and more.

Dizzy at disney

Disney world
At Disney we stayed at the beach club resort with the other Starretts.
The resort was very fancy.
The first afternoon we went to Epcot and did something called a Kim possible mission. You could do them in different countries because in epcot there's little sections that look like the real countries. We did Kim possible Japan. After we did the mission we went in Japan to get dinner.
And at the hotel my mum said that it was her birthday on halloween so they gave her a badge that said happy birthday halloween and in the restaurant they saw the badge and they gave her a chefs hat.
The second day we went to magic kingdom. In magic kingdom we did space mountain a fast,dark and fun ride.
Then we went to fantasy land with more kiddy rides: Peter pan,the tea cups and it's a small world which everyone goes on.
Then we went to big thunder mountain railroad. Splash mountain was closed.
Then we went back to the hotel to have a swim.
The next day we went to Hollywood Studios. I rode Toy Story Mania, the Rockin Roller Coaster and the tower of terror. Mum and dad left us with the other Starretts to have a special lunch. We had lunch at the Prime Time Cafe. Josh and Nan got yelled at for putting their elbows on the table. 
On the third full day we went to Animal Kingdom for a little while. Then our family went to put put golf. I got three holes in one in a row and another one later. After a swim at the hotel we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner. It was an African Buffett but there was some other food if you didn't like the African. At that hotel they had giraffes and zebras running around outside. After dinner we went to Mickey's not so scary halloween party. We did trick or treating and a few rides and we watched the parade.
On the last day we did all the things we wanted to do before we left. First we had breakfast with Jamie Gordon. The water park  was pretty good. We also did shopping and we went to Epcot to do Kim Possible Missions. We did all of them except China. 

Hard fun at the hard rock

Flynn here.

I drank Butterbeer. It tasted like butterscotch - tasty! There was a simulation ride where you went through a castle. There were mechanical creatures and one touched my foot. I went to a show where someone got chosen to get a free wand. I was right next to the boy who was picked.
The rest of Universal was good. I liked the Rip Ride Rockit best. It was a very fast ride with big drops. Every corner you turned it felt like something would hit you in the face.

Menace in Venice

We arrived in Venice by boat. There were lots if Indian salesmen selling useless toys. There was a clock tower which we had to walk under to get to our hotel. On the top there were metal men ringing the bell every hour. Some of the streets are very narrow and there is the smell of garbage around every corner. There were lots of shops selling masks, gelato and glass animals. The hard rock cafe was just around the corner from our hotel. We went there for lunch on the first day. We also went to the island of Murano to see how people make glass.

Roaming in Rome

After a sea day and a day at Palma, we disembarked the ship and flew to Rome. Josh here:
Here are some of the highlights that we found in our three days of Rome
* exploring the streets and finding gelato shops. We had a LOT of gelato.
* Walking through the bone church and discovering all the decorating choices for bones. There were chandeliers, chairs, window frames and a coffin all made of bones. There were also dead bodies, some still standing in their clothes.
* going on a ghost tour through Rome at night with true stories of happenings around Rome.
* When I come home, expect me to try and sell you stuff. I have picked up the techniques of the many Indian salespeople who sold useless items all over Rome.
* going to the Rome Hard Rock Cafe. This was the third Hard Rock we ate at on the trip.
*Guess what- I finally found a pizza I would eat: a pizza entirely covered with Nutella!
* In Piazza Navona there was a cowboy statue with a money can in front of it. When you put money in the can, he moved. Later that day we saw the same cowboy moving, not because there was a coin in his can but because he wanted a cigarette. There was also a dodgy statue of liberty with white clothing and silver skin.

Pompeii by all all three boys

We caught a train to Pompeii. Here are some thoughts:
Flynn: The dead bodies that were there were very cool and weird. A volcano erupted and they were covered in ash and died. There were lots of wild dogs in Pompeii. A sign said they had diseases.
Campbell: I liked all the rooms with the different artifacts. There was a building which was the public baths. One room was a sauna, another room was the pool. We walked further up and we saw ruins that were a bread shop with an oven that looked like a pizza oven. Some of the bodies were quite creepy. Most of them were covered in dust and plaster so it looked like fake bodies but some of them the plaster had worn away so you could see the bones. There was one with the teeth showing.
Josh: All of the dead bodies were in the potion they were when they were covered in ash. To help keep the positions they filled the holes of the bodies with plaster. Because of this you could see how they tried to hide or cover their mouths when the ash came through.

Roaming in Rome

Josh herer again. After having breakfast at Topsiders, we hopped off the boat to discover Rome. We tried the Disney Tours for the first time. Our first stop was the catacombs. We came through an entrance in a church and instantly the smell hit our noses. The smell was explainable as this was the burial ground of 5000 Christian men, women and children. The Romans knew that the catacombs were a Christian burial ground but what they didn't know was that deep within the tunnels there was a room where they could go to pray.

The next part of our adventure was the great building of the Collusium. The line up to get in stretched down blocks and blocks but the thing about going with the Disney tour was that we skipped the whole line and walked straight in. As well as getting some of the best photos ever, we saw how the Collusium had changed through the years.

The last stop of our tour was the Vatican. Just in case you don't know (I didn't), it is the head church of Rome. Although the Vatican wasn't a burial chamber, it still held hundreds of dead bodies including 158 popes (that's one of the weird thing I'm going to remember in life).