Yesterday, July 31, we went on another class field trip to Greenwich. I was so excited about going to Greenwich, for lots of reasons. First, I teach Geography, and the Prime or Greenwich Meridian is VERY important. Secondly, I love the movie "Mary Poppins" and Burt, the chimney sweep says "The world gets its time from Greenwich, but Greenwich gets its time from Admiral Boom!" If you haven't seen "Mary Poppins" lately, go watch it, you'll remember. We rode on a boat down the Thames to get to Greenwich (pronounced "GRIN-itch" not "Green Witch, which I know, but the IT guy here felt obligated to correct me while I was telling Lenese how to spell it the other day – yuck!) and I was again struck by the architecture along the Thames. There are old buildings that look abandoned, new building built in old styles, old buildings being refurbished and new, and fantastically designed buildings like the one called "The Bullet" or "The Gherkin." I took even more pictures of the Tower Bridge, and St Paul's as we went by, but I'll restrain myself from showing you those pictures again!
As we got to Greenwich, we saw the Greenwich Wheel, which is a mini version of the London Eye. It's cute, where the Eye is massive. We wandered through town to the complex that holds the Queen's House (which we didn't go in), The Royal Observatory, and the National Maritime Museum. We went first to the Royal Observatory, which is up a STEEP hill. I think we were all gasping for breath by the time we got up there. The view from the top was worth the climb. At the top, the first thing is an official clock and the official lengths and measures for Britain. You can also see the Time Ball, which falls every day at 1:00, which is 13:00 hours, I think. I called it 13 o'clock, which I know is not right. Apparently, to find longitude, in the old days, ships had to know the official time at their home port to figure longitude. The Time Ball is located high on a hill, so ships anywhere in the vicinity, could see it fall and set their clocks for official time. It still falls nearly every day at 1:00. We went into the Observatory, where we saw some bits and pieces of old things used to figure longitude, and then we went around the corner, and there is was, right there – the Prime Meridian. People were lining up to take their pictures, and of course we took our turn. You can see some of my pictures of me standing in two hemispheres at once. It was seriously cool! There is a gift shop, and of course I found some stuff to wear when I teach the Prime Meridian.
We had lunch, and then we went back to the National Maritime Museum. If I didn't have my Uncle Bob, and my cousin Michael who is retired from the Navy, and my cousin Barry, who is about to retire from the Navy, I don't know if the Maritime Museum would have interested me so much. There are huge anchors outside, and some great stuff inside – figure heads from ships, huge propellers, and a great display of uniforms. I still don't know if any of their uniforms look any better than Michael and Barry in their dress whites, but the ones we saw were still impressive. It was just cool. There was a shop, of course and they had the cutest shirt – of course none the right size, but it was a red shirt that reads "Hello, Sailor!" I thought about my Aunt Mary Ellen – she would have loved it.
We wandered our way back to the dock to get back on the boat – it started to rain. Now, I have discovered that English rain is NOT like Florida rain. At home, it rains hard and fast, and it's over. This rain doesn't do that. It sort of spits rain. It's vaguely irritating – not enough rain to make it worth fishing out and fighting with your umbrella, but too much rain to go without it. Then, when I do decide to open up the umbrella, I worry about poking out someone's eye. I only worry about this, because I nearly run into other people's umbrellas all the time. Maybe I should have gotten an eye patch at the Maritime Museum. . .
We came back to our flat, and all my flat mates when to see a show – Linda and Katherine to see "We Will Rock You" and Jessica and Pamela saw "Zorro." I was a good girl and stayed here and worked. It was worth it, I got my podcast and digital story mostly finished, they both just need a little tweaking. Jessica and Pamela came in dancing and swashbuckling and Linda and Katherine came in singing. It was a good day!
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