[October 23] Daytrip to Greenwich

Sometimes the IES Residence Hall offers daytrips; that's how I went to Hampton Court. For this particular trip, we went to Greenwich! Now keep in mind that the Res Hall houses about 300 students... and only 3 students (myself included) signed up to go on this trip with 1 RA. Unbelievable! But that was okay because a small group is much better and we got to spend more IES money per person...

First, we took a boat down the Thames. I didn't expect this and it was a great chance to see London from its main river! And the reason why London is located where it is!

It says "ENTRY TO THE TRAITORS GATE":

Where the traitors go!

The house of a famous actress I can't remember the name of... What a nice place to live!

Just some housing I thought looked neat:

The O2, a famous place for concerts:

 

Before seeing this, my impression of London was that it is mainly a 'short' city in terms of skyline. But it turns out there are some towering buildings as well:

And then, we arrived at Greenwich! It seems like you would pronounce it "Green-Witch" but it's actually said really fast like "Gren-itch". Ha ha. Like my spelling? ;]

Our small groups went to the Trafalgar Tavern which is right on the Thames and I thought I'd better have some fish & chips! It was the best fish & chips I've had yet! And that green stuff is not guacamole, ha ha, it's MUSHY PEAS. I'm serious, that's what they called it on the menu. I honestly just thought babies ate mushy peas, ha ha.

Then we went to a market! I didn't buy anything but it's really fun to look around.

Then we walked through a park to the observatory/museum/PRIME MERIDIAN!

Royal Observatory Greenwich:

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE:

A view of London from the Observatory... really impressive, gosh...

Here I am, straddling the Prime Meridian, in 'normal' Alyssa-fashion!

 Since you probably can't read this sign, it says:

" '...the centre of time and space...' The Greenwich Meridian: The Prime Meridian is an imaginary line running north-south through Greenwich. In 1884 the line was named as the world's Longitude Zero by the International Meridian Conference.

Every position on earth is defined by its longitude (its distance east or west from Greenwich) and it's latitude (the distance north or south of the equator). Both latitude and longitude are measured to segments of a circle: degrees, (can't read this word, but possibly 'minutes'), and seconds."

I'm really glad I went on this daytrip because I've always heard about Greenwich and I finally got to see it!