Saturday, November 14, 2009

Meridian madness and Glorious Baroque


Straddling the Prime Meridian

On Friday we travelled to Greenwich. If you've never heard of this place it's ok, because I hadn't either. However, I can now tell you that Greenwich, England is the home of the Prime Meridian. We'll get back to that later though. We left around 10am for the town and had to take a tube and a ride on the DLR to get there. Of course we arrive to pouring rain. I can't say I'm surprised. Our good luck London weather has finally run out. Rain is becoming a constant part of every day now. Abs, Annie, Lauren, Kristen, and I stuck together as we tried to figure out where the heck we were supposed to go. The map we'd been given was pretty vague on the details. We ended up wandering through the covered market and to the nearest Starbucks to pick up some steamers. They warmed us right up but didn't seem to taste as good as they normally do. It was too bad. Eventually we figured out where we were and headed to the Royal Observatory. It was a good 20 minute walk in the rain and Kristen and I were the only ones with umbrellas and even they weren't helping that much. Oh well, what can you do right? When we got to the observatory we followed the signs to the Prime Meridian. This is the line that divides the world into Eastern and Western hemispheres. Pretty cool right? I was standing in two different hemispheres at once. I'll admit, I felt pretty special at that moment. We snapped a few pictures and then decided to go to the astronomy exhibit. Annie's a pretty big fan of those types of things, so we wanted to give her the chance to go. It too was fun to look at. From there we decided to head back to London. Again, we trekked through the pouring rain and had a nice soggy train ride back home.

 
That night we went as a group to see a night of Baroque Music at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. Annie, Lauren, Abby, Nicole, and I decided to get some dinner first. We went to Nando's and it was so good. I got a caesar salad and just loved it. The concert was really neat as well. The church was beautiful. I wasn't sure what Baroque music was, but now I know it is very pleasant sounding music played mostly by strings. They played "Four Seasons" and "Pachobel's Cannon" just to name a few. I really enjoyed myself. Afterwards we had some delicious ice cream cones from McDonald's. Seriously, one of the best I've had while over here. It was a pretty great day!

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