0'00"0

You know what's worse that "springing forward" for Daylight Savings Time and losing an hour once? SPRINGING FORWARD TWICE. Today we got to experience London's Daylight Savings Time, which was brought to my attention by none other that Big Ben. He started his chiming and I looked up to read that it was noon, and not 11 AM, as I had thought. Funny.

I found us a cheap river cruise to take us down the Thames River to Greenwich. There, Jit, Laura and I immediately found a delicious bakery - pretty sure everybody working there was French. So it was delicious. I was really excited for the Royal Observatory and it did not disappoint.

The Royal Observatory, founded in 1675, was built upon the highest hill in Greenwich which lends a great view, especially since London treated us to another spectacularly sunny day! There are two parts to the observatory: the Astronomy Route and the Prime Meridian Route.

Astronomy Route: I thoroughly enjoyed this due to my secret fascination with space and astronomy. There were videos, meteorite pieces, interactive games, and many cool pictures. I learn so much everywhere I go. I attribute that to the fact that I only go where I want and I have the luxury of spending as much time there as I please. That's what I get for not traveling in a huge tour group! One cool thing in the Astronomy Route was that I got to touch the oldest thing on the earth. It's a chunk of the Gibeon Meteorite that hit earth 4.5 billion years ago. It's made of iron and nickel which formed intricate patterns. This tells scientists that the meteorite was cooling over thousands of years while traveling through space. How amazing is that?!

Prime Meridian Route: Also extremely cool. Many clocks, astrolabes, telescopes, etc. I learned a great deal about John Flamsteed, England's first Astronomer Royal, and also Edmund Halley (familiar sounding because of Halley's Comet), the second Astronomer Royal. It was pretty awesome to see the Greenwich clocks, set my watch and clock to exact Greenwich Mean Time (even though ironically that is an hour behind "British Summer Time" i.e. Daylight Savings Time), and to walk on the Prime Meridian....Longitude 0'00"0 degrees!

Following these lovely exhibits, we strolled through Greenwich Park in the sunlight and found an Herb Garden. I had much fun snipping tiny little pieces off of various plants, smelling them, and trying to figure out what they were. Then Laura found a map which labeled all the herbs and that was much quicker than guessing!

From here we went to Greenwich Market. Lots of unique crafty things I hadn't seen before...and then...the COOLEST food-stall-court I've ever seen. Literally there was a stall for every country. I saw food that I hadn't seen since I'd actually been in, say South Africa, for example. So amazing. It's a good thing I don't have my debit card and thus cash yet because...that would have been an expensive albeit tasty experience. It smelled incredible and was quite a sight to behold. Everything looked absolutely delicious.

Then we went to an English pub and finally found some English beers (strangely hard to find here). At this pub and at the tiny restaurant we ate at afterward we also were with two other CS friends of Jit: Errita and another guy who's name I've forgotten :/. The guy was from Hungary and the woman, Errita, was from Eritrea. Very cool talking with her over beers. The three of us shared stories and talked about the US, India, Africa, and a range of other topics. Quite a cool, multi-cultural conversation! Another Yay for CS :)

We made the hour-long trek back to Jit's place only to continue watching the next two trashy "American Pie" movies. But, we did it while sipping more of Jit's delicious Indian tea, so I think it was a good use of time :)

Quotes:
"This is AWESOME!" Cute little British boy with a cute little British accent (little people with accents are so precious), in regards to the (awesome) video about the earth and space and planets and stuff at the Royal Observatory.
"Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it...our world is terrifying in its insignificance." Bernard de Fontenelle (1657-1757).
"My god, it's lovely!" Woman at the market who tasted a Polish dish she had been bad-mouthing for looking so disgusting immediately prior. Reminded me to keep an open mind for all things, but especially food in this case :)
"I like it!" Laura. All the time. That girl likes everything. I taught her how to say it in French to add a little diversity to her responses... ("Je l'aime".)

Accomplishments:
Finally learned how to pronounce "Thames" ("Tehms").
Found and devoured a most delicious fruit scone with clotted cream and heaps of jam.
Bought my England plate (a gorgeous compass design found at the Royal Observatory shop). I collect a plate from every country I go to (starting back with Semester at Sea).
Successfully had an illegal picture of me taken wearing this ridiculously fun headband at the market (the woman was very mean about people taking pictures of her things and not buying them, so we had to be crafty).

Travel Tip:
Think like a local. Today we took a commuter cruise down the river and used the local transit card, as opposed to paying for the leisure cruise (with a narrator) for cash. This meant we paid about half the leisure price, and we got a 10% discount using the transit card. Bonus!

Today I thought of:
TJ Hanify - for that awesome quote (above) that throws me back to my existentialist 1oth grade days.

Nice People Alert:
Greenwich Market Man Who Gave Me 2 Free Cashews - they were delicious! How could he tell that I love free food?

Another day down. Everybody has beat me to bed once again (by a long shot) so I hope you enjoyed this reading!