Finding the Prime Meridian

Last weekend I decided to go out to Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory. Greenwich is still considered part of central London, but it’s a bit farther away and not that many tube stations run there. Unfortunately it took me forever to get there; after waiting a half an hour for a train that never came I finally realized that the tube to Greenwich was shut down refurbishment. This pretty much describes London as they prepare for the Olympics; everything closes down on the weekends for repairs. Luckily I managed to find a bus and eventually got there, although it ended up taking me 2 hours in total!

Greenwich is really nice and the Royal Observatory is located on a hill right in the middle of Greenwich Park; it gives you a great view of the city and the river Thames. The Royal Observatory was built years ago to study the stars in order to create a star catalog. It’s famous today because it is the location of the Prime Meridian, 0 degrees longitude! Everyone in the world sets their watches based on the time it is in Greenwich. I stood on the Prime Meridian and thoroughly enjoyed learning all about how the Meridian was moved 3 or 4 times to suit the astrologer living at the Observatory before it’s location today was agreed upon.

While the Meridian was interesting, my favourite part of the Observatory was the planetarium they have! I’ve wanted to go to a planetarium for years and I finally got to go to one and learned all about the life cycle of stars! There was also a photography exhibition on with loads of pictures of space; they were just incredible!  I ended the day by taking the Thames River boat back to the city center, which was substantially more enjoyable than a 2-hour bus ride!

Happy Chinese New Year

It seems a bit late to be writing about this now, but last weekend London celebrated the Chinese New Year (yes a week late, I’m not really sure why). I was pretty excited to go check out all the celebrations; unfortunately it was a pretty big letdown. Chinatown was decorated really nicely and there were a lot of people dressed in costume dancing around, but there were just so many people crowded into such a small space that it wasn’t at all enjoyable. It’s the year of the dragon this year so I picked up a little Chinese dragon souvenir, had lunch in a small Chinese restaurant with a friend, and then got out of there as fast as I could!

I decided to spend the rest of my afternoon at Buckingham Palace. I’m not really sure how I’ve been in London for more then a month and only just visited the palace. It is located in St. James Park and it’s quite grand. I kept my eyes peeled in case the Queen dropped by or Will and Kate came for a visit, but sadly no luck. I did stumble upon a memorial recognizing the contributions of Canadians and Newfoundlanders in the First World War which was pretty nice though!

Limitless

I spent this past weekend at a youth retreat with the Salvation Army church I’ve been going to in London. About 20 of us headed out to the English countryside to enjoy a weekend retreat. I was thrilled about the timing of the retreat as SASF retreat took place this past weekend as well and I was bummed about missing it. I really enjoyed the youth retreat here though! I met lots of new people and had a great time getting a break from the busyness of the city.

Highlights of the retreat included go-karting and climbing Jacobs ladder. Jacob’s ladder is this huge wooden ladder that starts out with the rungs about 3 feet apart and then they slowly get further apart up to about 6 feet I’d guess. It’s pretty tall and insanely hard to climb up! I really wanted to make it to the 7^th rung, but I’m a wuss and got scared about halfway up. You can see pictures on my facebook page. I also attended my first authentic “fancy dress” party! “Fancy Dress” is just a fancy way of saying costume party. We all had to dress up as something that started with the first letter of our name, so I dressed up as an M&M!

I think the best part of the weekend for me though was when it finally snowed. It’s the first time I’ve seen in snow in London and everyone had great reactions to it! It was one of those really nice snowfalls where there’s no wind and the snowflakes are all really sticky. Well we ended up getting about 5-10cm overnight the whole country just about shut down! Nobody could get anywhere, the highways were backed up, everyone was hoping school was going to be cancelled on Monday; it was pretty dramatic. I understand that London’s not really equipped to deal with snow, but the Newfoundlander in me had a good laugh at all the hoopla over a few measly centimeters of snow. Speaking of which, I hear Newfoundland has been getting killed with snow this winter and I’d love to see some pictures please!

Take care!
Maria

This past weekend was quite long, but eventful! I woke up nice and early on Saturday morning in order to fit in a day of art! It was too early really, I woke up at 5:30am in order to go to the National Gallery to line up for tickets to an exhibition on Leonardo Da Vinci. I met up with another MUN engineering student living in London who told me all about the limited time exhibition going on at the Gallery.

The exhibit was all about Da Vinci and featured 9 of his 15 paintings! The Gallery had many of his paintings on loan from other museums and had collected dozens of his other sketches and works. We had to stand it line for a whopping 5 and a half hours to get tickets, but I must say, it was worth it! The exhibit is here for 3 months, but it’s so popular that you always have to come line up at 6am in order to get tickets.

The surprise of the exhibit was that a new Da Vinci painting has recently been discovered; Christ as Salvator Mundi. It showed up at a private art auction in the States a little while ago and it’s recently been restored. Apparently this is the first time it’s been on display for the public to view. BBC is doing a big documentary about it. Needless to say it was definitely an experience to get to see so many of his paintings in one place!

In the afternoon, we decided to check out London’s very own Banglatown and had some tasty Bangladeshi cuisine. I also went inside St. Paul’s Cathedral for the first time since I’ve been here and I have to say, it is incredible! I didn’t get a chance to go up to the dome, but the inside is beautiful. There was a service going on when we walked in and the organ was just booming throughout the church. It’s easy to understand why it is called Christopher Wren’s masterpiece.

Sunday was not quite as exciting as Saturday, but I still had a nice day. I decided to go to the London Sealife Aquarium; unfortunately it was a little bit of a letdown. It was quite expensive and mostly aimed at kids. I found it interesting to discover that you’re not allowed to keep whales in the UK, so the aquarium was focused on different kinds of fish and sealife; they did have a few sharks though. My personal favourite was the penguin exhibit at the very end of the aquarium. The penguins did everything as a group. They would swim in a formation, jump up on the ice together and then all dive back in the water at the same time, it was super cute!

This weekend I’m looking forward to seeing Les Miserables and I’m hoping to take in the Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown.

Much love,
Maria

If there’s one thing Londoners know, it’s fashion. After seeing some of the truly awful outfits in some of my favourite British movies – think Bridget Jones and Love Actually – I thought the British had no style. However, all the Londoners I pass on the streets every day certainly do. Men go to work in crisp, clean suits and women in business skirts and high heels. I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed of my salt-stained Newfoundland boots, so naturally I went shopping!

I spent last Saturday afternoon taking advantage of the Christmas sales still going on in London. I went to Oxford Street, which is the shopping center of London. It’s not high fashion with designer prices, but it has a huge selection of reasonably priced stores and shops. I have to say, shopping in London is just better. While I didn’t buy a new pair of boots, I am now the proud owner of 1 (okay 2) new pairs of heels for work! The next time I go shopping I am going to check out some local markets, so stay tuned for that!

On Sunday I continued my walk along the Thames. Last week I walked half of the river, from Parliament to the Millennium Bridge; this week I continued along the South Bank and saw Shakespeare’s Globe, City Hall, and Tower Bridge. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I managed to get some nice shots of Tower Bridge, which you can see on my facebook page. I finished the afternoon by going up Tower Bridge; there’s an exhibition in the tower about other famous bridges in the world. The civil engineer in me quite enjoyed it! I also never realized you could walk along the top part of Tower Bridge, so I got some nice shots of London up there as well.

My weeks are usually much less eventful then the weekends, but today on my lunch break I went to check out the Monument. The Monument is a huge pillar in the center of the city, which stands as a reminder of the great fire of 1666. I mentioned the fire in my first blog post; it originally started in a bakery where the monument now stands and unfortunately burned much of London to the ground at the time. The only way up to the top of the Monument is to walk the 311 stairs that circle around the inside of the column. However, once you make it to the top, the view is totally worth it! It gives you a beautiful 360-degree view of the city.

I now have a local cell phone if anyone wants to get a hold of me. Skype is cheaper (it’s free!) but if you prefer to call, let me know and I’ll send you my number. Hope to hear from you!

Love Maria