That's How I Float Across Time

I told you yesterday that we’d be going to Greenwich today to take a tour of the Royal Observatory and see the Prime Meridian. Well, we did! Here’s how things went:

Around 8:30, Eileen’s alarm clock woke me up, but apparently she was already awake and in the shower, so she wasn’t around to turn it off. This left me to mindlessly search by hand hitting the table for her alarm clock (mind you, I was wearing a sleep mask that I really didn’t want to take off, else I should wake up completely from the light outside streaming in through the draperies that hardly keep anything out!), and I realized in a sleep drunken stupor that if I pressed the face of the alarm clock in, it turned off. That left me with another half hour to enjoy my snug little nest of pillows and blankets I had managed to make throughout the night.

When 9am rolled around, I heard the distinct beeping of my alarm clock building momentum (you know, those clocks that are designed to gradually awaken you so that you aren’t startled awake). I couldn’t help but giggle as I remembered some of the crazy comments and happenings during our night out to the club last night. I have to say, my parents would have to be proud of me the way I took charge (okay, slightly nominated by everyone else as well) of getting us home safely, and away from the rude gents at the bus stop who were singing praises to Canada rather obnoxiously once they found out we were Americans.

The kitchen was still a mess from where everyone had been in there last night, empty glasses and open containers strewn about the countertop like some poorly arranged high school demonstration of what binge drinking will look like. I think it was mainly in a mess because everyone had their own beverage, and didn’t bother to clean up after themselves. Well, at least I cleaned up after myself. That’s what counts, right?

Somewhere between heating up rice and mixing in sweet and sour stir fry sauce, I got fixated on the patio door that is padlocked to our inconvenience. You have no idea how much I’ve been longing to wake up in the morning, step out on that patio, and get a breath of fresh air, or come during the evening and swing open the doors to let in a gust of air in to cool down this sauna of a flat. I think the longer I stared at it the more angry I got over being denied one little convenience of ventilation that would make living in this flat that much better (you know, aside from having actual air conditioning).

There was still three minutes left on heating up the rice when subconsciousness possessed my hand to pick up a kitchen knife and fiddle with the screws. I almost had one of them all the way out before I realized, 1: I was bending the tip of the knife, and 2: woah, I was breaking out, wait, is that right? of our apartment! Now that I think about it, I’m going to have to find something other than a knife that won’t bend when I pull the other three screws out. I *will* step foot on that patio before I leave here, I swear!

The rice was pretty good with the sweet and sour sauce, mind you, and half way through eating it I remembered that Danielle had asked me to wake her up if she weren’t awake by 9:15. So I humped my bowl of rice upstairs with me and knocked on the door at the end of the hallway that leads into Danielle’s room, made sure she woke up, and then fumbled my way back downstairs to rinse off my fork and throw the empty rice container away. After that, I got dressed before everyone else and stepped out onto the main stoop to wait for the others.

Around 9:55am, everyone started trickling out, and we discovered that while all the boys were going, only Danielle, Samantha, and myself were representing the girls. Dr. Klandorf (call him Hillar, please!) nominated Prez to lead us down to Westminster where we’d meet the boat. Things became very comical when everyone began recalling the night, and giggling once more at the outrageousness of it all. We all also agreed to no posted photos.

We missed the first cruise by that much, but we only had to wait maybe 10 minutes before the next one left at 10:50am. Stepping onto the one story river cruiser was pretty exciting, too, because we were one of the lucky groups that got to sit along the outside and get the best view of the river bank as we floated down the Thames. The only downside was the occasional collision of wake from another ship that, well, caused us to smell very badly thanks to the dirty Thames water. But at least I can say I’ve half swam in the Thames with honesty!

Before we actually left the Westminster area, though, the boat had to float across to the Millennium dock and pick up more to make a full load, but then we were sprinting down the river at a pretty fast pace. Apparently, as custom, one of the river boat crew will voluntarily give a real-time tour, but whomever volunteered for our ride down didn’t put forth much of an effort on his part. I think I could only clearly hear him once, and that was when he asked the question “Do we have any Americans on board?”

Down next to the Tower of London, we glided up to the dock no problem, and those that were leaving got off, and more got on. We were going to Greenwich, so naturally we stayed aboard. After some more sightseeing down the river, we reached the dock outside of Greenwich, and became landlubbers once more before trotting down to the Spanish Galleon pub for some lunch.

There we had some pretty nice conversations, and I ended up sitting at a table with Hillar, Danielle, and Samantha, upon which time we got to know Hillar better, and he us. He was excited to find out that Prez and I both are RAs for Stalnaker/Dadisman, and we was also pleased to see that we were relaxing and pretty laid back on the trip, whereas he said there have been RAs to do this trip in the past and they end up feeling obligated to take charge of the other students.

I was excited to see how pretty laid back he was, as well, because my impression of him and his wife from campus-wide interviews my freshman year had given me the impression they were strict as can be. It was even nice of him to listen to some of my ideas for the university, which he encouraged me to talk to Dr. Stewart about once we return to school in the Fall. You won’t believe how happy I am to know he’s pretty laid back; seriously, you’ve no idea!

After lunch, we marched down one of the main streets of Greenwich to the National Maritime Museum, and from there we went around back to a lovely expansive hillside to gaze up at the Royal Observatory. It looked further away than it actually was, for whatever reason. From there, we hiked up the long path (also got to see some guy sunbathing in a thong; it was pretty disturbing), and made it up to the Prime Meridian no problem. I even got a picture of my feet straddling the Meridian, so that would probably make me standing at 51.28’38” Latitude North Longitude +or- 0.0’2” on either side, right? Btw, does anyone know of that means that I’m standing in two different time zones? Or do they extend the line so that all of Greenwich is one time zone despite the line?

Anyway, we went inside to a fab little shop (I bought a Prime Meridian tee! Sexual innuendos may ensue) and then upstairs to the Royal Observatory, and got to see the 28inch refraction telescope and wow I just realized how long this blog is becoming! Aside from that, once we were finished looking at the little TVs showing scenes across the universe that this lens has photographed, we went down an old wrought iron staircase to emerge outside. Upon that time, Samantha, Danielle, and I decided it was time to lay out and relax.

There was this posh little spot across the fenced in area that sloped downhill, and since there were already other people there, we decided to do the same. We sat down and talked for a bit, and then I remembered I had a book that I could be reading, while Danielle hooked up her iPod and Samantha all but passed out asleep. Naturally, we realized how nice a photo opportunity this would be, so we had the boys take a photo for us!

3:15pm rolled around, and we all met up to hike back down the hill, and at the bottom we decided to check out the National Maritime Museum before getting back on the boat at 4:10pm. This time we had a double-decker boat, and we three girls sat down upstairs to get a lovely view (and more wind) coming back up the river. Also, we had a much better tour guide who was exceptionally cheeky, and exceptionally adorable. (Direct quote: “To our left you’ll see a very high scale restaurant. Gents, this is something you might want to do if you fancy your wives, or your girlfriends, or some other blokes’ girlfriends. Mind you, that last one is not advisable.”)

Around this time I realized that I was trapped on top of a boat in the hot sun with no sunscreen. So what does one do? Simply take off the watch, roll up one’s sleeves, and pray to God for an even burn. Now that I’m back at the flat writing this I can see my nice raccoon marks on my face from the sunglasses (thank God for those!), and the red already coming out on my arms and face. At least it’s even though; maybe tomorrow it’ll even turn into a nice tan?

I can only hope...

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Part of trip: London Summer Internship 2009

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