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Published: August 20th 2007
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Unfortunately for you my stay in London won’t be near as interesting as the rest of my trip so far. Between John’s instructions and the very efficient and easy to use underground I never got lost! It doesn’t make any sense does it? I get hopelessly lost in Stratford-Upon-Avon (which you could walk from tip to tip in a day but London is a piece of cake! I got up much later than I intended to because I of lack of sleep the last two nights. I went in to London and made my way to Tate Modern, which was easy to find because we walked past it the day before. The amusing thing was that I was stopped and asked directions. Even more amazing was the fact that I could give the directions. To be fair they were asking where the Globe was! I wandered around the Tate Modern for a little bit but somehow couldn’t even feign interest for a canvas painted red or a canvas with one straight black line (I have never been much of a fan of modern art). I did go to the Dali exhibit which was very interesting. I am not a huge fan
of him but at least he paints something!
My feet were still bothering me from the day before so I used my London Pass and jumped onto a river cruise. I had planned on going to Tate Britain but decided I really did not want to go to another museum for a while. I decided to just stay on the river boat until I figured out what I wanted to do. When we got to Greenwich, I decided to get off there and go see the Prime Meridian. I had not really thought about visiting Greenwich on my trip mostly because I thought it was further away from London. The Royal Observatory is set in a very large park with several magnificent buildings around. One was originally a hospital for wounded sailors. It is now the maritime museum. Oh and by the way the Royal Observatory is located at the top of a hill! On my way there I stopped at a very pretentious looking restaurant (I was a little tired of pub food at this point) and hate probably the blandest hamburger I have ever had. Also the waitress acted like I spoke a foreign language. The menu
had something (I cant remember what it was called) listed as on the hamburger and I asked her what it was and she rolled her eyes and said it is a cucumber (which means it was a pickle!).
I continued towards the Royal Observatory and I was about half way there when I discovered the most fabulous and amazing thing I have seen during my entire trip. In fact it made me want to cry and jump for joy at the same time! What miraculous thing could elicit such intense emotions?? A water fountain! I had not seen a water fountain in 7 weeks! I was so happy to see one. It is very frustrating to have to buy a bottle of water every time you want a drink. Ah the little things we miss! I finally made it to the top and for once something was free to enter! I passed on taking a picture with each foot in a different time zone because the line was VERY long and full of Japanese tourists.
------I have learned that the stereotype about Japanese tourists is very true. They have to take a picture of EVERYTHING and each one has
to take the exact same picture even though they could just share the pictures since they all have digital cameras. No, that doesn’t frustrate me in the least bit! I haven’t taken that many pictures because I would rather enjoy my visit and be able to concentrate on things instead of just snapping away. -----
I did get an official certificate that I visited the observatory at such and such time. Ok I am a little embarrassed about this next part. I was genuinely confused as to why my certificate was an hour off compared to all the clocks in the Royal Observatory. Then I finally realized that the printing machine was located on the OTHER side of the prime meridian. Go ahead and laugh…I did. After a fascinating (snore) tour of clocks and watches and telescopes, I headed back down the hill to catch the last boat back. This was one of those times I really wished I was a kid. A bunch of the kids decided that rolling down the hill would be extremely more fun then walking down the hill. It sure seemed a lot faster way to get down! I nearly did roll down the hill
head first though. Someone was playing fetch with their dog and the ball just happened to roll under the heel of my foot as I was taking a step. I am nowhere near graceful even on flat surfaces so it was a miracle I actually stayed upright. The guy (who didn’t even apologize) was given the evil eye.
There were tons of other things I would have liked to see that day but I was still so tired so I headed back to John and Dora’s for the night.
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