Boatride Down the Thames and Sitting in Both Hemispheres (London day 4)

I’m becoming more worn out every day, but my excitement and enthusiam is still strong, so hopefully that energy can get me through writing another post!

Today was full of firsts for me, unlike the last few days where we mostly did and saw things I’ve already experienced (minus the Harry Potter tour; go ahead and check out those pictures here). But today I got to go a bit outside the City and tour Greenwich!

A naval town, if you couldn’t tell.

We (the class) traveled by boat this time, winding our way leisurely down the river Thames while snapping pictures of all the iconic sites from a different angle. I got quite a lot of photos, so here are some of my favorites:

Selfie with Big Ben!

The London Eye.

St. Paul’s and the City of London School.

Cleopatra’s Needle in front of the city’s largest clock face (“So large, it takes a full hour for the hand to go around,” joked our tour guide).

I forget what this is, but it’s pretty.

The London Bridge.

The Tower of London.

The Tower Bridge.

Once in Greenwich we stopped for lunch in a little food stand -type area. Well, it was lunchtime, but I ended up getting a desert crepe because I’m an adult and can make those kinds of decisions.

These are what fun adults look like, kids.

We then toured the ship Cutty Sark. I’d never heard of it, but apparently it was the fastest trading ship in the 19th century. It mainly imported teas and sheep wool. It suffered a fire several years ago and required renovations, but now it’s open to the public again.

The second ship I’ve been on this year.

It seemed to be more of a kid-oriented attraction, but it was still cool to learn a bit about ship life.

And take pictures of nautical things.

Afterward we walked through the Royal Naval College and past the Queen’s House.

Of course only a Queen could live here.

I believe it was one of the Jameses or Charleses who had it built for his wife. We tried to tour it, but it’s currently closed for rennovations. I guess its 400th anniversary is coming up or something.

But they didn’t close off the balcony, so we’re good.

We then trudged up a little hill to get to the Royal Observatory. Here we learned about the long process of figuring out how to calculate longitude while on the seas. I’d never realized how difficult it was and how long they went without any accurate tools.

The most important invention in history, the placard claims.

The Prime Meridian line was also up here, but an hour-long line to take a picture with it made me and Faith get creative.

One part of the line isn’t more official than the other, so why not snap a pic over here?

Faith and I then went back to our flat (after walking another half hour looking for a bakery in a different direction; this time it was a success!) to cook a spaghetti dinner and relax our tired bodies after such a packed week. This weekend we’ll be left to move at our own pace and see some additional things we’re interested in. We’re still working out what those things are, but top of the list at the moment is… Pub!

Look, I’m royalty, too!