A mean time in Greenwich

Ahoy! Hard to believe it's been a week already since our last entry. This past week flew by - Keith hard at work and me finally having to go to some school-related activities. Today we had the adventure of buying a printer in Uxbridge - each store we went to only had one or two printers to choose from - not one or two models, but literally one or two printers for sale. As someone who hails from the land of the box store this was mind-boggling.

Yesterday we went east to Greenwich and it was well worth the trip (more than 2 hours from our neighbourhood in the far west end of London!) Our guide book says that Greenwich has retained the feeling of a smaller town because it was only connected to London via the DLR (Docklands Light Rail - basically the tube) in 1999. It is a lovely spot to spend the day. We took the tube downtown then hopped on a Thames Clipper ship - one of the many companies that speeds Londonites and tourists down the river. It took us about an hour to get from Bank Pier (near the London Eye) to Greenwich Pier. It was a fantastic way to see the city - both the parts we've already explored west of the Tower of London, and then further east.

Greenwich is very picturesque - lovely old buildings, cute artsy shops - and also quite busy - it seems to be a popular tourist spot even on the brisk day we chose to visit. We went over to the Greenwich Market which has been around since the 18th century and got some fresh Thai food (lots of little stalls selling food from all over - everything looked good - and a welcome change from the ubiquitous triangle sandwiches which are all over London - I have been eating an egg salad (or egg mayo, as they say) sandwich at least once every two days since arriving here). We carried our steaming food over to Greenwich Park, which is the oldest royal park in London and fills the middle of town.

If you look closely at the treeline on the right of this photo you can see the tower and red ball that drops at 13:00 each day to mark Greenwich Mean Time.

After eating our lunch quickly in the park (the weather could still be considered mild as long as we were moving and in the sun), we walked up a steep hill to the Royal Observatory which is in the middle of the park. From the top there is a beautiful view of Greenwich and over to London. At the top there is also a mysterious statue of Gen. James Wolfe - we seem to have followed him from Cape Breton into the UK.

There are two buildings on the top of the hill - one on astronomy housed in the newer observatory from the late 19th century and another on the meridian that's located in the original Royal Observatory built way back in 1675. Lots of displays about time, and trying to solve the problem of longitude. We tried our best to understand the exhibits on the solar system. There was a huge line up to stand on the "official" meridian line and be in the east and west at once but we discovered that the line also extends inside a nice warm building so we stood on that instead. However, Keith says he is loyal to the previous meridian, about 6 metres to the right. I was happy to finally put some context to the CBC radio beeps that marked Greenwich Mean Time each morning.

We also went to the National Maritime Museum which has exhibits on the history of sea exploration, some stuff on the Franklin expedition and the outfit that Lord Nelson wore when he was shot (complete with bloodstained socks and bullet hole in the shoulder). On our way back we took the tube which goes right through the Docklands area - all the little inlets of water are still there, surrounded by huge skyscrapers that could easily be in downtown Toronto - much different looking than older downtown London. We're looking forward to an excursion to the Museum of London in Docklands at some point.

Hanging out in central London

Today we took a bit of a break from sightseeing and spent the day relaxing and getting groceries. Luckily this gives me a bit of a chance to catch up on the blog writing, so I will try to remember our trip downtown last weekend when we went to St James's Park and said hello to the Queen at Buckingham Palace (at least that's how Keith remembers it).

The rail service (pardon me, tube line) on the two lines that come out to Uxbridge were both under construction last weekend, so we took a bus kindly provided by the London transit authority as a rail replacement service to another tube station further east of us, called West Ruislip (pronounced Rice-lip - they don't seem to be hooked on phonics here in the UK). Heading downtown, we got out at Westminster near Big Ben, picked up sandwiches and picnicked in St James's Park. The gardens in the park are gorgeous, but I think the birds were the most entertaining part of the walk. They are so pushy - people aren't supposed to feed them but some bring bread anyway. The greylag geese (which are now my favourite geese - sorry Canada geese, I have to go with my gut) are particularly pushy, remarking on every incident of inequitable bread distribution with tenacious quacking and pushing the other (smaller) bird species out of the way. They remind us of a few dogs we know.


Left - doesn't this expression look familiar to dog owners everywhere?

Right - they are so lovely and plump and orange, don't you think? They look like what a child would draw if you told them to draw a goose.

Walking through St James's Park, you come upon Buckingham Palace. The flag was up, which means the Queen was in but no amount of peeking through the gates gave us a glimpse. We had to settle for taking pictures of the Canada gates on one side of the traffic circle, to the left of South Africa – just one of several decorative gate posts.

Tate!

I just got back from the Tate Modern. The dreary, drizzly weather perfectly suited the atmosphere in the gallery - all that post-war European angst und bange. Some of the paintings were what I guess would be called "challenging" while others were just kind of irritating, including lots named (imaginatively) "untitled". I wonder why you don't see a lot of composers creating pieces called Untitled?

The Tate Modern is cavernous; unfortunately, it seemed to be art-class day for a lot of highschoolers wandering around giggling at the installations. Although I admit it is hard to understand the artist's intended vision when viewing a video of people in their underpants rolling around on dead fish and chickens. I wonder if this is what Voltaire had in mind.


A couple of my favourites were funny. Check these out by Brit David Shrigley (although ironically his are all "untitled" too). Make sure to zoom in to read the text:












And this one reminds me of team UUJ... (Mark, am I right?)

Uxbridge High Street

I thought it would be interesting to show a few pictures of the shopping area that we walk to, about 15-20 minutes from campus, called Uxbridge High Street. Aside from having lots of clothing stores (which makes it all right with me!) it is also quite a historic area. Windsor Street is the main historic street. Before 1880 it was called 'the Lynch' meaning "the slope" but they changed it - maybe it was too intimidating? :-)









The Fig Tree pub (where we enjoyed Keith's birthday dinner) was originally constructed in 1871 as a police station... so we felt very safe eating there. Ha!









The Queen's Head (another pub - no shortage of these!) dates from 1544 and was originally known as "the Axe". It was a public house and coaching inn, and is said to have a tunnel to the church across the street.










The oldest building on Windsor Street is St Margaret's Church, which is probably also the oldest building in town period. Parts of the building date from 1240 but the majority of the building is from the 14th and 15th centuries. Imagine having that near the Sears and Tim Hortons!











These last pictures are from a former gravesite (now a World War memorial) at the south end of Windsor Street. The cemetary was in use from 1576 to 1855.

Hello Picadilly, bonjour Leicester Square

Okay so I am skipping ahead to today because I am already getting backlogged on this travel diary thing! Today (with Keith at work, poor thing) I headed downtown alone to pick up tickets for Les Miserables and see the National Portrait Gallery near Picadilly Circus (not sure why it's a circus - it looks more like Dundas Square) but I am sure there is much historical significance to the name which wikipedia would happily provide. Aha, to wit, "in this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning 'circle', is a round open space at a street junction". Well there you go. One issue with navigating in London that I am having is that it is difficult to navigate in London! The streets run all over the place, and change names at least eight times when you're still arguably on the same road. So while it took me more than half an hour to find the location of the Queen's Theatre where Les Mis is playing, it is probably 6 minutes from the tube station. I suppose that is part of the adventure part of this adventure. Also it is likely a sign that I should buy a map of London. The National Portrait Gallery is fantastic. One thing I love about travelling is getting to see paintings and objects that I have seen reproduced a million times "live". It really is thrilling. This year I have been lucky to enjoy that thrill in several places - the Eiffel Tower, the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and the Mona Lisa in Paris - Klimt's The Kiss in Vienna, and now famous portraits of Henry VIII's wives and Elizabeth I in London. And on Friday I will be reliving my childhood obsession with Les Mis. I could get used to this whole "not working and not going to school" thing I have going on. The only complaint I can muster, as a Canadian, is a disappointing tea-and-donut experience. I paid £2.00 for a donut (hot? since when should donuts be heated?) and £2.50 for tea!? Where is Tim's when you need him?

First weekend continued (it was busy)

I only made it to part of Saturday! We spent Saturday evening walking around Kensington Gardens (after a bit of a confusing walk to find it - luckily there are tourist-oriented maps posted everywhere for people like us who have not thought to invest in a map of the city). Oddly enough none of the service people in the tube knew how to get to Kensington Gardens - walkie talkies were employed to assist us. I guess they don't spend a lot of time above ground? Finding the gardens was worth it though! (Although I believe Kensington Palace is under renovations right now so the entrance facing the gardens was fenced in). On one of the palace gates was a makeshift memorial to Princess Diana, presumably from the recent anniversary of her death in August.








Clare cavorting with a playful dog...








The gardens were beautiful at dusk and we are enjoying learning about the native bird species here in the UK - except for a few familiar faces - there were quite a few Canada geese milling about! There were some jolly looking orange-legged geese (Greylag geese, so the internet tells me). One exception to the beauty of the park was the monstrous memorial to Prince Albert. What an eyesore (although Keith might disagree with me). After a quick dinner in an Italian restaurant directly above the High Street Kensington tube station (we could feel every time the subway car rattled beneath us) we headed home.

First weekend in the city

Well it's Monday! I am enjoying an apricot yogurt from Tesco's (6 for 92 pence - who says food in London is so expensive?) and combing through this weekend's pictures. We spent a busy weekend going downtown on Saturday and Sunday. On Friday unfortunately I had a minor bout of food poisoning (the most likely culprit is a bad burger from an international food chain which shall remain nameless) so the day was unfortunately a write-off.

On Saturday we left fairly early and took the tube downtown. We had been warned that service on the tube is notoriously prone to changes, shut-downs and other interruptions due to construction or line problems. So unfortunately for us the faster line downtown (the Metropolitan) was shut down and we were left taking the Picadilly downtown (probably an extra 15-20 minutes). An hour and a few station changes later, we were at Tottenham Court Road looking for a sign for the British Museum. We must not look as touristy as we think, because we were immediately asked for directions to the same Museum by another pair of tourists! Luckily we were able to figure out the route together.

Like a number of other major London museums, the British Museum is free. The sheer number of objects make it a bit overwhelming and it's impossible to see everything in one day. We stuck to the exhibits on early Europe, ancient Egypt (including the Rosetta Stone!), and also saw some ancient Assyrian palace decorations.











Before we left for London, Keith bought a set of 50 cards describing different walking tours throughout downtown London. We used one of these cards to navigate through Soho.

Settling in to residence

We moved in to the residence yesterday morning. It was a very smooth transition and they were very organized with all our keys and info. We dropped our stuff in the tiny room (more on that later) and headed out to Keith's meeting with the teaching agency. It was a bit of a journey on the tube but by this point we were already old pros using the system (well, except for an instant where I almost had us going the wrong direction). Many forms later, we headed off to do some banking before going back to Uxbridge to pick up some basic kitchen materials.

It is a strange feeling to be stocking a kitchen from scratch once again. It makes you realize what the basics really are - in our case, two mugs, two plates, two forks, knifes and spoons. We also discovered a grocery store nearby and picked up more basics. We will have to head out this afternoon to get some more groceries. Because we are car-less and haven't yet figured out the bus system, anything we buy we have to be able to carry home.
Keith is already nearly finished his first day of work. We walked to his school last night to check the route and the time - it is almost exactly half an hour - a good walk. But better than having to take the tube every day!