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.