It's been a crazy first week here in London, and yesterday we started classes! Saturday was our first day without any orientation programing, and we took full advantage of our free time in the city. One of my teachers had emailed us an optional assignment so two of my roommates (who are also in my class) and I decided to start off the class on the right foot and go see the Richard Long exhibit at the Tate Britain. Overall, it wasn't my favorite art exhibit. It was rather conceptual-- all about the artist manipulating the landscape (moving stones, walking a line in the grass, making a circle out of tree branches) or something... Anyway, the last work in the exhibit was titled Never to Pass this Way Again-- rather significant at the start of my semester here. I need to keep reminding myself that I'll never be able to do something like this ever again so I need to take advantage of it!
After a leisurely dinner in our flat, the Wake girls I'm living with and our new friends from University of Miami hopped on the tube to the London Eye, which is the largest ferris wheel in the world. You get in these pod things and go around the circle up really high and you can see all the lights of the city, especially Big Ben. The pods go really slow so the whole trip ends up taking about 45 minutes.
The program I'm on does lots of weekend trips to different areas in the UK-- and they've
already been paid for out of our tuition so it kind of seems like they're free even though they're not. Anyway, on Sunday was the trip to Greenwich so I decided to go! We loaded onto a big bus (sitting in the VERY front because some of my friends tend to get motion sick...) and proceeded to drive all around London as a bit of a sightseeing tour. About 40 or so minutes later we arrived in "the birthplace of time" as Greenwich is known because they have the prime meridian (0 degrees) located there. We walked through a tunnel under the Thames river and were essentially set free to do whatever we wanted. Well I was starving, so my first motivation was to find some lunch. Greenwich has a huge market with all sorts of vendors-- everything from food to jewelry and antiques to scandalous anime pictures. After looking around for a while I decided on a 
Mediterranian? (I couldn't quite tell the nationality of the people cooking, but they weren't British) grilled chicken sandwich. It was pretty much the best grilled chicken sandwich I have ever eaten. Slathered in sauce and green things that I couldn't tell what they were on toasted ciabatta bread. So yummy. After I ate probably 
enough food for three people I was off to the painted hall. I can't quite remember the history of this building (now it serves as the naval acadamies' dining hall), but it was absolutely beautiful. Everything was covered with gold and the 
ceiling was painted as well as the walls so they had these mirrored pushcarts all around so you could look at the ceiling for a long time without hurting your neck. A quick trip into the chapel across the street (where pictures weren't allowed) and we started up the hill to the Prime Meridian and museum of Astronomy (and timekeeping). It was less of a hill, more of a mountain and thank heavens we all wore sensible walking shoes or I don't know if we would have made it all the way to the top. Once there we walked around the museums that included all sorts of telescopes and information about the first astronomers. There were also several rooms filled with clocks and watches which were interesting but kind of freaked me out at the same time. Finally we got in line to see the Prime Meridian. It's pretty much just a line on the ground but they have this interesting statue thing at the end. The most fun thing is to put your feet on either side and be in 2 timezones and 2 hemispheres at the same time. Or to hop back and forth.
Then on Monday we started classes-- pretty standard, but my photo teacher is santa. I have to go sign up for the events next weekend-- but hopefully I'll be able to post again soon!
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