"Of we go into the wild blue yonder ... "

Thursday night ended where most Thursday nights end: O'Neill's. The crowd was slightly smaller this time, but most people in the place were Americans. The kids behind us were from Syracuse and the kids in front of us were from NYU I think. The band and atmosphere was pretty much the same as usual, but a good Thursday night hang out for sure. TJ walked away with three Carling glasses in his coat pockets in a bold display of blatant thievery. The walk back to the flats took forever, as most of us were fairly drunk. That walk goes by faster when you aren't impatient and inebriated.

Friday morning instead of regular theater class at the London Center, we had to go to a backstage tour of the National Theatre. The walk to the theatre was slightly shorter and more interesting than the walk to class, so it was a good change of pace. Again, most of the class was hungover (not me, thank god) from the pub and dreading the 90 minute tour of the building. I was skeptical of the theatre at first, since it looked like a boxy office building (reminded me of the Edward Jones building in Des Peres) and not a grand theater worthy of the UK. The inside of the place, however, was very respectable. The theatre is actually three theaters, the Olivier, the Lyttelton, and the Cottesloe (in order of decreasing size). Our tour guide took us into the Lyttelton first, which seats about 860 and explained some of the architecture to us. All of the theaters were designed so that every seat in the house had the same leg room and same viewing angles, with the idea that since the public pays for the productions, the entire public should get the same show, regardless of personal income. I thought that was cool. We got to go backstage and see how they make the props, sets, and fake heads for all of the productions. So much more goes into a stage performance than I had thought. The Cottesloe is the smallest theatre, and it is supposed to be a "black box" studio that seats about 200. The set can be anywhere in the room, since the seats are completely movable. This gives the producer and set designer the freedom to think outside the box and have any type of stage they want. The Olivier, named after Laurence Olivier, is huge, seating about 1100 in an old open-air, semi-circle Greek amphitheater style. We are seeing a production there on Tuesday and got to see part of the set being put up.

On the walk back we saw a sandcastle builder sculpting a couch on the banks of the Thames and TJ tossed him a few coins. When I got back to the flats I watched PMQs and took a glorious nap. I had planned on going to a museum or something in the afternoon, but I think I needed the time to unwind. When I woke up I took care of some emails and boring stuff, and then Lizzie and Coleen called and said they wanted to try cooking Indian food. We went and bought the ingredients and the girls pulled off a brilliant peanut chicken recipe. We were very proud of us (as Lizzie said a lot). Doesn't that food look awesome? To keep with the Indian theme, we watched a Bollywood movie, Bride and Prejudice, after dinner. How I got convinced to watch that movie I am not sure, but it turned out being pretty funny. After the movie we went to the Pride for karaoke night and sung a few songs. I was tired so I left early.

Today, Saturday, we decided to head to Greenwich for a little day trip. Most people in the program were either on a Jane Austen trip to Winchester or had traveled to Paris or Edinburgh. We left the flats at 11 with Lizzie moderately hung over and me not knowing exactly where we were going. We took one tube and then a light rail all the way into Greenwich for what turned out to be a beautiful day on the Thames. After Lizzie and I struggled to find a coffee place, we went to see the Cutty Sark, a historical clipper that was the fastest ship in the world at one point, but it was closed for renovations, so I got a nice view of scaffolding instead. I was disappointed. The girls, not so much. We took a nice stroll through the old Royal Naval college, with its impressive looking pillars and buildings, but didn't go in to any of them because none of us were in the mood for old art.

We did go into the Royal Maritime Museum and spent quite a good portion of the afternoon looking at the exhibits on English naval history. For some reason I had the US Air Force song stuck in my head while we there. "Of we go, into the wild blue yonder ... " Not sure why. Maybe it's cause I've blocked Navy's song from my head because they keep beating us in football. The museum was interesting, although I feel like it could have been more informative in some places. Some of the exhibits that could have been cool, like the ones about wave motion and the rise of commercial shipping, were geared more towards kids. I felt like I was in the Science Center at a few points. The most interesting exhibit was the one about Lord Admiral Nelson, the British war hero who defeated the Spanish and French at Trafalgar (his statue is on top of Trafalgar square). This guy had almost god-like popularity after he died for saving his country from defeat. They had his actual uniform with the bullet hole from where he was shot and killed in the battle of Trafalgar. Apparently his state funeral was epic. We ate our packed lunch in a cafe there and finished some of the exhibits about maritime art. Apparently, they found Roman jars from the third century in Brazil. Say whaaaat? The Romans made it to Rio? It's true. The exhibit on the British navy's influence on "immigration" was also interesting, as most of the art focused on the slave trade and how the British nobly tried to stop it from continuing in the New World. For some reason I think that exhibit may have been missing a few details.

Behind the maritime museum is Greenwich park with the observatory overlooking all of London. The walk up the hill was gorgeous, and the locals were out playing cricket and walking their dogs. There was one dad trying to teach his two kids to play cricket, and I remembered how my Dad tried to play catch with me for the first time and I let the ball hit me on the forehead cause I didn't know how to catch. This dad wasn't having too much success either. We walked up the hill and into the Royal Observatory, where our true Notre Dame nerdiness came out. I was pretty damn excited to see the Prime Meridian and learn about clocks.

The entryway to the Observatory had a sign that said "The Home of Time and Longitude" or something like that. The Brits can be so pompous sometimes. There was a little walk through a garden and then you walk onto an overlook patio with the Meridian running down one side. There was a queue of people waiting to go up to the fancy looking ball thing and take the cliche straddling two hemispheres picture. I was more excited just to stand on the line and jump from the one side to the other. Its much more fun than you think. "I think I'll go to the eastern hemisphere now. Ok." Jump. Yeah I'm a loser. They had a list of important cities of the world and their longitude position from Greenwich on the demarcation line. Again with the arrogant Brits.

When it was finally our turn to go up for the photo op, we all took individual shots and did a group shot. Later I went down to the green space in the park below the observatory and threw a frisbee across the Prime Meridian. The ultimate team would be so jealous. Tossing a disc across two hemispheres. Although they are at a tournament in Vegas right now, so maybe not. Also in the observatory was an exhibit on the "Longitude problem," where ships could not determine their longitudinal position because there was no way of keeping the time in two places while at sea. The king posted a reward for whoever could solve the problem, and astronomers and clock makers around the world went to work. Finally, one man named Harrison designed a clock that could be accurate to the second to Greenwich time while aboard a ship at sea. This allowed ships to finally pinpoint themselves on a map so they wouldn't keep running into reefs and stuff. The case with the original clock called it "one of the most important instruments ever made." Ok, I guess I'll give em that one. The wheel was pretty important though. Just sayin.

There was another exhibit in the astronomy side of the observatory about the universe and stars and stuff. Coleen and I had fun playing with the movies that you could play by putting a cylinder thing on a panel-like table. We learned about black holes and the size of the universe and dark energy. This exhibit was much more intellectual than the maritime museum. It made me really want to watch the movie Contact again, too. It was getting dark so we moseyed on back to town to catch the train back. We didn't have time to go to the Fan museum. The girls were disappointed. Me, not so much. We were about a block away from the rail station when the girls found a boutique with cute clothes in it. Damnit I was so close. They tried some stuff on while I wandered around the village and into the Greenwich market. The market was pretty interesting and had a lot of prints and necklaces and bowls and the like. I was tempted to buy a leather jacket for 70 pounds, but supposedly there are much cheaper in Florence. At one end of the market there was a ton of little booths with ethnic food. I bought some Sambosas from a nice Ethiopian lady. She gave me an extra one so I got three for a pound. They are like crispy thin fried tortilla wrapped in beans or vegetables with some sort of sauce. There were really good and kept me busy while the girls bought their clothes.

The train back was uneventful and I tried to make stir fry with vegetables for dinner. It didn't taste too good since I didn't have brown sugar to make Teriyaki. It was a pretty cool day trip over all, given it cost less than 4 pounds to travel both ways, admission to the places was free, and Coleen, Lizzie, and I are nerds in general and were too interested in this stuff for our own good. If you are on a time budget, you could do this place in a half day, shortening the maritime museum and stopping off at the Tower of London on the way back. But it's only worthwhile if you like pompous British explanations about how the Brits are awesome at measuring stuff and sailing and nothing in the world was ever their fault. I had an awesome time though. Not too shabby spending a Saturday in two hemispheres.