Greenwich and more

posted by: Katie

This weekend I was very busy with a lot of sightseeing, probably spent a lot of my money just trying to see England! Although, no amount of money could compare to getting out of class...

My friends and I went to Greenwich over the weekend, which is a suburb of London, so we took the tube and the train just to get there. The train was almost like a monorail, so we got to see a lot of the outskirts of London from high above, through the windows. When we got to Greenwich, it was so pretty! There was lots of green grass (instead of cobblestone sidewalks and roads as in London) and families picnicking. Lately, the weather in London has been amazing, we've probably had it rain here 3 times, and I've been here for 2 months! It's been sunny and, even though not warm, I need only wear a sweater every once and awhile. I heard it was snowing in New Jersey...While in Greenwich we did a little sightseeing, as usual, and found where the old medieval palace at Greenwich used to stand. Greenwich used to be the countryside, where kings and queens would take time away from the Tower of London and other city palaces. It was where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were born...we found the plaque commemorating the original building. Unfortunately, the palace at Greenwich was torn down for Sir Christopher Wren's buildings, which are now housing the British Royal Navy Academy.

We also visited a ship called the Cutty Sark, which was built to race the steamship in the mid-1800's during the industrial revolution.
It lost, but it has remained and been kept up in the harbor of the Thames River in Greenwich for 100 years.

We then went to the Queen's House, which was build for Jame's I's wife, Queen Anne of Denmark. We even got to go in for free! (It usually costs money everywhere to be admitted). The house now holds some of England's finest paintings, even a painting of the Battle of Trafalgar recently appraised at 30 million pounds! Some paintings even go back 500 years, and we were able to go right up close to them.

My friends and I then trekked up this huge hill, at at the top, is the Royal Observatory. That is where time originates for the world, also known as Greenwich Mean Time. It also separates the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, and there is a line, so you can stand on both hemispheres at once. Although it was closed when we got there, we probably spent too much time in the Queen's House, we did synchronize our watches to Greenwich Mean Time, so no one can say that we are late, we have the origin of time exactly!!
We then decided that it was time to go home, and traveled about an hour back to London on a main bus. We were exhausted from the countryside, there were no buses or tube stations to take us where we needed to go while in Greenwich, so it involved a lot of walking! I really hope to go back when England is in full bloom with all the flowers and gardens at their peek, then it will be truly an English experience for me.

Katie