Prime Meridian

This has been a very busy weekend. Jon, Ryan, and I just tag-teamed a massive pile of dishes (actually Jon did the majority of them and also Windexed the coffee table) and I did laundry, took a nap, and felt really ill all day. For dinner we had rice and vegetables which would have been vastly improved by some succulent chicken (but a small packet of chicken costs at least £4 and I have a hard time eating chicken products since all the stores I’ve been in stock their “fresh” eggs on a shelf near the cereal).

I am not particularly excited to go to school tomorrow but I get to tour Reuters Group Limited, a British based news/media corporation with my globalization class. Apparently, an Oberlin alum is an editor and he’s throwing a get-together for all the Oberlin kids. There are many similarities between the Grinnell in London program and the Oberlin in London program and there are also many differences. The Oberlin kids get to go eat snacks with someone no one’s ever heard of and all the Grinnell kids get unlimited free tickets to the theatre and all expenses paid school fieldtrips to places like Ireland and Liverpool.

We had a few people over on Friday and watched the latest episode of Project Runway and drank wine before leaving for Covent Gardens where we were promised a pub crawl. When we got off the tube, however, our people at the pub were in the process of getting kicked out so we ended up wandering around aimlessly with a huge group of people until we decided to head home. The highlight of the evening (BY FAR) was when Becca and I were approached by three Swedish men who asked us to be in their movie for £5,000 per chapter. We respectfully declined but for curiosity’s sake, Becca asked what it was about. When they couldn’t answer the question succinctly enough for me, I asked them if it was porn. One of the men said yes, one said no, and the last one said “more or less.”

Saturday was just great. We were treated to a field trip to Greenwich, a city on the Thames “known for its maritime history.” It is also famous because the Prime Meridian passes through its observatory. I stood on both sides of the line that runs a top a huge mountain over-looking the town from which you can see a large piece of Greater London. I did not take this picture and I have no idea who this is. Jon was the first to head back down at the bottom, then Unique, and then Rico and me. We waited for Ryan for a while until Jon decided to sprint up the hill to retrieve him.

We ate delicious Indian food for lunch from a street vendor and then walked around the Royal Naval College through buildings full of ornate frescos. The best part of the day, however, was the boat tour to and from Greenwich. The weather was just right and I felt really relaxed. Until Saturday, London had experience approximately 96 hours of sun for all of August (according to a London paper I picked up on the tube). Ryan and I sat on the top both ways and watched the landmarks fly by. We went under the London Bridge and Tower Bridge, passed by a cannery where Sir Michael Kane once worked, and saw a bunch of ships that were built in the same shipyard as the Titanic. The Thames, as far as rivers go, is pretty dirty and probably full of bodies but boating down it is a great way to see things. All the temporary tourists (I consider myself to be a long-term tourist) on the boat about shit their pants when we started under Tower Bridge:

I would feel uncomfortable posting any details from last night on the internet.The plumber may or may not be coming tomorrow morning and I think I should be getting my camera in the mail so I won’t have to steal pictures from strangers on the internet. Also, we're going to a show called Fragments.

[brock]