Cheers from London!

Thursday, 11 July 2013

Greenwich- National Maritime Museum & Royal Observatory

On Monday, 7/1, we took a commuter boat to Greenwich called the Thames Clipper. I sat outside to see some sites along the way, and it was really nice. When we got to Greenwich, we saw some beautiful, symmetrical buildings designed by none other than our good friend, Christopher Wren. Our first stop of the day was at the National Maritime Museum. They have a brand new archives department, and we were able to see some amazing manuscripts. It was really exciting because we could even flip through and read a couple books! One book was a spy book from 1588 from the Spanish Armada. It listed the ships available to the King of Spain. In the book there are about 130 ships listed, which we know is accurate. We also saw letters from the King (signed El Rey), and an original song by Queen Elizabeth. There was a lot of material about Lord Nelson from the 1800s, and about pirates from the 18^th century. What is very interesting about these pieces we saw is that they are actually used as part of the curriculum for secondary school students, and they want to start to include younger students as well. The students try to transcribe handwriting from a certain period. This is difficult because there were no set was of spelling words back then. Next, our guide took us to the Caird Library on the second floor of the museum. This library is not well known, but they are working on ways to advertise it more. They have a new reading room that is 2 years old. I really enjoyed the technology in the library. There were ways to scan manuscripts and look at microfilm. The most interesting to me was a screen where you can choose a kind of ship and see the plans for it digitally. They still have a lot of work to do on digitizing the collection, but it is still very cool to see what they have done. Then we went on a tour of the stacks where they keep materials that are not on display. It is a new and enhanced system. They don’t need to store collections off site anymore. They have storage for collections on the 2 floors above the library and 1 below. We couldn’t take pictures here because of security, but it was interesting to see how they keep their pieces organized. They arrange by format and then section. We also saw the biggest lift we have ever seen. It was humongous. I wish I could’ve taken a picture!!

After our tour, we had a few hours to look around Greenwich. We went outside to see the ball on the top of the Royal Observatory that rises and drops everyday at 1:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time. It was cool to see. Then we hiked up the steepest hill I have ever seen, all the way up to the Royal Observatory. We went inside and saw John Harrison’s clocks. I had just read Longitude by Dava Sobel so it was amazing to see the original clocks he made. I made sure to set my watch according to the atomic clock, and we took pictures on both sides of the Prime Meridian! It was very fun.

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

LondonAlive: pt. 2!

Royal Baby Watch Update: still no baby.

The tour that I chose for Sunday was called Death, Mayhem, & Westminster. It was a 4+ hour walk all over the city. On this tour we got to hear some of the not-so-pretty parts of London's history. Very fun and got to see a lot of cool things. My favorite story was probably of Admiral Lord Nelson who died while leading the Battle of Trafalgar. They wanted to bring his body back to land, so they put him in a barrel of brandy until they got back. Legend has it that they still drank the brandy! We heard lots of great little stories along the way. That night, I went to dinner at a little Italian place around the corner from the dorm, across from Waterloo station. It was so good! I will probably go back at some point. Also, I am picking up some great British words and phrases! Someday I will post about the things I think of during the day but then forget by the time I get home. (Photo captions will come tomorrow because I am tired :) )

Parade route all set up for the little baby!!

Parade route- looking down at Buckingham

In the guard box

Nelson monument at Trafalgar Square

LondonAlive

Saturday and Sunday (Days 2 and 3) we had our LondonAlive walking tours around the city. I signed up for the Pub Walk with Dr. Welsh on Saturday. I am writing this post now, since I was gone from my dorm for almost 14 hours that day! Dr. Welsh took us along the Thames and then across Blackfriars Bridge. We stopped to talk about the history some of the different pubs, learned a lot of cool facts, and saw some other great sites along the way.

After the tour, a group of us went back to try out some of the pubs we had seen. We went to Ye Olde Cock Tavern, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, and The Black Friar. Cheese was by far my favorite place we have been to so far! We had fun talking to some pretty hilarious gents from a stag (bachelor) party. From the Black Friar, we ventured over to Trafalgar Square for the London Pride Party which was amazing and so fun. In an attempt to find a bathroom, we ended up at the Sherlock Holmes pub. There I met a girl from Chicago and her boyfriend from St. Louis! (You can always spot the American counting out their foreign change)... But I tried the Sherlock Holmes beer and got my first official fish & chips of the trip! The walk home was unbelievably gorgeous. It was perfect outside, the Eye was lit up rainbow colors for Pride, and we walked along the Jubilee Bridge and took pictures.

These guys make sand art when the tide is low.

The Black Friar.

St. Brides Tavern- St. Brides Church by Wren was the inspiration for the first tiered wedding cake.

The view down Fleet Street.

My fave pub so far, and Dickens was a regular here. He mentions it in A Tale of Two Cities.

The Old Bank of England Pub- this pub is between the site of Sweeney Todd's barber shop and Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop. The tunnels and vaults below the building are where Todd's victims were butchered before being cooked into Mrs. Lovett's pies. They are still famous for their pies :)