Friday 6/18 Greenwich

Greenwich~ pronounced Greenich

Our group went on a planned boat tour to Greenwich! It was cold and windy out :/ so the whole boat thing was ehhh.


[Big Benny :)]


[Besides the part where I pretended I was in Titanic :) ]


[Greenwich street market- really neat one! ]
I really liked this market because :
a. It had food -- from all different types and places
1. Indonesian
2. Persian- Naan (bread), veggies, chicken
3. Thai- noodles, rice, chicken curry, vegetable tofu
4. Japanese- shrimp tempura, rice and meat, etc.
5. Mid East- Falafel and hummus (yummmm!)
b. They had cool 2nd hand clothes, purses, jewelry
c. Bakery tables with vegan and gluten free items (of course along with other items)
d. Real leather clutches ! --adorable!
e. Basically more natural, never seen before in markets type things

I bought Raw Shea Butter for my skin. I only need a 1/2 penny size ball to moisturize my hands!! So efficient! Kind of expensive~ 6 pounds for a block of about the size of a soap bar. It was worth it , I think :)

I REALLY like Greenwich because it is a large village type setting with history, good food, AND my favorite -- more vegan, gluten free, organic shops!!! It was different then London and other towns/villages in England. It was so close to London yet so different. I enjoyed it a lot. Every corner I turned, I would see another organic cafe :) I liked having these options, instead of the regular chain cafes and restaurants, such as Pret Manger or EAT.


Then we went to the Queen's House (you may think what Queen's House? Doesn't she have like 10 already!) Yes she has another house.... back in the day it was her house (all the queens) and now it is made into a portrait gallery. We only got to explore the front of it- possibly people living in the back?

[took this picture in the Queen's House before the lady yelled at me that we weren't allowed to take pics :) woops!]


Anchor!!! Symbol of my sorority! Delta Gamma! :)


Straddling the Prime Meridian :)
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is mean solar time, with midday defined as the at the time at which the sun crosses the Greenwich Meridian, 0 degrees longitude. Because the Earth's orbit is elliptical, the sun doesn't appear to move against the stars at a constant speed, so a hypothetical mean sun is used, imagined to travel at a constant speed, the average of the sun's actual speed. A second is defined as 1/86400th of a mean solar day.

What a wonderful day in a spectacular not far from London village! :)

Thursday 6/17 Unproductive

"Theater is still alive. It has not died like we might have thought it would years ago. People still want to keep making and watching it." - Financial Time Theater Critic

We had class this morning and talked about how FANTASTIC Oxford was :) Then we had a Theatre critic come in and chat about some (A LOT) of the performances she's seen. The most in one day she has seen is 9!!! WOW. Most of the "well known" plays she hasn't really seen : like Phantom of the Opera, Lion King, Chicago, Hair....etc. She see's more underground plays and such. Everything she talked about was really interesting- basically the comments she had on the shows that we all saw too were right on target of what we thought too. For example, War Horse = AMAZING= INTRIGUING :) ; After the Dance= boring, slow, did not portray the play itself very well. Also, she said we should see Punch Drunk (apparently it's good)-- just an FYI for the future.

Afterwards, some of the girls were going to see Kensington Gardens (which I already saw) and other things I've already done. And the other girls were going back to the flat to sleep then later go to Westminster to hear to boys choir. Since I wasn't going to stay out by myself (which I definitely could have-- but I'm a bit of a scaredy cat these days) I decided to go back to the flat and take a nap.
Bad idea. When I go back to the flat during the day, I tend to get homesick and start thinking about how much I want to go home and see my family. NOT GOOD... because I know ... in the back of my head that once I go home, 2 days later I'll be wanting to go right back to Europe. The truth is that Home is boring. I have like 3 maybe 4 best friends at home (Sterling) and we all get busy when we're home and don't hang out everyday. It's pathetic and annoying. But I think the reason why I want to go "home" is because I feel as if I've seen and done mostly everything I've wanted to do in London. I'm set. Done with the sightseeing, done with the museums. I'm ready to move to another city!! hahaha. But really, I LOVE London! It's beautiful, intense, fast paced, different, everything about it is different. Once I sit down for a second , I do get slightly depressed. Sooooo, not sitting down and relaxing!! Go Go Go!!!
I ended up taking 2 naps because the girls didn't want to go to Westminster anymore so I didn't :( Oh well, I figured I already saw the boy's choir at St. Paul's Cathedral and it was exactly the same there.
Later, we were supposed to go to Mahiki's which is a really expensive Hawaiian bar in Mayfair.
www.mahiki.com
Quite high end- but I thought it would be fun to get dressed up and go take pictures there early in the night. The drinks are minimum $8. Eeeek! You only live once right? :)
Actually, we didn't end up going because we couldn't find it and when we got off the tube ("chube") this guy , random guy, told us to go to Zoo Bar. It was right outside close to the tube. He was determined to get us to go in there. Then we found out it was 10 pounds to get in. This is the first place I've seen that charges to get inside. I personally wasn't feeling well and didn't want to go out after get ready and everything. I feel like this happens a lot to me- I feel like I'm get old :( . Or just tired. So, some other people didn't want to go in as well so we all just decided to go back to our flat and hang out there. I ended up passing out right when I got in my bed haha. Welp, that shows me well. I need sleep :)