This & That in London

Jeff and I headed down to London on Saturday, hoping to pick up our friend, Scott, from the airport and then travel around seeing the "go to" sites and some new spots as well. Scott had some trouble at the airport, and was unable to get here on Saturday.  Jeff and I decided we would still check some places off our list in London and stay all night as planned.

After a 2-hour car ride, and multiple rides on the Underground we dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed on more train rides to get to Greenwich, a district outside of London. We were heading there to visit the Royal Observatory. The prime meridian is located on the grounds of the Royal Observatory.  We were both able to stand in two different hemispheres at one time.

 The picture on the left is where the original prime meridian stood until 1851 when a new telescope was invented, so the "line" was moved.

 Showing the time of day. You can see the UK's sun had already set, but my friends in the US were still having plenty of daylight!

 Two different sides of the world!

 

Official time!

 

Although the prime meridian was interesting to see, the skyline of London was beautiful.  A little dark and foggy, so pictures, as always, never do it justice. But it was beautiful to see! We walked around the grounds, which had many interesting things to read, see, and observe.  I'm sure Jeff would be able to explain some things he learned in there better than I, as it wasn't quite my cup of tea. But all-in-all, it was great to learn things about the prime meridian.  We learned about ways to tell where you are in the sea (if you're ever lost) based on the time in Greenwich, then you can find out your own longitude and latitude.  Hoping to never have to test that theory.  

Skyline of the Business District

After the Royal Observatory, we checked off one of my "To see" places, which was Greenwich Market.  We looked around at the homemade products, but didn't buy anything (as after this post, I've been to quite a lot of markets in the last week).  Although, I take that back---we bought an AMAZING churro on our walk out of the market.  One of my favorites!

 

The girl photo bombing my picture must want a churro, too!

We headed towards the Thames River, saw an old ship that had traveled around the world delivering supplies many years ago.  We walked around the area for a while, then hopped back on the train to get to another area of London.

Next up on the list was the Business District, which held all the major banking skyscrapers.  We enjoyed the area as it was filled with modern buildings, lots of shopping areas, and plenty of people out and about.  We walked around this area, found another Christmas Market to walk around, then made our way to an ice skating rink.  The area reminded me a lot of Rockefeller Center
around the holidays.

 Business District

Another cute Christmas Market

The next morning, we woke up to a rainy, windy, and cold England day.  We went to the British Museum,  which we have visited before.  We popped in just to see the Rosetta Stone, which we missed the first time. Literally the first thing you see when you walk into the museum. Not sure how we missed it the first time!

Since we already had visited the museum, we left and headed towards Harrod's, the biggest department store in Europe...5-acre site, over 1 million square feet. Jealous? It was amazing, although crazy busy, as people were frantically buying Christmas gifts.  You could spend multiple days here, although the average person would not be able to afford much. Funny story about that later... There 8 levels to the store, 27 restaurants, and about as much designer clothing as you could ever want.  Gucci for your toddlers to personal shopping to a Gentleman's Lounge with barber services.  Insane!

 Opening time! The line was wrapped around the building to get in.

 Because the sun sets before 4:00 over here...we were able to see Harrod's lit up as well.

Jeff surprisingly lasted a couple hours in this place, despite his lack of love for shopping. We grabbed lunch, and on the way we spotted this gentleman in all white (did I mention it was raining and puddles everywhere). Naturally, I looked at his whole outfit to see he had a pair of the shoes Jeff and I pointed out in Harrods that were...wait for it...over 1,300 pounds ($2,200).  He was just walking around in the puddles with his white two grand shoes. No big deal, right?

We grabbed one of my favorite lunches, a chicken pie (Jeff got the steak one), and walked around Hyde Park's Christmas Market. Yes, that makes #4 for me in a week.  Anyway, after much confusion on where we were meeting our friend, Scott. We FINALLY met up with each other in the late afternoon.  We took him around to the major sites in a few hours, stopped in a pub for some drinks, and then were back in Notts around 9:30. It was a long, but great weekend!

 The boys!

Onto the next adventure...