Friday, March 28th

I still can't believe that I talked them all into it, and it was surprisingly easy. We began our Friday by getting up earlier than the breakfast people (not really that difficult) and going to the British Museum an hour before it officially opened. Why, you ask? Well, the special exhibit in the Reading Room was called "The First Emperor" and featured the terracotta warriors found in that huge grave near Xian, China. Not something a person gets to see everyday, or even in a lifetime for most. The British Museum only sold a certain number of tickets to the exhibit each day, and the only days you could buy in advance were Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which was no longer an option for us. Clearly, we should have looked into this sooner, but since we hadn't, our only hope was lining up early.

So there we were, in the rain, waiting. Quite a few people were ahead of us, and even more behind by the time the museum opened. Keith and Grant had gone to a market the night before to buy provisions so we certainly had more than enough to eat and I would venture that we had a better breakfast that morning than at any time in our hotel. Except, of course, we were standing in the rain and it wasn't very warm. Keith walked up to the beginning of the line to find out just how early those people had arrived. This first guy was there at 5am, he had held a spot for the others in his group, and the next people had been there since 6am. We had arrived just past 7am which the ticket girl had assured us would be early enough, but we were nervous just the same. This would have been a good morning to have my Dad around, he so would have been right there with the other 5am guy.

Anyway, the museum opened at 8am and we continued to stand in line as we snaked up the sidewalk, into the museum Great Court and around the Reading Room's outside walls. It was nearly 10:30am when we discovered that we were about a dozen people too late to get in. Being that close was hard to take- one train earlier, one escalator we had run down instead of walked, might have made the difference. Alas, it was not meant to be. I guess we'll just have to go to China now, or wherever the special exhibit goes next...

Keith snapped me out of my mournful state by promising fish & chips & mushy peas for lunch in Greenwich (yes, I am surprisingly easy to manipulate with food; it's a MacMillan thing) so we jumped back to our original Friday plans of heading to the Greenwich area to look around and travel to the eastern hemisphere. The World Heritage Site of Greenwich includes Sir Christopher Wren's Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich Park, and the Royal Observatory. The first two pictures (one above this writing and one below) may look like they were taken in a church, but it was actually built as an eating hall for injured navy personnel who were recovering at the hospital here. It is called the "Painted Hall" for good reason and we were thankful that they had mirrors on trolleys to give your neck a break from looking up all the time.

The next two photos are from the Royal Chapel at the Naval College. There is a fine arts school also on this campus now which uses this church often for concerts. The organ is sitting on a single carved piece of marble (including the pillars below)- the only real marble in the place. Due to cost cutting measures, all the other "marble" columns (including the ones to the sides) are just painted that way.
Below: looking out from the Royal Chapel towards the Painted Hall.
After seeing some of the Naval College sites, we had a quick peek through the Maritime Museum where we learned a few new nautical terms and maritime-related stories. I thought the next bit of info was entertaining enough to share:

Ahh, the promised fish & chips & mushy peas. You would think that Greenwich would have the best fish, but it's not true at all. For atmosphere though, they get high points.

And they hadn't run out of mushy peas like some other establishments.
Although it had been pouring rain this whole time in Greenwich, as we ate our lunch the clouds lifted and the sun came out. Just in time for our hike up to the Royal Observatory! Here is the view looking back down at the Royal Naval College with London in the background:
"Prime Meridian of the World"
Looking the other direction, but still straddling the "Prime Meridian of the World."

Our last cultural event for the day was visiting the Victoria and Alberta Museum back in the South Kensington area near our hotel. Wow. Now THIS should be in the top ten book. The V&A could be described as a museum of the history of pop culture. There are a lot of different exhibits showcasing different parts of the world or different parts of culture. I particularly enjoyed the Fashion exhibit showcasing changes in high fashion from the 1700s to present day. We were quite disappointed that many of the galleries we wanted to see were closed at the time. I suspect it was because we were there during the evening instead of earlier. On the last Friday of each month the V&A is open till 10pm with the front foyer turned into a nightclub complete with dj and beverages. For a single person in London, what a great place to go socialize. None of us were really wearing enough black to fit in with the young professional crowd gathering there, so we finished off our evening back at the pizza place near our hotel. Delicious again!