The Centre of Time and Space

Since Bob taught today at a school very close to Greenwich, we decided to meet at Island Gardens DLR station and head to Greenwich from there. This was our first time on the Docklands Light Railway and it was very different from the tube, which made us feel more like we were on Vancouver's Skytrain than a London mode of transportation. Here's a view of the Old Royal Naval College, now the University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music, across the Thames from Island Gardens station,

and here's the moody sky directly west of the previous photo, just moments later. Clouds threatened all day today, but the furious wind ensured that sun was the order of the day. In other words, it was another cold, blustery, pretty day in London. Tomorrow's forecast is calling for the always-exciting "sleet showers," but we're hoping that'll change . . . After taking in the view, we descended into the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which runs under the Thames. The entrances to the tunnel, the incredible lifts on either end, and the tunnel itself were straight out of Myst or Alias or your pick of surreal environments. I even half-expected a huge wall of water to come rushing toward us while we frantically found some clever way to survive the torrent. (Okay, I admit we're both starting to miss TV just the teensiest bit!) I wish I could have taken a photo in one of the beautiful lifts, but each lift had an attendant and a large sign prohibiting photography. (On a sidenote, we had to restrain our laughter in the second lift when we realized that our attendant had called the attendant in the north lift while we were ascending, seemingly just to chat. Ah, spare a thought for the lonely lives of the Greenwich foot tunnel attendants.) Here's what we saw when the northern lift's doors opened:
Yikes! And about halfway through our walk, the ceiling looked a bit questionable, but we kept going--what else were we going to do?
In the end, it was a pretty great sensation to walk under the Thames, something that people have been doing since 1902, as the first sign we encountered in Greenwich informed us.

The second sign we saw had a very different message for us:
I don't think I've ever seen the word "itinerant" used on a street sign and I doubt I ever will again. In any case, it was the wrong season for such law-breakers, so we didn't get to witness the consequences of such activities. Safe from illegal ice cream, we ventured onto the Old Royal Naval College grounds to see two of its public rooms, the spectacular Painted Hall
and the Chapel with its impressive 1789 organ.
We left the imposing Christopher Wren buildings
and had a very blustery walk to the top of Greenwich Park, during which I felt as if I were the E.H. Shepard illustration of Piglet walking against the wind brought to life. After what felt like quite a long walk because of the wind, we reached our destination,
whose media-savvy tagline claims it is "the centre of time and space." All the elevation we climbed was worth the view of the Old Royal Navy College and the Canary Wharf skyscrapers beyond: But now down to the purpose of our visit: here's Bob standing on the Prime Meridian!
And in a far less dignified, more touristy pose, here I am with, yes you guessed it, one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western hemisphere. Oooh, aaah! The Meridian itself is represented three times in this photo: once in the plaque, again in the metal bar embedded in the pavement and finally in the green laser emitted from above the plaque, travelling some 15km into the London sky. How much more action could you possibly want in a photo?