Day 17

Tuesday, May 29 -

Today was the longest day of my life. It started off on the Tube at 7 in the morning, where some lady fainted. The people standing around her helped her to the ground, and then once the Tube stopped at the next station they yelled out to the driver. Everyone was very calm about it. The British seem to lack urgency in emergency situations.

Despite all that, I still made it to work on time! And I actually got to work on the website today. The web guy ran through how to post stories and everything, and it's pretty much identical to what I do at KOMU. I posted a story about another earthquake that hit Italy right after it came through the wire. It got developed much, much more throughout the day, so the first story isn't really there anymore. That's all I got to do, though, because I was 'cherry picked' on to another assignment. It's Jubilee-craziness week, so I had to help put together a little (and by little I mean it ended up around 80 pages) book about Jubilee events and basics on the royal family. It was all useful to me, too, because my royal family knowledge is pretty limited.

After work I had to get all the way to the other side of the city for a class field study. In college it's no longer a field trip. Anyway, it took an entire hour and a half to get there, but I'm proud of myself for not getting lost. We had a tour of Greenwich and learned about its history.

The Cutty Sark! It had just caught on fire a few years ago and it was just reopened about a month ago.

Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Apparently a lot of movies are filmed here.

A street in Greenwich decked out for the Jubilee.

We also went into the National Maritime Museum. It was pretty cool, but it was closing right as we got there so there wasn't much time to look around.

 Nelson Horatio's jacket, with the bullet hole in it (excuse the flash, it was dark in there).

We hiked up a super steep hill to get the most amazing view of the city. It was seriously at least a 70 degree angle.

On the way up there were some hippies blowing giant bubbles!

The view from the top of the hill! That stadium in the middle of it is where the Olympic equestrian events will take place.

On the way back down, we crossed the PRIME MERIDIAN! I'm in two hemispheres at once!

Then I went on a Beatles walking tour! First stop was obviously Abbey Road. Everyone had to break off into groups of four and cross the road. There was a lot of traffic so we were continuously holding it all up. One of the cars even honked at us. Non-tourists were crossing the road and kept walking in front of our pictures, so we spent a large chuck of time there.

Abbey Road! I must have taken this picture at the one moment when the street was actually empty.

Abbey House plus the Queen

Abbey Road recording studio

The wall outside the studio that I signed

The tour actually wasn't over after this. We went to other places that were in Beatles movies, where they met people and did other cool things.

This is where Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman in 1969.

The Beatles had their last concert on the roof of this building, which was shut down by the police down the street.

By the time this tour was over it was past 9 o'clock and I was exhausted and starving. I had McDonald's for dinner and besides the fact that they managed to burn the bun, it tasted just like it does back home!