River Thames Walk, National Art Museum, War Horse, Greenwich

The past couple of days have been very busy! Monday I had to be at the Tower Bridge at 9:15 in the morning, which meant leaving my flat by 8. This was for my British Life and Culture class. We took a river walk on the Thames. Lyndon was the leader of my group. We first discussed the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridge was cutting edge technology during the Industrial Revolution. It use to open up to allow ships through up to 1000 times a year, but now it only opens a few times a year. From there we talked to the Tower of London, which was built in 1066. The old London zoo use to be next to the Tower of London and I learned that the zoo use to keep their polar bear on a chain and let it swim in the River Thames. The walk lasted about 4.5 hours and we saw so much more! This walk helped us learn about how London developed as a city.
Right after the tour we had about 30 minutes to grab a quick lunch before we had to meet Philippa at the National Art Museum. I ate with Shelby and a place called Pret. I had a mozzarella and tomato croissant, which was delicious. All of the art museums are free to get in to in London, so Philippa will be taking us to museums most of the time for class. The museum was amazing. Here are some of the painting I saw:






This is a portrait of The Baptism of Christ. This is a portrait of the Fighting Temeraire. This is the Equestrian Portrait of Charles I. Charles I was less than 5 ft tall so he had most of his portraits on horse to make him appear taller. You can also notice how the head of the horse is a lot smaller than it should be also making him appear bigger than he really is.

This is The Arnolfini Portrait.

An interesting fact that I learned was that back in the day blue was the most expensive color to have in a painting. It had to be imported form the Middle East.The museum was a lot more fun than I expected and I learned a lot about how to observe art. After awhile in the art museum I was able to meet up with Curtis after we were dismissed. We went to dinner at a place called The Wharf. Curtis ordered the fish of the day, which was sea bass and got this! He wasn't sure how to go about eating it, but he figured it out!

On Tuesday I met my two other teachers at school. First I had class with Rob. He is my British Pop Music professor. He actually doesn't teach anymore except for this class for the Ball State students. He seems really cool. He said we will be talking and listening to music for 3 hours from Britain from 1950-1990's. Then I meet my British Literature, Nora. I am not too excited for this class. We had to analyze British poetry and then she gave us the assignment of going to the Charles Dickens Museum. London is celebrating Charles Dickens this year because it is the bicentennial of his birthday. Then right from class I had to get on the tube to make my way to the New London Theatre to see War Horse. It was amazing! What they did with the horses was so cool. At first I couldn't get over the fact that people were there to move the horses, but eventually they disappeared and all I could concentrate on was the horses. Here is a preview video I got off the internet:





Today our program went on our Wednesday day trip. Basically, every Wednesday we go on a day long field trip. Today we took the train to Greenwich, London, which is a suburb of London. On the train ride there I was able to see some of the Olympic venues and the financial center of London. When we first arrived in Greenwich we took a tunnel under the River Thames. Philippa told us that Greenwich is where a lot of movies are filmed including Pirates of the Caribbean and Sherlock Holmes. This is also where the equestrian competitions for the Olympics will be. Then we toured the Old Royal Naval College Chapel and the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College. I ate lunch at Pizza Express, which was really good. I have been really confused about how to pay for my meals at restaurants here, so I asked the waitress. She said that you need to ask the waiter for the check or else the waiter is being rude if they just bring it to you. After lunch we met on top of a hill where the Greenwich observatory is. It was a great view of the city! This is also the spot where the Prime Meridian is and where it was discovered! The picture of me on the left shows me in the Western and Eastern hemispheres at the same time. On the way back we took a boat ride on the Thames to Parliament. It was very cold, but still fun! Today was also our first typical London day. Cloudy and chilly! For the first week I had nothing but sunshine!








Some interesting things I've learned or noticed:
- London has very few trash bins so that people can't put bombs in them
- I hardly ever see people on their phones here. It is really nice actually. People enjoy spending time together at dinner and not on their phones and lots of people read books or newspapers on the tube instead of playing on their phones.
- The streets on London either say "Look Right" or "Look Left" to help make sure you don't get hit by a car