Today my plans changed but it was a pretty good day overall (much better than yesterday anyway!). I slept in a little bit until 10am - slept much better because of my new pillow that is way more comfortable. Then I decided to try to make it to a walking tour that started at 10:45am, so I rushed to get ready and I barely made it on time. We took a boat along the Thames river to get to Greenwich - the location of the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) and the home of Greenwich Mean Time. Just a tidbit of information in case anyone cares, Greenwich actually means "Green Port". We saw a few sights on the way there along the river banks, including the pub where Charles Dickens wrote "Great Expectations" and some weird modern architecture (like some buildings that are supposed to look like marching French soldiers...). And we saw some really nice luxury apartments, including one penthouse that I was told sold for 9 million pounds recently!! I also learned that "wharf" actually stands for "warehouse at river front" - who knew? At the Greenwich Pier there is a famous boat called the "Cutty Sark" that was built to be really fast in order to transport tea from China to England. There is a long story about the name that I don't remember all the details of except that "cutty sark" means "short shift dress" in Scottish, and the story had something to do with a witch dancing in a short dress and a man rudely commenting on it, so she leaped to try to kill him but he was faster and jumped on his horse to escape from her. She chased after him and tore off the horse's tail in pursuit - this is portrayed on the front of the ship (I took a photo). The story is much better explained on this website for those of you that are interested: http://www.cuttysark.org.uk/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.fdvmyqknhxemnmvz&pageId=210 While in Greenwich I wandered through the local markets and then saw some of the historic sites, including the Queen's House (which was built for Queen Anne of Denmark), the Royal Naval College (which is now open to the public and includes a chapel - used in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" - and a gorgeous Painted Hall), and the Royal Observatory (which has the Prime Meridian line as well as a visual time signal - the ball on the roof that you can see in the pictures rises and drops every day at noon Greenwich time). Outside of the Queen's House is where some events like equestrian are going to be held during the 2012 Olympics. Overall it was definitely a neat place to visit! I tried to make it back in time for the Harry Potter walk as well but didn't leave early enough... I'll have to go some other time! To leave Greenwich, I walked through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel - which goes under the Thames. It was built in 1902 and is 1217 feet long, during low tide it is underneath about 33 feet of water and during high tide it's under about 53 feet! It was nice and cool down there though, which was enjoyable considering it turned out to be quite a hot day here today. Here is the link to the photos I took today: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IZuGzZm2asJe

Afterwords I wandered down the street from my residence to get some food. I went into a local restaurant to get take out (or "take away" as they call it here) and ordered one of the daily specials - Spanish paella with chicken and seafood. Well I quickly regretted my choice upon returning to my room when I found out the shrimp still had their heads and legs and everything!! EW not very appetizing... so needless to say I had to pick through my dinner to avoid some weird looking stuff. I have to remember not to order seafood again haha. Then later on when I was talking to my mom on the phone this really loud noise started. I finally realized it was the fire alarm and had to evacuate the building. The "fire brigade" was outside in seconds because they are literally located next door to us, and after about 15-20 minutes we were let back inside.

Tonight I went to the lounge on the first floor to watch Harry Potter (it was advertised in the elevator - I think they play movies every Sunday night). It was good but only about 4 people were watching it so it didn't really help me meet anyone new. It was funny though because a girl from Russia asked if I spoke Russian and when I told her I didn't and I was Canadian, she said that I had a "European face"... never heard that before! Then when I got back to my room I talked to Patti and then Laura on the phone - always good to hear from people at home!! :o)

Well it is getting late so I should go to bed.... Wish me luck trying to retrieve my passport from the bank tomorrow... I hope I don't have any problems so I don't have to worry about it anymore!!! Love and miss you all

Later days

PS - I keep seeing a lot of guys wearing "man capris" and it makes me miss my Uncle Rob!! LOL