Day 10: Straddling two hemispheres

Okay guys so I start writing these posts and then I get busy, so I don't always post them on the correct day- forgive me...
Today, Thursday I went to Greenwich which is a small city on the opposite side of the Thames. You can actually take the underground there but we took a boat cruise down the Thames which was really cool (and cheap, I totally recommend it). I took lots of cool pictures, like this one of Tower Bridge. Lots of people mistake this bride for London bridge b/c it is so pretty, but London Bridge is actually just a very plain, ugly bridge. Unfortunatly it was terribly cloudy all day so I'm not sure you get the full effect here. One of my goals this semester is to walk across the top part of Tower Bridge.
The main reason you have probably head of Greenwich is becuase they are ground zero for time zones. GMT- Greenwich Mean Time is the zero on the clock and all the time zones add on from there. This is partly b/c Greenwich is home of the Prime Meridian- the imaginary line that divides the eastern and western hemispheres and is zero latitude. It's kind of like 4 corners in the US, you can stand on this line and be in two hemispheres at once- which is what I'm doing in the picture here. This seems to attract a lot of japanese tourists. There is also the national observatory up there. It was Built by James II (i think) to appease the intelligentsia and discourage revolt. This is of course were astronomers figured out the idea of latitude and how that relates to time, this was very important in ship navigation and general world organization. The funny thing is when Cristopher Wren designed the building he forgot to put windows facing north and south, which made it impossible for the astronomers to use the building. They all made their great discoveries outside the work shed in the courtyard. The place isn't used anymore but it is still pretty cool to look around. Greenwich also as the National Maritime Museum (which I passed on) and the Queen's House, a summer palace where Queen Elizabeth used to hang out. There is a cute little market place- I bought silver earrings for two pounds, they are in the shape of a skull an crossbones of course. We also visited a Pie Shop. This isn't your American apple or pumpkin pie kind of place, their speciality was jellied eel pie. I passed on that one but had a nice hot cornish pastry. All the British seem to eat is bread, meat and cheese- my kind of place!