London - day 2

Our first destination yesterday morning was Greenwich.  For those of you who take teleconferences with people in the rest of the world or who just know different time zones will know that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the base of the time for the world.  There is also the Greenwich Meridian which divides the Eastern and Western hemisphere...so cool for somebody who jaunts back and forth between the two.

We set out as we normally do but seemed to keep getting side-tracked.  The Tube line we wanted to take was not operating until due to maintenance.  We then ended up taking a very long and winding walking tour between two Tube stops only to end up back where we started...funny.  Years ago when I first started traveling this sort of thing would have annoyed me and freaked me out a bit...now we just kept walking until we found our way back and had a good laugh about it.

After an unscheduled stop for coffee to kill time until 10 am, we finally made it Greenwich...only to find out that the main path leading to the Royal Observatory was closed.  Thankfully it wasn't a long detour and we found our way to the top.  (Alan would probably want me to take a moment here to point out that almost everything I want to see in life requires walking up a very steep hill.) 

We didn't do any touring at the actual Observatory but instead just enjoyed a little known area where you can see the meridian...without paying...

Guess who is in the western hemisphere and who is in the eastern hemisphere?

The clock at Greenwich is a 24 hour clock that maintains GMT.  Since it is a 24 hour clock the little hand only makes one trip around the clock each day.