Football and the Prime Meridian

On Wednesday, I went to the football game of Fulham verses Newcastle. What shenanigans an English football game is! The supporters of each team were chanting back and forth to each other and singing their club songs constantly. One of the chants by Newcastle fans for one of the players called Fabricio Coloccini goes like this:

Oh Coloccini you are the love of my life
oh Coloccini I'd let you shag my wife
oh Coloccini I want curly hair too.

Fulham won the game with one goal against Newcastle’s zero. It took me until the end of the game to figure out which team was in the white jerseys and who were the blues. The game itself was shenanigans, but the pub beforehand was CRAZY. It was pack as tightly as a sardine can. I went to the game with four other girls and in the pub was ten women counting the other ladies that were there compared to the sixty men stuffed inside this pub with us.

 

Yesterday I spent the day at Greenwich. We took a boat cruise down the River Thames to the Greenwich Pier. We went on a walking tour through Greenwich and learned about its history. It originally started as a royal residence, but eventually it was converted into hospital and college for the Royal Navy. One of the truly exceptional buildings houses the Painted Hall (see pictures below). As you may have guess, it is a hall where every piece of the walls and ceiling are painted. It took one painter named John something twenty years to paint the entire hall. My favorite part of the day was at the Greenwich Observatory. This is where the Prime Meridian runs through London marking the dividing line between the eastern and western hemispheres at 0° 0’ 0”. I have been in two places at once.



Greenwich



Painted Hall







Painted Hall




Painted Hall




Prime Meridian

This morning I walked down to my neighborhood Sunday Famers’ Market. It is days like these where the London ordinary feels wonderful to me. It is premature to say that I am a Londoner when I have been here just over a month, but on simple outings to my farmers’ market I feel connected to London and the lifestyle here. Now I must go read Gulliver’s Travels for my Rise of the Novel class. Fortunately, my adventures have not been as twisted or satirical as Gulliver’s.