Greenwich and Hampstead Heath

Exploring the outskirts of London - March 11th, 2007

Myself and my roommate in a tree in Hampstead Heath.

Over the weekend I took two day trips and explored a little bit outside London.  Since we don’t have class on Fridays my roommate and I took the day and went to Greenwich for a day of sightseeing and exploring.  It took us about an hour and a half to get there on the tube from where we live in the northwest of London down to the south east.  Once there we toured the Queen's House, Royal Naval College, National Maritime Museum, and climbed up to the Observatory to check our clocks against Greenwich Mean Time, straddled the Prime Meridian!  After all of that we were starving, so we hit up the local grocery store for picnic stuff and ate along the Thames as the sun was setting.

On Saturday I convinced both of my roommates to go to Hampstead with me and ramble about (and take pictures in front of John Keat’s house) and explore Hampstead Heath.  It was a gorgeous (almost spring) day, once again.  The heath was still pretty muddy, but we picked our way along the paths by two of the ponds there and then climbed a big tree and sat in it and read for a while.  I hadn’t climbed a tree for years!

It was really nice to see different parts of London on both days.  Even though we live a little ways outside, we’re here in London central every day for school.  I really like big cities, and love London, but it’s nice to get outside of it periodically.  London is very congested, loud and dirty and both Greenwich and Hampstead were very different - quaint and picturesque.