Catching up with Jodi - London, Sat 2 May 2008

On Tuesday I went to an IT conference to meet with Neal Perry who offered me a contract with EPiServer starting on Thursday. It was great to have work so soon but it meant I needed to make the most of the last day of my break. Unfortunately Wed was pouring with rain so I decided to check out some of the free museums & art galleries. I headed to the Natural History Museum which was so much fun. They had a large section on dinosaurs including bones and fossils and even a cool robotic t-rex! The museum also had neat sections on mammals, birds, fish, humans, earth, minerals etc. They had an area called the Vault which had displays of gold nuggets, diamonds and rare gems. One was the Star of South Africa, a 47 carat diamond set on a necklace pendant. Beautiful! The museum building was gorgeous too. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so don't have any photos to show.

I also checked out the Tate Modern, which holds modern art, supposedly a must see but really not my thing, I don't get contemporary art. So instead I went to the National Gallery which housed all the old school paintings. My favourite was a beautiful unfinished sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci of Mary, her mother, Jesus & John the Baptist. I also saw paintings by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet and Van Gogh. Pretty cool.

I met up with Jodi on Thursday night for a drink at the local and we decided to get together for some site-seeing on the weekend. Saturday was such a nice day we decided to hop on a boat cruise down the river Thames to Greenwich. Her friend Evelyn joined us too. It was great heading down the river on a nice day and Greenwich was wicked. It had beautiful parks and was great for chilling out on a nice day, we definitely weren't the only ones with the same idea. Greenwich has the Royal Observatory which is home to the Prime Meridian (0 deg longitude) and the Millennium Clock. It was packed up there but managed to get a quick shot of me with one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying a drink at the Trafalgar Tavern, a well known pub on the river front. They were filming a BBC period drama on the river bank which was interesting to watch. In London you can take your drinks out of the pub, they even give you takeaway cups! It was great to enjoy a drink on a seat by the river.