Churchy Stuff / Ice Bar / Greenwich

i've procrastinated writing long enough and now i have a lot to talk about...

Churchy Stuff
molly and i went to fhe and institute this week. i'm glad we did. i got to meet quite a few people that way. for all the people that come to church on sunday, i'm surprised how few actually come to these things.

there ended up being about 20 people there at fhe. and it's completely ysa run too which i was impressed by. met an american from arizona. she was really friendly. i appreciate those. although, i'm completely out of my shell by this time. i'm joining in conversations and know a bunch of people by name now. she's actually here on the BUNAC program working for 6 months - something i'm seriously considering. after our lesson we all went and played ultimate frisbee at the park. i once heard that girls bond through secrets and guys bond through competition. i believe it. afterwards we had snacks. the strawberries here are amazingly good! at least the ones i had were.

this was the last institute for a while and we had a very light-hearted book of mormon quiz. and out of the 30-ish people that were there i got 4th place. :) and i got a little box of chocolates for getting 4th. i was amused to hear the institute teacher sigh disappointedly (not on purpose) when he realized i only got 4th. i think he was rooting for me. i must've made a good impression on him in my two weeks that i've known him. institute was short and we played volleyball in the gym afterwards. it's funny - church volleyball here is exactly the same as halfway across the world. only about half the people actually know how to hit the ball the right way, and there's always at least one overly competitive one who will run to the opposite side of the court to hit the ball right in front of his teammate. it really amused me. and afterwards i got to chat it up with a few of the people around here. met another girl doing the BUNAC thing. she just got here last week, in fact. i think that makes 3 that i've met so far doing that.

Ice Bar
there's an Absolut Ice Bar in town that is seriously completely ice. well... more or less. the bar is ice and there's ice chairs and an ice table. the walls are covered in thick ice and there are ice blocks all around. they give you a big parka with gloves to wear inside. apparently it costs like 12 pounds to get in and you get one free drink but it was all included in our program cost. again, we're paying for alcohol that i don't drink in my program cost. but at least i got a free juice out of it. but the place was really really fun inside. i spent the whole time taking fun pictures with my other friends. it was worth it just for that!

i thought we all look like a freakish cult here.

Greenwich
i went to greenwich today with another girl in the program. that's where the prime meridian of the world is. and i took pictures there! i feel like i'm getting so much out of this trip! there's always something more to see and take pictures of. most of things i don't even realize are around until someone else says they're going to it, so i tag along. it on top of a hill where there's an old observatory. a guy lived there 40 years recording the stars and sun every day for the government. so the house he lived in was turned into a museum to walk through and see how he lived and such. but there was also a time museum. that was SO interesting. they talked about the progress of time recording with clocks. the big deal was that sailors could easily find out what latitude they were on but they couldn't figure out what longitude they were at. and that caused shipwrecks all the time for sailors not really knowing where they were. so the british government put up a 20,000 pound reward (worth more than a million pounds today) for the person to come up with a way of measuring longitude to half a degree accuracy. and the museum took you through the progress of those inventions. and you could see the clock getting smaller and more technical until it finally reduced to the size of a pocket watch. some things you just don't realize went through a major period of progress to get to where they are now. we take it all for granted now! really interesting museum. when i finally live here and y'all come to visit, i'll take you there. :)
just a garden that i like bc it looked really colorful

these partial numbers that wouldn't show up on the camera are all the numbers for the actual time of the world right down to miliseconds.

the line of the Prime Meridian on the ground with different longitudinal degrees of major cities (i think).

i'm being split by the Prime Meridian!

this is from a museum in Greenwich about ancient sailing. you might have to click on it to make it big enough to read. i was amused by the last paragraph. i do believe we have a little more insight than most as to the source of the "higher levels of technological and navigational expertise".

oh, and i did use my networking skills with someone i work with to pass along my resume to the marketing department of a local finance company. wish me luck!