jet lag

Well, it's 6:10 am and I haven't fallen asleep yet, so I guess the best thing is just to stay up the rest of the day and then sleep tonight hopefully. This jet lag is killing me. I now remember last time I went to Europe it took me about 5 days to adjust to the time difference. Oh well, yesterday was a really good day. Wanna hear about it? Good, I thought you did :)

Went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Personally, I liked the National Portrait Gallery better than the National Gallery. They had an exhibit on the road to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games that are going to be in London. It was interesting because it had photographs of different athletes and people who had worked behind the scenes to get the Olympics to come to London. I liked it because it shared a part of their story next to the portrait. I love hearing people's stories. Not sure what it is, but I find it absolutely intriguing to hear where people have been and where they want to go in the future. There were also other floors with different portraits of famous people throughout England's history. I didn't find those nearly as interesting, but it got me thinking along the lines of, 'What is my life going to count for when it's all said and done?' Is it going to be worth anything to anyone besides myself? I certainly hope so. I also people watched out of a cafe today which got me thinking along the same lines of there are so many people and so many stories to be told.

After going to the galleries, I went to St. Martin in the Fields church for a concert. It was Mozart's Requiem and also a world premeire of another conductor's piece. It was absolutely phenomenal and well worth the 10 pounds that I paid to get in. The violinist was very impressive as well as the chamber choir blending with the orchestra. A few times I would just close my eyes and try to soak in the moment and capture the beauty with my ears. It was simply magnificent.

I went to a cafe today called Petra and was really encouraged to see their commitment to sustainability and good wholesome food. Instead of just a garbage bin they had a few different slots and had the statement above that 96% of their packaging was recyclable. Obviously this stood out to me as that's a pretty bold claim. I think they would probably do a really good business in America as we're also going that way as a society. England seems to be ahead of us in the green movement, as is the rest of Europe from what I remember. Hopefully we can catch up in the near future. It's going to take the right policies though, which seems to be beyond our state and federal governments on just how to do that. And now corporations can support politicians with unlimited funds? How is that democratic? Corporations have an ungodly amount of money and now they get to back politicians with those dollars? I really hope that's overturned soon as that is going to undermine our political process and democracy even further than it already is. It'll stand if the corporate-hugging Republicans have anything to say about it though.

Today I'm going to go to Greenwich and see the international date line so that should be cool. Also planning on going to Westminster Abbey and that whole area over there, just need to get proper directions, as they say here in England. My couchsurfer host Richard told me there's a boat tour that goes from Greenwich to Westminster Abbey that would be worth the ride as they have commentary along the way and it's a good scenic route that's a little different than the usual walking tour. In a couple of days I plan on making a day trip to Cambridge to check out some of the history there.

Hope you're all doing well back in the states!