Lights Out

London is busier than usual these days. The G20 summit is bringing in both world leaders and protestors, and security is getting tighter everywhere. Our professors are glad they chose this week for us to go to Paris, they get nervous. It's like they think we're 40 slightly naive girls or something...... :)

It's been interesting to read the news and follow the events of the meeting. A lot of protests have been happening right next door in Hyde Park. One of the articles I read on Saturday talked about Earth Hour--landmarks all over the world turned out their lights that night, kind of a baton-passing effect as each major city shut down lights at 8:30 pm local time. Vegas, Australia, Sydney, Moscow, Dubai...over 3200 cities. I was excited to see Big Ben and the houses of parliament on the list so that I could see it for myself!

Here's the typical London shot at 8:20 pm on Saturday:

Then Big Ben played it's little 8:30 song, and the lights went out. London doesn't look like this very often:


Here are all the girls I convinced to come with me. I think they thought I was making it up for a little while there, but when we got off at the Westminster Tube stop and saw news cameras, we figured we would see something cool!

No sign of Obama yet. I'm keeping my eye out.