Beth and I hooked up to explore east of where we are staying at King’s College dorms on Stamford Street. Originally we were trying to locate the Braham’s Museum of Tea and Coffee. There is a lot of construction going on in London right now, so I’m not sure if we missed the building due to all of the scaffolding, but we just couldn’t find it. Instead we found a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind, a floating museum. Then we toured the Clink Prison Museum and noted that the prisoners themselves had to pay for their incarceration. Imagine if California had this policy, we wouldn’t have such debt as we currently do. Anyhow, the many devices certainly made for a miserable stay. After seeing the museum we walked by the Borough Market, but it wasn’t open on Sundays. Walking along the bankside of the Thames, we saw the replica of the Globe Theater, had lunch at a Greek restaurant, searched for artifacts on the strand of the Thames, and returned to our dorms to rest. After a while, we met up again, went to Waterloo Station to get a seven-day travel card, rode the tube over to Buckingham Palace to take photos, and walked back through St. James Park. After walking along the Victoria Embankment, we crossed the Golden Jubilee Bridge that offers a panoramic view of Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the London Aquarium, and the London Eye. It turned out to be a relaxing way to spend a Sunday in the city of London.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Exploring the Neighborhood & Camden Town
I woke up at 6 a.m. and there was a light grey sky. I went into the common kitchen area for my routine coffee and breakfast making to find it raining. I read a bit from the Kindle The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester. It’s finally getting interesting with all of the discussion of the Enlightenment and geology.
After reading a bit, I decided to hit the road, stop in at the local bakery, and explore the neighborhood. Once I made my purchases at the bakery I worked my way down past Waterloo Station and explored that street (name unknown). It started pissing rain again. Right…I’m in London after all and that is how the summers pass, right, with precipitation. I made a wonderful discovery on this street. I discovered Greensmiths, a foodies delight! For some unknown reason I’ve been having a really hard time finding eggs. Well, at this store they had eggs, a butcher, green olives from Sicily, interesting soups, and a most wonderful version of ginger beer. Foodies paradise!
By 9am I was in the courtyard meeting Jamie and suggested we hit Camden Town. I’m really not one for crowds and I figured that with the rain and it being a Thursday we wouldn’t have to navigate through the masses to check out the merchandise in the stalls. So off we went to Camden Town via the Tube at Waterloo. Once we arrived we were a bit early, so we decided to head off to a coffee shop. Near the coffee shop there was an eclectic shop that had a mirrored covered Buddha in the window. After our coffee I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the mirrored Buddha. It was awesome! The rain started up again but we wound our way through most of the stalls that were open. Too bad we weren’t hungry because it was truly a gourmands delight in there with meals ranging from the Morrocan Tagine, Chinese Dim Sum, to the Italian pizzas. ‘Twas Yummy smelling and looking. I naturally gravitated to the Indian stalls and found some beautifully colored bangels, scarves, and delightfully smelling sandalwood incense. By 11 a.m. I was pretty well saturated with shopping and rainwater so we made our way back to the metro station. Back at the dorms I said my good-byes to Jamie and wished her a bon voyage to France, went to unpack my goods, eat lunch and prepare for the journey to the British Library.
