Here We Go A Market-ing

One of the major things I'm going to miss about Europe in general and about London in particular is the whole market experience.

The US doesn't have anything like the markets in London. And each market has its own little quirks. Portabello Road is in the West End and is hugely overwhelming but has a lot of really cool stands. Borough Market is really just food, but I had some amazing hot apple cider. Petticoat Lane is, um, different. It;s big but kind of strange. It just has a weird feel. Spitalfield is really cool but kind of pricey.

Brick Lane is by far my favorite market. I might be biased since I live right near it, but it is really cool. It has some amazing food - Moroccan, Pad Thai, Chinese, Crepes, lots of different stuff. This is the market I go to every Sunday to get fruit and veg and fresh bread. There is also the Up Market in Brick Lane that has a lot of up and coming artists selling clothes, bags, jewelry, etc.

Columbia Flower Market is another place I've been a few times, and after the first visit, I never again made the mistake of forgetting to take an allergy pill before.

Now, I've been to the market in Seattle, but even that has absolutely nothing on the markets in London and other parts of Europe, especially Barcelona.

On my last market trip, I made lots of cool purchases that will be worn/used when I get home.

Me Amo Barcelona, M'encanta Barcelona, J'aime Barcelone

We finally were able to put Marseille behind us and take an 8 1/2 hour bus ride to Barcelona. Even our hostel was better. Even being in the city so late was better. We walked around and found pizza at like 11:30 at night and felt totally safe. Definite improvement.

Barcelona is such a great city.

It was strange because most things were in at least three different languages - Spanish, Catalan, and either French or English. Catalan seems almost like a combination of French and Spanish, which makes sense because Barcelona is pretty close to the French border.

We found a really cool market - tons of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, candy, etc. Plus really delicious and fresh orange juice and raspberry juice. It was the largest market I've ever been to. Everywhere you looked you saw fresh food. Other than the meat stands, it was cool to just walk around and take it all in. The meat stands were quite gross - pig's face literally hanging up and sheep's heads laying out to be bought.

We wandered through the city center and saw some of the Gaudi buildings. We walked down by  the harbor and sat in different gardens.

We went into the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which is still a work in progress. Gaudi was wicked ahead of his time for architecture. His buildings literally look like they're growing out of the ground.

And the food.

The food was amazing. I had a fantastic cheese and vegetable panini for lunch. We went back to the hostel's neighborhood - it was an upper-class residential area - for dinner. Our hostel was super cool. It had a roof terrace and a garden. And the staff were friendly and helpful. We went out for dinner in our hostel's neighborhood. It was such a stereotypical Spanish dinner - seafood paella and sangria. It was delicious.

My whirlwind tour of Barcelona definitely left me wanting more. I can't wait to make a return trip to this city.

Peppermint tea, Punks, and a prestigious penman

Saturday was a strange combination of events.

I went to the Dickens House museum for a class – I had to go there and then write up a short little entry about it. Anyway, it’s a house that Charles Dickens lived in while in London, and a lot of his famous works were penned there, including Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby, which I happen to be reading at the moment. 

So my friend and I were there a bit before it opened and decided to wander around and get some coffee while we waited for the museum to open. Well, I got a cup of peppermint tea, and let’s just say the world was against me and my peppermint tea. While in the café, I was walking to the door, and the lid popped off, resulting in a couple different burns on my fingers. I put the lid back on and walked back to the Dickens House museum, and then realized that drinks aren’t allowed in the museum, and I had to throw it away. So after paying and getting burned, I didn’t even get to drink the stupid tea. Needless to say, I’m off hot beverages at the moment, too traumatized.

After a bad start to the day, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the museum. A lot of the rooms were restored to the original use, and there was a video about his life. The library was amazing. It had a bunch of different copies of his work and even some of the original manuscripts. Only problem is, now I want to read all of Dickens’ works.

After that, we met up with some of our other friends in Camden, which is known for its street market. I’ve been to a few of the markets on the East End, and I figured this one would be similar. It was insane, though. Besides the fact that the markets were huge and had a bunch of different stalls, it was mainly aimed for the punk population. If I want to get a tattoo or piercing while I’m here, I guess I know where to go.

After that, we went to Regents Park and threw around a Frisbee. One of my friends is really into ultimate, so she tried to teach us the techniques of Frisbee throwing, but I never really got the hang of it.

So that was Saturday’s events, but I have a lot more posts to come.

Three weeks in . . .

So, after three weeks in London, I decided to start a blog about my time here. It's much easier than writing a thousand different e-mails and having to e-mail photos and stuff.

Anyway, so far, it has been fantastic to live here. Campus is in the East End of London, so it's a fun, eclectic neighborhood - kinda arty, and no, not like Urbana. There's this cool art gallery about 5 minutes down the road that has shown artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Picasso - you don't know me very well if you don't understand my love of almost all Pollock works. When I went, there was an exhibition about individual and group identity that was pretty interesting. The cool thing is, they get a lot of up-and-coming artists and local London artists. Another cool thing is almost all of the museums are free, so I've already been to the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Galleries, British Museum, and there are a whole lot more on my list to see.

Another place that I have been frequenting is St. Paul's Cathedral.

We had free passes to go in and walk around and decided to climb to the top - 530 steps later, I was out of breath, but the view was amazing.




I also went down into the crypt, where I decided that it would be weird to be buried in the crypt of a cathedral. While I'm not religious, a friend and I did attend a couple Evensongs at St. Paul's, which was . . . interesting, to say the least. The singing was cool, but the readings were kind of intense. Also the first night, the organ solo at the ended sounded like something right out of a Tim Burton movie or a slasher movie.

Classes so far have been cool. For my architecture class, we go on little outings every other week. Last week we went to the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Foreign Office.

It's been nice on the weekends to go visit the markets. There are a
few big name markets near us that every Londoner knows to frequent - Brick Lane, Petticoat Lane, and Spitalfield. I think in the coming weeks we are going to go to West London and try out Nottinghill and also search for a good secondhand bookshop.

Luckily we found a bookstore that was closing and had mega sales - 3 books for 4.99 pounds. I ended up getting some good classics - Crime and Punishment, Nicholas Nickleby, and Madame Bovary. I know, pretty deep stuff. But I had to get at least one Dickens novel because I am visiting the Dickens' house in London for one of my classes, and I feel the need to read something of his while I'm there, so Nicholas Nickleby it is.

I've already got a couple trips planned with one of my flatmates - Belfast in Northern Ireland, and then Dover and Canterbury.

Just yesterday, we watched To Kill a Mockingbird, the pastor does a Monday night free movie screening. Anyway, that was the second time I've seen it, and while I've decided that Gregory Peck definitely only belongs in black and white, I absolutely love that movie. Don't get me wrong the book is better, but I think I'll have to purchase that movie when I get home, and reread the book, again, for the fourth or fifth time.

Much more is on the agenda for the coming days and weeks, so stay tuned.