Day 22: Happy Birthday Emma!

Today we were able to sleep in (or "have a lie-in," if you're British!)... which was really nice. Everyone plus Segolene minus Malik and Barron were ready to leave by 10:30 to head to Camden Market for Emma's birthday!! :) It was cute because we were all pretty hyper and talkative on the bus this morning and then at this one point, a little girl and her mom got off the bus and the little girl said, "MUM! Did you hear those American girls??" in a really fascinated and excited voice... It's still kinda funny being the one with an accent!


The Camden Markets are a number of adjoining large markets in Camden Town. The stalls sell crafts, clothing, souvenirs, and other things. It is the fourth most popular visitor attraction in London, attracting approximately 100,000 people each weekend. I am NOT surprised by that number! It was the first time in London that I felt surrounded by SO many people, and I finally got the feeling for just how big London is! Not to mention that we went on Sunday, which is by far the most attended day.

There was a little food market area that we ate at that served everything from Thai food, to Indian, French, Mexican, traditional British/American, and so on. It was so good! We got to sit on the edge of this little river :)


If one thing is for sure, the song "Waving Flag" by K'Naan (one of the World Cup 2010 songs) will always and forever remind me of this trip! Chances are, at least one person has it stuck in their head at any given time OR it will play in some store or restaurant, and thus we'll all get it stuck in our heads! Good thing it's a catchy song ;)

After lunch, we checked out some of the various side street stores. It was really cool to walk past them because each shop had its own style as well as its own song blasting from the store -- so you'd just walk past and hear all this great music and see all the different items for sale. It was great!


We then headed to the Stables Market, which is the largest section of Camden Market. The market is built in the former Midland Railway stables and horse hospital, which served the horses pulling barges along the canal. Many of the stalls and shops are set into huge arches in railway viaducts, which made for a really unique atmosphere!


I would say that the Stables Market had more of an eclectic feel to it with almost an alternative/punk edge. While chain stores are not permitted there, many of the stalls are clothes stalls (some vintage/second-hand), some furniture, household goods, and decorative items. A lot of the goods in the Stables Market are hand-made and many are ethnically influenced.


After we spent a good deal of time there, we were ready to head to another shopping area in Central London. To our surprise, because the visitor numbers have become so high in the markets, the Camden Town tube station is available only to incoming passengers on Sunday afternoons to prevent dangerous overcrowding of the platforms. Therefore, we had a bit of a walk to make it to the next tube station to even get out of the area!

We headed to Primark in Central London, which was hands-down an INSANE experience.
Primark is branded as the J.C. Penney's of the Republic of Ireland, as it sells fashionable clothing at competitive prices. This place is HUGE. Think about the largest Forever 21 you've ever seen and multiply that by 3, as well as cutting the prices in half! I would estimate that there were at the very least 1,000 people in that store while we were there, as well as 100 employees working there at any given time. We saw employees literally sweeping up hangers and astray clothing as well as just trying to manage the mangled racks and at least partially straighten it up. It was a mad house! I had forgotten which parts of the store I had actually been in and where I still had left to go. A few of us got some things, but I was too overwhelmed to even make any decisions of what I wanted.

After a long, long, fun day of shopping, we headed back to Roehampton! The tube stations were absolutely packed. At one point there were so many people on the platform that there was a woman trying to exit the tube, and couldn't physically get off because there was no room for her to step down on and everyone was trying to push to make it onto the tube... thankfully she was able to get off after all, and we were all able to make it on together! There were definitely no personal bubbles for the extent of that journey though!

We ate a much needed dinner, downed many many glasses of water, and caught up on lots of academic work! My video group had a very secretive, closed-door, effective meeting ;) Then, we tried catching up on some sleep!