Day 8: A step in another direction.

I was about to start this post last night when my roommate walked in, flustered and frustrated. She'd been walking home with Debbie from the grocery store, and decided to stop at the ATM. In the middle of the transaction she noticed someone standing very close to her, and then all the sudden she was flanked on both sides by a man and a woman, both with newspapers, shoving them in her face and saying something about "50P! 50P!"... She tried to push them away, but they simply pushed their way in again. Her card popped out, she grabbed it, and ran...

"I think they were trying to rob me," she said, exasperated.

Only ten minutes later, she came into the room once again, absolutely furious. They HAD robbed her. 200 pounds, 300 dollars of her hard earned money, and it only took an instant. The newspapers were there to cover the screen as they pushed a button, grabbed the money, and got away. It happened so fast she hadn't a clue.

***

London is beautiful, charismatic, unique, exciting... but it can be a scary place. We took a step in a different direction... and spent the day in an interesting, and unfamiliar part of the city: Camden Road.

As you walk along the road and into the markets, there are leather workers, many colored hats and tights, jewelry shops, shoes, scarves, lace and buttons, spikes and tattoos, patch jackets, vintage dresses, imitation high end purses, watches on chains, and any number of an sundry places to eat.

We spent the whole day there, and only saw one side of the street. And we had a ton a fun. I even bought a brown and black leather jacket... the kind that a pilot would wear... and heckled the man ten pounds lower than his selling price.

We thought seriously about putting a colored streak in our hair- purple for Robyn, orange for me... but, we didn't. (Don't worry mom).


We ate at some thai place, that filled you up for cheap, (and luckily didn't give me food poisoning afterall- false alarm Cam). And then headed to Regence Park. It was gorgeous. And really nice to just sit on a park bench surrounded by grass and trees and people playing football. You don't realize how draining the city is until you get a chance to step outside of it.

We came back to the flats, and watched Trevor Nunn's version of Twelfth Night in the 2nd floor commons. A good familiar place, with familiar people, to end a very unfamiliar day.