Day Four- Markets & Other Outings

---

Slept in a little bit this morning as our plan for the day was to go to the Camden Markets, which opened at 10am. We got there at around 11 and I was blown away- it’s the cutest and most interesting, not to mention the biggest, market I have ever been in. It took us about two hours to get through it all (and we’re pretty sure we missed some of it) and in that time we bought some fudge, souvenirs, and “Real-Life fruit earrings”. These are earrings made out of dehydrated fruit dipped in glue or acrylic or something to coat it. I got Orange, and Trudi and Bec both got Kiwi Fruit and Blood Orange.

For lunch we stepped out of the Markets to find a traditional English pub, and the closest on Google Maps was The Hawley Arms. It turns out that The Hawley Arms was the pub that Amy Winehouse spent every night drinking in, which we thought was awesome. Trudi’s aunt told us that Camden Town was where Amy lived, and it’s thanks to her that it has such a great live music scene. There’s also a statue of Amy in the Markets, but at the time we had no idea why.

The Hawley Arms is a very cool, traditional pub, and I had a London Lager which was, in my personal beer-hating opinion, disgusting. Afterwards Trudi and I made our way over to Notting Hill to see the famous bookshop from the movie (which was very cute and small) and to get a red velvet cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery, apparently a must-do in London. The cupcake was amazing, even if it was £3 (around $5.30).

We came home and played lots of Uno and Bighead (a card game named by Trudi’s cousins in replacement of a bad word). Then Trudi’s aunt and uncle took us all out for drinks and dinner, which was absolutely lovely. We started out at a classy pub (although I can’t for the life of me remember the name), which had a very lively restaurant area on level one, and a very quiet and dim-lighted cocktail bar below ground. I had a cocktail called Apple+Plum, a mix of Fanny Fougert, 30 & 40, Merlet, Apple Cordial, and Acidulated Butter. It was pretty nice, but so strong that every sip tasted like I’d just downed a shot of pure alcohol.

We then headed to a less classy pub, a Jack the Ripper pub, called The Ten Bells where we experienced the atmosphere of British drinkers watching an England v Belgium football game. It was intense. It was packed so full I wasn’t sure how we’d all fit inside, but it turns out that in England they let you take your drinks outside the pub!? To me that was crazy, I felt like I was breaking the law.

We then headed down Brick Lane for dinner, a street famous for its curries. After walking past a few restaurants with “We’ve got the Best Curry in Britain according to TripAdvisor!” banners on them, we decided that there was no point trying to find the best one. As we were standing around thinking, a shop owner came to us and made small talk, all while saying “I’m not going to use any of that haggling stuff on you, I’m not like the other guys”. Of course, this was before he proceeded to haggle us and give us offers we “couldn’t refuse”. So we just didn’t refuse and we followed him into his restaurant.

We ate dinner at 10pm and it was only JUST getting dark! The food was delicious (I had a Lamb Korma) (mainly because that’s the only thing I know besides Butter Chicken) (thanks Mum and Dad). We left at around 10:30 and caught a cab home. The streets were full of British football fans celebrating, even though they lost. It was a really cool thing to watch, the streets were just full of chanting footy fans. We got home and I fell straight to sleep, I’m writing this in the morning whoops!

---