Abbey is off to Amsterdam for the weekend, and seeing as how Friday is traditionally our "girl's night", I was at a bit of a loss for what to do in the evening. Ultimately, I ended up eating cheese and watching a bad horror movie. Classic.
Yesterday, however, I decided that I actually needed to do something. I was supposed to meet up with Holly at 1PM to discuss our trip to Brussels/Amsterdam, so I decided I would head down to the London Bridge area and see some of the sights there. I originally intended to go to the Clink Prison Museum, but on my way over, I kept seeing signs for the Globe Theatre and decided that seeing the Globe would be more worthwhile than the macabre.
The Golden Hinde, Sir Francis Drake's galleon, which I encountered on my walk
I wandered around the outside of the Globe, but the tour was kind of pricey (at £8.50 for students). Instead, the theatre was advertising £5 tickets to see the Scottish play in late April/early May, so I will hopefully return with Abbey for a performance. At that point, it was getting closer to 1PM, and I didn't want to pay the £3.50 entrance fee to the Clink if I wasn't going to be there very long.
NB: Ice Cream Truck!
I headed over to the Crossbones Graveyard, a burial site that was unearthed during construction. The unconsecrated ground was a burial site for prostitutes in the 16th century but recent studies revealed that 11% of the 148+ bodies were children (apparently, it later became a burial ground for the poor). Today, the location is a bit of a shrine and locals have decorated it with ribbons, flowers, and all manner of offerings. The Southwark area has turned up several interesting mysteries, including the tomb of a "female gladiator" (which despite my best efforts, I have not yet been able to find).
You can see some of the offerings left at the graveyard gate.
The graveyard was only a quick stop, and at this point, I was a bit hungry for lunch. As I had been to the market the previous day, I just wanted to get a sandwich or something cheap and referred to my Not For Tourists guide in the hopes of finding something nearby. The Not For Tourists guide only gives a line or two of review, and they can be a bit snarky, so when I saw El Vergel (under £10 and reviewed as "Oh. My. God. Soooooo good." AND on a street near Holly's dorm), I set out to find it. I eventually found its listed location although a sign on the door informed me that it had moved to a new location on a nearby cross street. I turned right on the cross street and walked the entire distance to the Thames to no avail. I thought maybe I had misread the sign (it had given no specific address), and I began to walk back. As it turns out, the new location was about a block in the other direction. At this point, I was running late, so I just got takeaway and met up with Holly.
Holly and I will be traveling to Brussels and Amsterdam together (although she arrives a day before I do). We spent a few hours planning out some details of the trip before I had to leave to meet up with Ed at 4PM. As per usual, random tube lines were closed for the weekend, and I ended up being rather late meeting up with Ed and walking most of the way anyways. At this point, it was getting closer to dinner time, and we walked over to Chinatown for dinner. We stopped at the HK Diner because it has good bubble tea (and good prices).
Now, this past week, Abbey received a care package from her family with all manner of snack food, including two boxes of Peeps. With Easter quickly approaching and the immense popularity of Cadbury, I've been trying to explain to my British friends the joy of microwaving Peeps (and Peep jousting), but seeing as how Peeps are not sold in the UK, I have no way to demonstrate. However, as Abbey doesn't like Peeps (I don't like the taste either), she gave me the two boxes from her care package and I've since begun a campaign to bring Peep Dueling to the UK.
...Consequently, the rest of Saturday was spent microwaving Peeps and watching movies.
Some graffiti from Brick Lane
Today, I met up with Jeff and we went to Brick Lane to find some decent Indian/Middle-Eastern/Southeast-Asian cuisine. It was a lot of fun, and Jeff introduced me to a lot of interesting Bengali culture. We bought a box of sweets and later tonight, when Abbey returns from Amsterdam, we're going to hang out and snack!
So, to sum things up (i.e. tl;dr), this was a pretty food-centric weekend. And a lot of fun.
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