After enjoying a night exploring the town in Piccadilly Circus, our group woke up to start day number 9. We took advantage of our first day with no itinerary and woke up at our leisure, but not too late as there was much to be done! Half of us (Alex, Tori, Jess, Elena, Esther, Natalia, and Matt) decided that the hostels breakfast was just not going to do it today. We strolled to the diner around the corner in hopes of finding and omelette. We not only found good food and good coffee, but the owner was very friendly. He found out we were from New York and started talking to us in a heavy Italian/ NYC accent. One thing that we noticed was different was the prices on the menu used commas instead of periods.
After breakfast, we dispersed and got ready to head out on our separate adventures.
While the other group was enjoying breakfast, Sarah and I (Kaylee) took a scenic walk to the Design Museum for our last morning in London. I had missed the original museum trip with our group due to being ill in the beginning of the trip, so I was glad I got to make my way there before leaving.
My favorite part of the museum was the Biodesign exhibition focusing on sustainability and integrating living matter into the fabrication of materials, buildings, and products. The exhibition centered around using bacteria to dye fabric and had some wonderful silk sculptures dyed with organic material.
We then met up with Christian and Ally at the gift shop where we browsed the many design books and trinkets before we made our way to lunch at a UK classic, Nandos.
This was all of our first Nando's experience and we can all agree, the fries and various Nandos sauces were delicious! I was happy to see they had many vegan and vegetarian options to choose from, which is a theme I've noticed during my time in London
"Wow"- Ally Derusso (commenting on said Nandos fries)
Next, the four of us made our way via the tube to Westminster to enjoy Evensong. No photos were allowed inside but I was blown away by both the architecture and voices of the choir. A cultural difference I have noticed is the use of the word till rather than counter or register. This was a sign seen outside of Westminster Abbey while we were waiting in the "queue".
We had a full itinerary planned and finally began to make our way to Novelty Automation in Holborn, which I had been looking forward to since both Jessica and Anne and the team at Special Projects recommended it to us.
Novelty Automation is a difficult place to attempt to describe. I highly suggest taking the time to research this wonderfully strange place to get a better understanding of what our small group experienced today. The best way I can think to explain it is a quirky niche arcade. We all got our tokens and took turns playing and interacting with mini games that were a hybrid of sculpture and arcade games. For example, the game "Is it Art?". Sarah placed her pear from our hostel breakfast into a glass case in an arcade machine that was then observed by an animatronic man who decided through a shake of the head if the pear was in fact art. It was not.
Due to Sarah's navigation skills, our walk to and from Novelty Automation was longer than expected, but the confusion led to us passing this sign that I thought utilized a successful combination of type and image in their logo.
The group from breakfast had a different adventure today. Me (Tori), Elena, Jess, Natalia, and Esther wanted to go to Portobello Road because we did not go with the others yesterday. On our way there we ended up getting on the tube headed in the opposite direction. Thankfully we noticed right away and got off at the next platform to continue our journey. We needed to transfer tubes and instead of waiting for the lift, we decided to take the stairs. Slight mistake. This stations stair case had 193 steps and it went down in a spiral. My vertigo was not happy. When we got on the right tube, we had a little visitor. The biggest bee I have ever seen in my life was flying around the train. It was about the side of a dollar coin. Absolutely terrifying. We moved to the other side of the train to avoid it. But then a man got on and sat next to me. And he was chewing his gum in the loudest, most obnoxious way. Thankfully we got off soon after that.
After Portobello Road, we headed to Covent Garden. I had admired older poster design at other museums during the week so Jessica suggested going to the London Transport Museum to look at the posters there. We didn't spend much time here but I bought plenty of postcards.
Our next stop was Camden Market because we had enjoyed it so much earlier this week. Jess was set on getting a bubble waffle this time and I must say, WOW. It was so good. I got the strawberry and oreo one, covered in nutella and whipped cream. Wow. Next was headed to the shops.
I had to go to the Doc Marten store. I saw a pair of boots there last time that I just HAD to have. I talked myself out of buying them because I had already bought so many souvenirs this week. The store had a mini museum of Doc Marten history and signed boots though. I was very excited to see all the boots signed by so many bands.
We wandered around a bit and then headed home. We were exhausted and excited to go back to the hostel and relax for the rest of the night. Time to cram everything into our suitcases and head back to the states. We're all looking forward to seeing our family and friends back home and sleeping in our own beds!
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