Day 8: Branding Museum and Portobello Market

We headed out on our last group day together, led by Mary Grace at 9:15. We were going to visit The Museum of Brands, which displays a man's personal collection of different branding beginning in the Victorian Era all the way through to present day. 

Unfortunately no photography was allowed inside the museum, however many of us did stop to sketch some of the things we saw! It was very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of stuff! Sketching helped us focus our thoughts and really "see" what we were looking at. 

Illustration from a vintage Twister board game.

While at the museum some students enjoyed a nice cup of tea in the cafe, where we found a nice piece of design that we were allowed to photograph! (Notice how the U doubles as a teacup)

After the museum we headed to Portobello Market, which was only a couple blocks over! This market has a ton of different vendors that sell things such as vintage clothing, antiques, jewelry, ect. 

After shopping around for a bit we decided to grab some lunch at a nearby cafe called Goode & Wright after being told that the food was very good! (And it was!)

Our meals consisted of a delicious artichoke soup, Italian fish balls with polenta, and a crispy squid salad.

While we were at Goode & Wright a couple of us needed to use the restroom, but had a tricky time finding it because it was labeled "WC" standing for water closet, a term that is not typically used back in the U.S. 

This led to more conversation about different terms used in London, another one that we noticed was how the letter Z was pronounced as "zed."

Once we were done with our meals, we shopped around a little bit more and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for our group dinner! Along the way we came across George Orwell's former home!

We also saw more interesting design along the way!

For our group dinner we ate at Mediterraneo, which was a very short walk from the hostel. We all discussed out favorite parts of the trip and then passed out some small gifts to one another. Us students received a cute, small pin of the underground sign for the tube and we along with Chris gave Jessica a book on drawing that we had all signed as a thank you for all the hard work she put into planning this trip.

With very full bellies we headed back to the hostel to relax for the night. Tomorrow is sadly our last day in London, where we will be able to spend the day doing whatever we choose. 

Day 7 — How much stuff can we fit into one day?

Today we started our day by a goat! We met our tour guide, Dave, who
taught us about the street art of London.

He discussed how certain street artists will create small sculptures to put on near by poles 

before placing their work to the public. 

We noticed this wall had CMYK.

A tiny mirror tucked away on a wall.

After about 2 hours we stopped at a near by cafe to have some lunch.

Here is 2-D art and a 3-D trash sculpture. 10 Points if you can guess who it's of!

A pointillist graffiti piece. Look familiar? It's by the same artist who did the pointillist portrait of David Bowie.

This was a self-portrait of a frenchman who wanted to appear as if he was about to burst through the wall.

Here is our magnificient tourguide guiding us.

A collaboration of street artists.

Space Invader & Shepard Fairey 

MG showing off how photogenic she is.

All you need is love.

We had a good chuckle at this one.

The club we visited was full of fun street art by various artists.

We couldn't forget to see the work of the master of street art: Banksy.

This piece is the only known work that Banksy actually allowed someone to work with him on. 

The writing around it was done by a different street artist.

After our street art tour we took the tube to the V&A. This museum 

held work from all different time periods. Here is an example

of some lovely design we saw along the way. 

We got a little tired from all the exciting things happening around 

us so we decided to stop for some tea and a snack at the V&A.

This beautiful glass-blown sculpture hung in the main entrance at the V&A.

Next stop: The Natural History Museum. This was right across the street from the V&A.

We saw some really fascinating exhibitions on Earth's natural disasters and climate change.

After that we were craving our favorite salad at a cafe called Pret A Manger.

It might've been the third time we've had it...

After that we crossed the street over to the Apollo Victoria Theater 

to see the show Wicked! It was MaryGrace's first time seeing this

musical and it was absolutely wonderful. 

We sat in the dress circle which over looked the magical set design.

For our cultural difference, we noticed that British museums have a menu

at your seat and you can order whatever you'd like and they bring it right to you!

We also discovered that if you sit past seat P, you can pay 1 pound and get a 

pair of binoculars in order to see up close!

And with that, we're signing off. Cheerio!

—Alyssa & MaryGrace