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.