East End, the V&A and Other Odds and Ends

My goodness! How time flies! I keep thinking it's June while it's half way through July! I really have enjoyed London though. I love watching the crowds. You can see so much, but you can always count on flustered tourists and rushing businessmen (and women!) We have visited the city (the square mile...) many times this week. We went to the Borough Market to show Makenzie and Dena the food stalls. The best part of the Borough Market is the free samples. They are so delicious. A lot of times they have olive oil for testing with little pieces of bread, brownies, cheese, or in some cases smoked sausage. The sausage is simply marvelous! We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. That was my favorite. They had all sorts of things. The historical and the er... interesting :) were balanced very nicely. My favorite sections were the fashion and the theater. In fashion we saw... well, fashion! They had lovely ball gowns from different era's, and it was cool to see how the fashions changed. In the Theater section, it was basically the history of London's theater. They had costumes, set models, costume models (we got to try those on!!), posters, tickets, on and on it went. It was wonderful! I dressed in a costume of Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet, and one other costume, but I have no clue what it was. Then, that weekend, we went on a market tour of the East End. The three markets were Petticoat Lane, Spitafields Market, Brick Lane, and the Flower Market. Petticoat Lane doesn't exist, in actuality it is a street called Middlesex. The stalls used to sell petticoats, so that is how it got it's name. Now the products are cheap, both in quality and money. Then there was Spitafields. It used to be a town in the Roman days, with a hospital and a church, oh yeah, and fields. The fields were by the hospital, thus hospital fields, or Spitafields. They had better quality, but also heftier prices. Then, there was Brick Lane. We actually didn't see that much of it, because we were on our way to lunch. Basically Brick Lane is a food market. It is also a center for street art. It has little vintage stores all along the way. Last, but most definitely not least, the Flower Market. We went later in the afternoon, and the stalls were ready to close, so they cut the prices down. All along you would here "20 roses a fiver," in other words, 20 roses for 5 pounds. (7 dollars) The next stall would be offering 3 bunches of lilies for 5 pounds. Then lavender, Then orchids, Then sunflowers. The crowds barely moved, and when they did, they surged forward trying to get the best deals. They seemed to try to separate any two trying to stay together. But it was wonderful. The smell of flowers hung in the air, all you could see was rushing people and lovely flowers. The sellers cried their wares again and again befuddling me. They seemed to mix together and make such nonsense.  But the Flower Market was my  favorite. East End used to be slums, but has emerged to be one of the trendiest places in London. We then took Dena and Makenzie to the British Museum, where they saw the Rosseta Stone, while we saw an Easter Island man. We also saw the life and death room, which was a little freaky. They had this one cool exhibit showing all the medical treatment of one lady's life. The pills went on and on. It looked like a beaded table runner, a really long table ruuner. Mom was completely fascinated. I was surprised by how much medicine she took. Then, today we a rest day. It turned out to be warm, so we headed to the park to kick the football. It was very nice to have a day with no rain.