Journey 2: London and the Boroughs

Well it wasn't a foggy day in London town, but I must admit that the weather wasn't the greatest. Our first experience walking around was wet. Just, really wet. Our task while in London was to explore an assigned borough in groups of 5 or 6 people and be anthropologists for a day. My group went to Brixton, an area with a high Jamaican population. Brixton is probably most known for its market, which is where we spent a majority of our time while there. But another interesting thing that will pop up if you Google “Brixton” is that they have created their own currency, aptly named the Brixton Pound. We never actually got to see one in person, though. 

A sign for the market, as well as a pretty good representation of the type of area we were in.

After we were done, our group split up. A few of us went to the British Library, which I didn't know (and my ignorance may be showing here) was really more of a museum. We walked around for a while and saw some pretty neat things. I took a few illegal pictures before the "No Photography" sign was pointed out to me. There's also something magical about listening to the Beatles in the British Library, in London, while on Study Abroad. Maybe that's just me...

Morgan and I were meeting up with some other girls later that day to ride the Eye, but to kill a bit of time, we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street. We spent close to 45 minutes or an hour in the gift shop without actually going upstairs to the museum. But we each saved £6 and still had a good time looking at all the cool souvenirs. The London Eye was neat, especially at night. Being able to see the city from that view was pretty amazing. Afterwards we were all tired and hungry, so we warmed up over dinner, ate a good (if a bit pricey) meal, then hopped on the train and went back to Oxford.

The policeman outside the museum!

Our view of Big Ben and Westminster from the Eye

Overall, it was a great first trip to London. There were lots of things we didn't get to see, but we have at least two more trips there before the end of the semester, so we have some time.