’Took the tube over to Camden, to wander around’

'I brought some funky records witht that old moe town sound' ok.. well i didnt do that bit. mainly because i dont know what moe town sounds like.. and i dont have a CD player, let alone a record player.BUT i did go to Camden to wander around, I even took the tube. Mainly because of this song, and my cousin said it was funky. (The song is London Still by the Waifs for those who dont know) and Funky it was, although Funky doesnt really cover it. It was intense, and.. an 'experience', it was one of those places that you would love to just sit at a cafe on the street and watch people passing by. The best I can do to explain it is to relate it to Moulin Rouge, at the beginning where they go into the Bohemian area, with all the mad looking people. It was like that. There were Rich people and poor people, and goths and punks and business men,and tourists, quite a few of them. It was pretty cool. After wandering around markets in Latin America I thought Id seen pretty much everything for sale. From chickens feet, to star fish (to be used in magic spells, and weird little dried lizards, poor critters) hippy clothing to the max, and piles of cows noses.. i still look a cows and feel sorry for them etc. and when you add that to markets in China, well i thought id seen a bit. But no, so so so wrong (as well all knew i had to be, he world always gets you beack when you get arrogant.. its probably healthy.. lol). I think I actually found THE place where Goths get their shoes. Strange though it may be I had often looked at the shoes goths wear (the hardcore ones) and wondered where on earth they got them, because you defiantly dont get them in Bayside shopping centre. And I was amazed to see these stunning (in their own way) shoes on sale. It never occured to me that you could go into a shop and try on these various shoes, in different sizes i guess too. (I wonder if they go on sale.. this idea is getting weirder) I had this suspicion that either a) they inherited said shoes or b) they grew magically in your closet, like a kind of fungi, when you decided to devote your life to black. I guess its a bit dissapointing to see shops filled with said shoes. But they do look cool, in a sense (rather like snow leopards look cool, nice at a distance but kinda dangerous up close) what with the buckles, and massive amounts of dead cow, and the platforms, and chains etc. etc. (I hope you all have an idea of what im talking about)But yes there were goth shoe shops, goth clothing shops, goth tatoo shops, that has got to be a multi million pound industry. But Goth clothes are pretty fun, people must love designing them, cause you can get away with anything, and you dont need to worry about the colour scheme, all the corsets, and flowy skirts,and bags and hats, in hair dye alone they must make a mint. oh, and make up too. But it was nice to see all these stores co existing nicely with the 'hello kitty' shops next door. I think they work so well because they know that they arent competing. Go capatilism again, we can co exist happily (maybe even share a curry) with anyone who isnt going to potentially nick our customers. There is also a huge market. Mainly selling groovy hats (soo wanted one), belts, headbands (mass produced and boring, and attempting to look genuinely hippy haha) and different pieces of jewlerry. I wandered around these shops for some time and started to realise a pattern, not something you overly expect in markets. But what my sleuthing actually discovered (go sherlock amelia.. haha) was that half the stores were chain stores. Pardon? i thought to myself. Chain market stalls? but yes indeed, i would say the market repeats itself about 3 times, witha few small variations. again go capatilism, but it was keeping some hippies in a job, and everyone who wasnt a hippy couldnt speak english, so i guess it suited everyone. Then there was the food. Proper food (by that I mean the majority was asian, so we are on the up and up from southern Europe) at a reasonable ish price. But the really interesting thing was how they tried to convince you to eat at theirs. There was alot of shouting and come eat here.. but also alot of waving pieces of chicken in the air and making you try it. I dont know how or who came up with the idea that a pice of chicken was going to convince people to eat at their shop. But i do know that if you are starving and protein deprived there is a fairly high chance that you could get your protine RDI by wandering around the siad market and sawpping hats or jackets now and again. So my trip to camden was quite enjoyable, and i would reccomend it to anyone who gets the chance, just for a bit of culture. I then battled the Tube back (split lines, sooo confusing) and half way decided to go to another market that had been reccomended to me (the advantages of being on your robinson, changing your mind doesnt afect anyone else). It was near London Bridge, and quite a nice place to wander around. Rather upper class, and the food wasnt cheap but it was quite good quality. I successfully navigated buying a pumpkin (later that night i also successfully cooked it.. go amelia and her microwaving skills lol) and various other bits of produce. The thing about the supermarket here is that everything is pre packaged, including mushrooms (I did not want to buy that many mushrooms people.. there is a limit to how many mushrooms one girl can eat, and 250g is WAAYY over that limit) and all other fruits and vegies. (this i hope is jsut at a chain called Tesco) so im going to try to go to markets from now. the packaging is just frustrating. But yes that market was nice.Actually this week has been brill. I spent a day in the sun lying in a park reading (and riding a bike and getting slightly geographically dislocated) and watching deer and a stag wander around a park and run away from dogs. another day i went to the science museum (pretty cool, they did a show of explosions which entertained me for a while) and had replicas of commande modules and the moon lander. So that was groovy. and now my mother is coming which will be intersting. I have ot leave in about an hr to go pick her up (hopefully with success, I have no idea how to meet someone at an airport) and then I imagine that will be the excitement of the day as she will have been travelling for about 2 days. actually only a day and a half, so thats not so bad (and emirates too! talk about spoilt..lol) so thats the goss.I realised something else on my little wander around the park the other day. In the whole 3 or somonths ive been away, it has NEVER occured to me that i might get lost. Like genuinely lost. I have wandered around all sorts of towns, often without a map per se, just wandering down whichever street looks most interesting. I was trying to work out if this was a bad thing, then I realised something even better. If i did get lost, all i need to do is call someone with internet access and get them to look at Google maps. Talk about Globalisation, thats it in a Nutshell. I can call up my dad from Lisbon, he can look at google maps with a street reference or soemthing and then tell me when and where to turn left. from the other side of the world. madness, lucky i havent had to do that yet, but its another nice safety net. loltake care