Evan, Grace, and Katie: It’s always a good time—in London

Yesterday was a busy day. Our day started at 9:00 am and lasted until 11:00 pm. We knew that today was going to be a long day, but that was okay because in London, it’s always a good time!

Our day started off with a trip to Camden Market. Camden Market is shoppers delight. It is a massive street market in Camden Town that has a wide range of food, trinkets, clothes, and almost every other good available. Camden market regularly attracts over 100,000 tourists and locals every weekend.

After our visit to Camden market, we ventured to the Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. Speakers’ Corner is a unique area where people get on a step stool to publically air their opinion on a wide array of subjects.  Usually a crowd forms to listen and even publically debate the speaker.  A speaker is allowed to talk about anything as long as the subject is lawful.

We next visited the iconic London department store Harrods. Harrods is an exceptionally upscale department store. The store features six floors of almost all luxury goods imaginable. The store has over 300 departments including grocery, fashion and housewares. At 1,000,000 square foot Harrods is the largest department store in Europe. 

After visiting Harrods many of us needed an afternoon “pick me up.” We ventured over to Bill’s to partake in traditional English tea. English tea entails more than simply drinking tea. A proper English tea is more like a meal featuring sandwiches, desserts and of course tea.  With delicious food, a comfortable seat, and the servers’ smiley face, it was pretty awesome pre-theatre dinner.

Our evening ended with a musical at the Palace theatre. The musical that we saw was called “The Commitments”. It was a very fun show, with great songs and great actors. The audience was very engaged in the show, everyone was clapping and singing. Going to the theatre was one of the most unique experiences of the trip.

All in all we were exhausted, but we all had a great time. We had so many great experiences highlighting English culture. We had the chance to experience two vastly different types of English retail, experience a traditional English tea and see a great show

Evan Drygras is a fourth year Bachelor of Business Administration student.  Grace Yun is a second year Tourism Management for International Student diploma student.  Katie Japaridze is a first year Bachelor of Communication studies student.

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