London: day fifty-three

Went with Abi to Brick Lane today and spent a good amount of the day perusing the shops and exploring the streets. We caved and got ourselves some doughnuts and munched on those while we walked and admired the graffiti. While we were in one leatherworks shop, I managed to find some black leather gloves for cheap which I fell in love with and ended up walking out with; the kind with the fingers cut off and a Velcro strap across the back of the hand – gotta say, they’re pretty badass.  While trying to find the other markets, we were stopped on the sidewalk by a small knot of people who asked us if they could take our picture. We kind of had to do a bit of a double take to make sure that we had heard them right, but we had indeed as they were photography students who were out trying to get practice taking pictures of people. After our little paparazzi moment, we continued to wander the streets (unfortunately most of the markets were closed) and ended up eating lunch at a small Southern Fried Chicken stand which was located in the back of an old WWII style army ambulance; the place was called “Mother Clunker,” which I naturally found amusing.

After dropping off our leftovers at NIDO we hopped another bus over to Primark and browsed around getting a few things we needed – and maybe one or two things we didn’t “need,” per say. First, I needed a replacement for my earbuds which decided to quit on me this past week, so I found a set of black headphones for fairly cheap. Because they didn’t have the style of earbuds I like, I decided to go with the headphones this time and give them a try. So far, I have really enjoyed them but it’s still a bit too early to tell whether or not I prefer headphones or earbuds. I also decided to FINALLY replace my wallet today as the one I have is in a miserable state and is bleeding coins whenever it’s turned upside down. So I found a mint green one with a wrist-strap that was only a few pounds and which I liked. As we were browsing some more, I came across something which was just too hard to pass up: pajamas! The black tank top has big letters across it saying “I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost” with the No Ghosts symbol substituted for the “O” in “Ghost.” The grey shorts are covered in black letters that say “Ghostbusters.” And the best part; the letters glow in the dark! I ended up getting them and of course changed into them as soon as I could upon getting back to NIDO. I then spent most of the rest of the evening online and watching TV and a movie – I watch The Shawshank Redemption for the first time tonight and thought it was quite an amazing movie; I can see why everyone likes it so much.