Portobello Road Baby

Another market! It was inevitable. They're great. Today was the Portobello Road market which was an eccletic market consisting of clothes (old and new), shoes, antiques, jewellery and fresh fruit and bread. It was a lovely road with houses on either side which were painted all different colours (which you can sort of see in the photo). Each little terrace would have their section either yellow, blue, green, pink, white or grey. It's funny because a lot of other areas in London must look the same (they regulate it) so there are only white houses with either blue or black doors. Another thing that's regulated here is EVERYTHING. No matter where you go there are signs saying "CCTV in progress for your safety" which are security cameras. How are they for our safety? Just because there are cameras doesn't mean people won't act up. Oh well. Anyway this morning there was a whole hour of sunshine and blue sky! It really illumintated the colours of the market and I should have taken a photograph then. Oh well.

So anyway this market stretched all the way down the very long road and the stalls were spilling out of actual shops and little stands were set up for the market. You would think all the merchandise and people on the road would prevent cars driving up the street wouldn't you? Well no. At this market you have to be constantly alert that you won't be run down by an impatient motorist (one which was playing terrible 80s music loudly). Imagine being run down and forced to listen to "You spin me right round" as you were slowly crushed by the vehicle. Grim but there you go.

The only problem with the market was the lack of toilets. London has these strange public toilets which self-clean themselves after each person. Clean but it takes eons waiting in the cold. There were some foreign non-english speaking girls who were in the queue behind me and must of been really busting because they rushed in directly after I had exited and started mashing the "close door" button. Oh how I would have laughed if it had closed and self-cleaned them! Ba ha ha listening to them squealing as jets of water and air blasted their toilet time. Tee hee hee.

After the market we caught the tube to Oxford Street because there was an item I just HAD to go back for and it was chaos! People everywhere. I guess it was late night friday shopping? Anyway it was just awful. People here go quite mad as they squish into one another and knock everything of the shelves in the stores onto the floor which slowly becomes crushed into a pulp of varying colour and texture. Delicious shopping experience. Anyway dinner calls and tomorrow we are seeing "The Lion King" Hooray! More updates then, I'm Phoebe and thank you for reading.