Day 09 - Borough Market/ Imperial War Museum
Sunday, 2 December 2012, 00:53
It was an especially cold morning, so some of us left the hotel bundled in seven layers of clothing! Even The Shard was shrouded in mist, a construct that holds claim to being Europe’s second tallest building at present. The Shard is also remarkably surrounded by old English architecture, making a walk through that part of London a truly magical experience where the new and old blend together to produce an experience that is uniquely London.
As we walked into Borough Market, we immediately felt as though we had stepped into a classical Charles Dickens novel. Bakers lined the streets selling a variety of bread ranging from white bread to grain bread and even low carb bread. Cheese makers accompanied these bakers and we saw huge wheels of cheese piled onto street stalls, all marked with names that were completely foreign to us.
Borough Market is broken into three different areas, the Green Market, Middle Market and Jubilee Market. The Green Market as its name suggests contained fruit and vegetable stores, but there was also an abundance of stalls selling chocolate and fudge. A sugar high was just what we needed to start our morning on a high note! Yet all that chocolate did not distract us from the fact that we were walking through London’s oldest fruit and vegetable market.
After Borough market we made our move to the Imperial War Museum. The building was originally used as a lunatic asylum, called the Bedlam Asylum. They have just begun refurbishment of the museum in preparations of the 100th anniversary of World War I that will be happening in 2014.
We had been given one hour before our guide, Sean, would arrive at the museum, so we took the opportunity to enjoy the peace of a nearby garden. Some of us even visited the playground and took turns using the swing!
We were broken up into our three groups once more when Sean arrived, to visit three different areas in the Imperial War Museum, the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, the Holocaust exhibit and finally the ‘Secret’ War exhibit.
Lord Ashcroft is an international businessman, author and philanthropist. He also holds the largest collection of Victoria Cross medals in the world and his gallery depicted stories of ultimate courage that has been displayed by British soldiers since the reign of Queen Victoria that began the tradition of awarding this medal of honor. The stories told there were inspirational to say the least, with examples such as one soldier who had jumped on a grenade to protect his company from the blast. A number of the medals had been awarded posthumously, to acknowledge those who had made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in order to save others.
We then moved to the Holocaust exhibit, which brought us through World War II, showing the major events that began this global scale conflict and also the effects that it rained down on the population. This section was especially moving to us as they fully described the atrocities that were endured by the Jewish population, such as ‘Gas vans’ that were employed as mobile gas chambers as well as starvation that occurred in the ‘Ghettos’, where the Jews were confined to living in. The exhibit also opened our eyes to facts of the Nazi regime that had been unknown to us before, such as the “Euthanasia”, or mercy killing, of over 70000 Germans that had suffered from mental or physical disabilities.
Finishing our tours around the museum, we visited Brick Lane which is the Little Bangaldesh of London, for a Balti meal. Balti curries it is reputed originated not on the Indian sub-continent but in Britain, a product of the Indian communities who migrated to the northern counties of Britain, and that have now found their way back to the subcontinent. The naan and rice brought all of us back to the reality that this would be the last dinner in London and our trip was finally coming to an end.
With that somber mood we began our journey back to what had become home to us for the past 9 days. Leaving the tube that had brought us from London Bridge to Southwark, we said farewell to our last tube ride in London!
Written by Alexander 12A03 (Group A)
