Went to Camden market. It's full of stores that act like they're too cool for you (or perhaps that's just how I felt about it), with different definitions of cool (e.g. Bohemian-y, rave-like/future clothes envisioned by the 60s, retro (70s), retro (20s style suits), leather, goth, asian cute, hippy/environmentally conscious). Kept seeing things which I really liked and were fairly cheap but I don't have enough pounds or enough space in my luggage to get it. I ended up buying a couple of things and leaving in frustration when I realized I'd buy more if I didn't. A lot of things didn't seem to have prices on them, so I think it might be the type of place where the just set the price based on how much they think they can get out of you. In one store, I saw a faux corset top which he said was for 30 pounds, when I was about to leave saying that I only had 65 pounds for the next couple of days, he lowered it to 15. When I bought he told me he never sold it for so cheap. I don't believe him but it makes me feel good about my purchase. Although I already managed to rip the zipper.

Went to Speaker's Corner. That was cool. Most of the people who were there at that point were preaching, but there was this racist old lady yammering on and on about how foreigners should go home to where they are "racially suited". She also seemed to be very anti-Catholic. What was funny was the hecklers, who mocked her with light hearted sarcasm. It seemed that just about everyone who was listening to her were people who disagreed with her and thought her ridiculous. Apparently she comes there every week and shouts for hours. Ironically, one of the hecklers was also a regular and told us that she's actually from South Africa and came to Britain because she believes that whites don't belong there, and she has the audacity to call British born citizens not really British.

There was also a really aggressively pro-Israel guy who was preaching a two state solution and was faced with the rebuttals of a very reasonable man who had just come back from living there for a year and a half. The whole atmosphere of debate and discourse was really interesting to be in. Even the people who were preaching to each other (muslim, christian, maybe others but I didn't notice any others) and arguing over who was the real god while pointing to their texts was inspiring. Obviously they weren't getting anywhere, but such an open exchange of ideas among strangers… you rarely see that anywhere other than the internet.