Continued from Yesterday

Today we finished the sightseeing plan we started yesterday. We went back to the station we came home from yesterday afternoon, and took up where we left off. (Before we left Bow, though, I tried to go to a local doctor, for a blocked ear. It’s been blocked up completely for a few days now, and it’s pretty annoying. But because I wasn’t registered with them they couldn’t treat me, but they did give me the address of a practise who would. It was too far away, though, so we set off for town.)
We arrived at Borough Market a few minutes before 10, but there wasn’t much activity. We wandered around for a bit, but only about half the stalls were open. On the other side, we saw a sign that said that only those stalls that open for lunch open from 10 on a Tuesday, but from Wednesday all the stalls open at 10. So we might try that again another day.
Out the other end, and we pointed ourselves towards the Globe Theatre. On the way

through we saw some signs, and following them we found the Golden Hind(e), Sir Francis Drake’s ship. Not a popular exhibit (it’s not the original, but still an interesting replica), and it still being fairly early in the morning, we were the only ones aboard. Afterwards we set off again, and got waylaid again – this time at the Clink, an exhibit of an old prison, as used from Medieval times, through Tudor times, and eventually a Georgian debtor’s prison. Ghoulish, evilly sadistic, horrifying and disgusting, it made for a fun and delightful visit.
And then finally we got to the Globe. We had a good guide around the theatre, and it was a good visit. I love that people’s lives of centuries ago are so much more readily imaginable, whether by seeing actual buildings that still remain from those times, or just replicas. Some of these places, such as the Globe, are not a lot different from how they seemed when I’ve seen them on TV, but seeing them in the flesh helps a lot.
We left the Globe to go just next door, to the Tate Modern. We started with lunch at their café, which was not bad, and then went to the top and worked our way down the gallery. I was surprised at how sparsely some of the works were exhibited. It made our viewing quite quick. We lingered in the surrealist and cubist rooms, but still, we were through rather quickly.
This meant we had time to go to the doctor we had been told about in the morning. This was my first taste of the NHS, and I was really impressed. It’s even free for foreigners! We had to wait nearly an hour to see the doctor, but that was only to be expected. But she couldn’t do anything. She told me to buy some ear drops to soften the earwax so that in a week or so it could be irrigated. No worries.
For dinner we walked off in a new direction – over the canal towards Bethnal Green, I think, and ate at a Mesopotamian restaurant. I had something resembling a lamb pizza, without cheese. A pide, it was called. Hope it catches on.