(Tuesday 7/17)
Today was our last excursion :-( but it was a really interesting one! We went to the Amazon Headquarters in London to learn a bit about Amazon Fashion and how everything works inside of Amazon. There were so many young people working there! I feel like I probably shouldn't have been surprised, but it was so weird seeing an office building with a majority of people under 30. I loved some of the layouts of the building, with the rooftop area, and how open a lot of the building was.
It was also a really interesting time to visit this location, as they are just beginning their own fashion labels in Europe with a variety of different styles and occasions. It was interesting to see just how much they have to do to get all the labels up and running, especially since Amazon is already so well established. Even with Amazon so established, they still have to form all connections from scratch pretty much for sourcing the clothing and really figure it all out themselves. They had some really cute clothes, and some not so cute clothes. I loved the leggings the most, but nothing else really popped for me. It was cool seeing how their in house designer just tweaked certain things on already made clothing to make it a bit different and set it apart a bit more. It probably isn't too much fun if you're a designer, but it's interesting to see how small changes and make such a difference in a garment.
After Amazon we headed over to Boxpark for lunch. I loved the set up of Boxpark and would really like to come back if I get a chance in London another time. The food was also really good. I got food at the vegan place, and it was Indian-ish kind of food. It was a brown rice bowl with a lot of different vegetables and "chicken". It actually ended up being pretty spicy too - not really something I noticed in the taste as much as just noticing my nose start running and eyes start watering.
We continued on to Covent Garden, a little marketplace with many different kinds of shops and souvenirs. We started with gelato for a little dessert and I got raspberry flavored - I've become very fond of raspberries and raspberry flavor literally just during our time here. I've liked raspberries but I haven't really gotten a lot of raspberry flavored things before coming here. After gelato we dispersed to look at the little shops, and I ended up getting some really nice London souvenirs from one of the painters set up in the market. They're really pretty, unique watercolor prints of some sights around London, which make for a cute, not your typical souvenir type gift, so that took a bit of stress off of me for finding gifts to bring back last minute.
We wrapped up our group time for the day at Covent Garden and a portion of us headed down to the Tate Modern. There were some really unusual, somewhat bizarre exhibits there - to be expected, but still take you by surprise. A lot of the exhibits were made by artists I didn't really know, but there were a couple pieces from Andy Warhol as well, including the prints of Marilyn Monroe in various colors. Some of the exhibits at the Tate Modern made me think back to a particular joke I read online about modern art and how you could literally put your shoe in the corner and people would crowd around it like "what does it mean?" - this definitely described some of the exhibits there. There were a few pieces that were just a piece of rope curled on the ground or a triangle hung up on the way, but overall it was really cool and I really enjoyed the museum.
We met back up with the part of our group that went to the Portrait Gallery at the train station and began our journey back for another chill night of finishing everything up.
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