Borough Market, Tate Modern and The Rose Theatre

Brandon and I with St. Paul's Cathedral (to the right of B's ear) and the Thames

My last post was about our recent pub adventures, but do not worry we have not spend all of our time at the pub.  We spent this past Saturday in Bankside checking out the Borough market, which is an open air market where people sell cheese, meat, sweets, fruits, veggies and all kinds of international food. It happens every Friday and Saturday near the London Bridge station and it was really fun.  I hope to go back sometime with some shopping bags to get some tasty food to prepare at home!

Borough Market (I cannot take credit for this pic, just got it online...)

We also ventured into the Tate Modern, and Brandon and I both decided that modern art is just not our thing.  One of the "artworks" on display was literally a mirror attached to a piece of canvas...um yeah, I have one of those in my bathroom, how is this considered "art?"

Close to the Tate Modern is the Globe Theatre.  We did not venture in, or see a show, but it is on my list of things to eventually do!

Replica of the Globe Theatre

But I think the coolest part of our day was stumbling upon The Rose Theatre, who was having a free open day.  It was the first theater built south of the Thames in 1587, and it was one of the theaters Shakespeare used, as it was built a few years before the more well known Globe Theatre.  Pieces of the original structure were found and excavated in 1989, but then the dig was stopped because the exposure to sunlight and air was causing the wood pieces to crack and decay.  So they artificially buried it and basically just left it.  Fast forward to 2012, a group of volunteers began trying to raise money to re-open the dig site, preserve the original structure, re-build a replica and eventually re-open it as a theatre.  You can check out more info on this website: http://www.rosetheatre.org.uk/ 
The history and story was really interesting and we hope to see their project succeed!

Also in this area is the Millennium Bridge - it's the one that gets destroyed by the Death Eaters in the Harry Potter movie...

St. Paul's and the Millennium Bridge