Southwark just over the de-pooped River Thames.

Today we took to the Tube down to Southwark (pronounced Southark)—the southern area of London over the Thames. Back in the day, it used to be the bad part of town, but now it's quite lovely.

A Street in Southwark

Cute little apartments!

We visited one of the first Operating Theatres in London, which is located beside the St. Thomas Guy hospital. The Operating Theatre is, as its name would imply, a theatre in which people were operated on for an audience. It was used as a teaching tool for surgical students. Think of a miniature stadium setup with an ominous, wooden table in the center. It was closed up in the late 1800's when the surrounding hospitals 'upgraded.' This little grisly theatre was rediscovered in the 1960's largely intact and as it had been almost 100 years before. Neat.

What time does the show start?

So we got to learn all about the horrifying medical norms for the Victorian era, most of which made me want to vomit. Just looking at some of the medical instrument were enough to make me squeamish. Yes, surgeons would cut people open on that table for a rapt audience--his assistant's principal job was to hold down the screaming patient. That does not sound like fun at all.

Hope she's fast with that knife---there's no anesthesia!

The Apothecary

I decided that if I lived back then, I would not have asked a doctor to help me give birth. Actually, I’d probably be a nun. It would just me and some books in a tower where no one could touch me. =D

Josh agreed to be our surgical patient with much trepidation. He was good sport though and we all agreed his surgery was a success!

He'd been mostly dead all day.

Later, we took a *groan* two hour walking tour of the Southwark area. We saw the site of the original Globe and Rose Theatres, the Inn that the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales set forth from, the pub where Dickens’s set his famous Pickwick Papers, called The White Hart, and The George Pub and Inn, which was frequented by Shakespeare, Dickens, Keats, and other notables.

The George Inn...it dates back to the 16th century!

Me and Will on the site of the Globe.

Site of the Globe.

And of course, our trip wouldn’t be complete without visiting The Hob Exchange, which was, and still is I think, a market used for selling and trading hob seeds, the ingredient which turns ale into beer. I guess that’s important? =D

The Hob Exchange

I saw fragments of the old Roman road from the 1st century, the Norman foundations of the Southark Cathedral, some pub that used to be a whorehouse and the dome of St. Paul’s from across the river.

So, now I’m tired and I have to work on my Hobsbawm paper for my history class. :(