London is Wicked Fun

Saturday, May 22, 2010
Day 24 LONDON


Saturday morning I woke up around 8 o'clock, although I had been waking up every hour since 4am, probably from being in a different place. The apartment is adorable, but it has character, one trait of which comes out when you try to take a shower...to do so requires patience and some TLC towards the faucet. You have to turn on the hot water in the morning to heat it up in advance and then when you turn on the shower you have to fiddle with it just right.
Step 1: Turn on the hot water to a drizzle. (Which is more difficult than it sounds).
Step 2: Turn the cold water on all the way for pressure.
Step 3: Slowly turn the hot water on in miniscule incrememts (also, not as easy as it sounds)
Step 4: Adjust to preferred temperature
Step 5: Repeat steps 1-3 several times (took about ten minutes) until you can reach step 4

I showered first so I had some trouble figuring it out and by the time Andrea went to shower her hot water ran out in about ten minutes (which she had been using to figure out how to adjust the temperature). In conclusion, it was quite a fiasco and took up a lot of our morning. The task is more an art than science and it was certainly an adventure. Unfortnately Andrea and Meridith had to rinse by turning it on and off and also using the faucet of the sink...not the most effective or timely manner of "showering" so we ended up leaving later than planned.

Hi Tory!

We finally were ready and left around 11:30am and headed over to Victoria Station to buy tickets for Wicked which was showing that night at 7:30. After successfully acquiring our tickets (which were for seats in the middle-ish a little farther back--but not bad--for 40 euros) we got on a bus and tried to find Portobello Road. Unfortunately we got on the bus that was going in the opposite direction of Portobello Road (which has a famous market) so we ended up wasting an hour getting there. We did eventually find it though after some walking and crowd-following and we perused the market for about forty minutes. I bought a small antique tin soldier as a souvenir. And I will admit that the whole time I was at the market I was thinking of the Disney song "Portobello Road."




After having our fill of the market, which began to repeat itself in theme after a while, we took the metro over to Westminster Station which comes out under Big Ben. So we saw Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, with the flag flying, meaning that Parliament was in session, and we walked across the bridge and made a loop around to see the London Eye, crossed Millenium Brideg (Harry Potter anyone?) and then went to see Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's. Along the loop by the Eye there were many street performers, including a few human statues one of which was Michael Jackson, and a man completely painted blue.

A one-man blue man group

'Ello Ben!

Westminster Abbey was cool but we couldn't go inside, so after making our loop we went back to Victoria Station and walked a little ways to a shopping center where we ate dinner at a restaurant recommended by Julian and Kimber called Wagamama's. It was a kind of Asian-esque restaurant. Andrea and I each ordered an entree and shared the two. I ordered an Asian salad and she got a chicken and noodle dish--both were quite good. After dinner we walked back over by Victoria's station to the theater where we went in to see Wicked! There was a slight mix up at the door because the ticket lady earlier that day had given us seats for the matinee accidentally, but luckily a nice lady switched them out for us and we only had to move down a couple seats (same aisle though). It worked out nicely and the seats weren't too bad. The show was really good (its a fun story) and the music was enjoyable. My favorite was Defying Gravity and Changed for Good (or whatever its called), and the special effects were great too. Pretty much a wholly entertaining production. I think Meridith and Andrea liked it a lot more than I did (maybe because I've seen so many musicals that I'm picky) but it was a lot of fun and it was all the more magical being in London! Did I mention there was a cute boy sitting behind us? Yes, he was British (I could tell) and yes, we made weird eye contact a few times. And yes, that is him in the background of my picture, and no, that was not intentional, only a plus! (Although you actually can't really see him so never mind...too bad).





After Wicked we took the tube to our stop to catch the bus to Julian and Kimbers' apartment. They had left that morning to spend Saturday and Sunday with family so we had the apartment to ourselves. We watched a couple episodes of Arrested Development but fell asleep pretty quickly. It was a really long day, but so good! I do love musicals. And in London to boot!

Since when did I become so lucky?