I Have Found

Today included jaunts to all parts of London, starting with another trip to the TKTS booth to purchase tickets for We Will Rock You. But... more on that show later.

After successfully obtaining tickets, we went over to Covent Garden to eat some lunch and see what it's all about. The verdict? I <3>very reminiscient of Boston - or, well, I guess that'd be the other way around. Either way, it reminded me a lot of the Quincy Market area in Boston.

We walked around the different kiosks a bit, where I'll be returning tomorrow to purchase an adorable dress for my niece, Willa.

While on the quest to find somewhere to eat, we walked into the middle of a street performance that caught our attention, so we stopped to watch it.

This guy:

He was a comedian/general juggling escape artist performer.

Mike being told to raise his hand... but why...?

To be a selected volunteer of course! (Coincidence that him and the other guy match.)

'Twas a fun little show.

Afterwards, we found a restaurant nearby and grabbed lunch there:

And our desert was a waffle...

After Covent Garden, we made the journey out to East London to see the Tower of London, which is not so much a tower as it is a castle...

Oh, and the London Bridge...

We didn't end up going inside the castle, because it would have cost 17 pounds each... and really, it was quite nice from the outside.

After that excursion, we went out to Camden Market in... uh... Camden. It was pretty much London's St. Marks Place, only with more street shops. Same general tone though. Which is AWESOME.

Looked around a bit there, and then tore myself away before I bought every pretty funky dress there was. (Which was a lot).

Got back on the tube and went out to the area where the theater for We Will Rock You is, and ate at a really cool pizzaria called Italian Grafitti.

The pizza was amazing, and I've now decided that our next worldwide trip must be to Italy.

And then we ventured over to the Dominion Theatre to take in some Queen music. The show was really pretty bad. It was fun to hear Queen songs sung by insanely talented people, but overall it was a pretty ridiculous story with pretty bad writing. But they performed Bohemian Rhapsody at the end, so I can be pretty forgiving. :)

Now we are back in the hotel room, getting ready to sleep. We did not make the goal of waking up early this morning to catch breakfast, unfortunately. Mainly because we were up at 5am because the carbon monoxide alarm was going off in the apartment in New York, and Mariah contacted us. Thankfully it was just the batteries going dead and no actual carbon monoxide. And now the fire department knows our place. ;-)

But TOMORROW - we vow to get up early to finally take advantage of the hotel breakfast, and then start knocking off the last of our sight seeing. Left on my list: Notting Hill, Abbey Road, Fleet Street, back to Covent Garden. And then we have tickets for Waiting for Godot tomorrow night. Sunday we'll be going out to Shakespeare's Globe to catch a show for 5 pounds. I thought it was a nice match for our last day. :)

Sleep now. More tomorrow!

*K

It seems to me that London has matinees not just Wednesdays, Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays... but everyday. So we let ourselves sleep in this morning, and took off to TKTS just after noon. Snagged tickets for the matinee of Carousel and the evening show of Les Miserables.

The TKTS booth is located in Leicester Square, which I've mysteriously been pronouncing incorrectly my entire life. You've been pronouncing it Ly-chester as well, yes? YOU'RE WRONG. It's Lester. Yeah. Forget everything you learned about reading. Leicester = Lester.

Anyway.

The Donmar. :-D This theater is currently showing Hamlet starring a little known man named Jude Law. I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that its completely sold out and impossible to get tickets to.

London TKTS booth! Which gave us AMAZING seats. London TKTS FTW.

The faces of Mike during lunch in Leicester Square.

The Savoy Theatre, where Carousel is playing, managed to escape my visit with no photographic evidence that it really exists or that I was even there. Mostly because the entire theater is covered in scaffolding at the moment, and there was literally nothing I could have taken a picture of on the outside, and wasn't allowed to take pictures on the inside. So... c'est la vie.

But I can give this:

A pictures of the two stars of Carousel. Not taken by me... obviously. But found on Google!

I was overjoyed to find out that Carousel was playing out here. I've never seen a production of it, but I have some of my fondest memories after being in the show last fall. TKTS gave us seats in the SECOND ROW - for around 36 pounds. Yeah. Suck it, NYC. ;-)

The show was beautiful. The cast was great. It made me teary and sappy and "You'll Never Walk Alone" was a sobfest. The end.

After the show, which ran just under 3 hours, we made our way out to Picadilly Circus. And no, not a circus with elephants. Unfortunately. Just a location. Sort of the "Times Square" of London, I'd say.

Pictures of the Picadilly Circus area:

And London's Chinatown:

We grabbed dinner at a really cute Italian place down the street from the Queens Theatre, where Les Mis plays.

A desert called The Godfather. Lots of ice cream and brownie and whipped cream and general yummyness.

And then we saw Les Mis. Our TKTS seats were in the Dress Circle (their mezzanine), third row. Great seat. The show was fantastic - the entire cast was insanely talented, especially their Jean Valjean. Out of this world good.

Observations about theater in London:

1. You'll notice that in my short blurbs on these shows, I have not singled out any actors. This is because their version of a Playbill is not given to you upon entrance. It is sold. And being cheap, I did not purchase.

2. London theatergoers are FAR more picky about giving standing ovations. American audiences leap to their feets almost instantly. London audiences seem a bit more difficult to please. Which I appreciate.

3. FOOD. Before Carousel began, they were selling pringles, trail mix, bottles of water and tiny bottles of wine in the aisles. But here is the BEST PART - at intermission, they sell ICE CREAM. Yes, ice cream. Little containers of ice cream with little spoons. Seriously, you guys, London theater for. the. win.

I'm sure I'll notice more things when we see more shows. We definitely plan to see We Will Rock You, and we already have tickets to see Waiting for Godot starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. No, I'm not lying.

Tomorrow's plan is sketchy at best, but we WILL be setting an alarm for 7am to hopefully catch the hotel's breakfast. So now is the time to sleep, since it is soon to be midnight.

'Nite!

*K

I had a hell of a time selecting pictures to post in here, only because I very honestly believe Paris to be the most beautiful place I've ever been. There is really nothing like walking the streets of Paris, no matter what section. Even the roads of the Red Light District are gorgeous in all their smutty glory.

So, as usual, I'll urge you to visit the Facebook album - HERE - for all of my pictures.

Our day started at 4:00am, reluctantly waking up to both of our alarms. This was after getting to bed at midnight, so it was especially unpleasant. I perked up pretty quickly after a minor OMGI'MGOINGTOTHROWUPI'MSOTIRED on the train. Luckily that passed.

Mike looking pensive on the Eurostar train into Paris:

The train got in around 9:30 or so, and we did our best to figure out the Metro quickly. In this case, quickly equaled about a half hour, due to the billets (tickets) machines not taking kindly to our debit cards. After standing in queue for the information window, however, we obtained day passes for the metro and were on our way!

It must come with living in NYC with the subway, but I'm finding metro maps easier to figure out. It's really all about color coding and... you know... reading. Much different from the last time I was in Paris when I was all like "DUHHRRR WHAT'S A METRO DUUHHRR I'M 16."

Waiting on the track for the train:

We made it to our first destination safely - Place Saint-Michel in the Laitn Quarter. Here we waited for another FREE walking tour, courtesy of the same company who ran the London tour we took yesterday - SANDEMANs (look 'em up if you're ever abroad, they have tours all over Europe).

Pictures while waiting in the Latin Quarter:

The tour started just around 11:10am. It was 4 HOURS long, which is A LOT of walking. But I think it's safe to say we covered probably a week of sight seeing in a day. We saw every big site there is to see in Paris.

SELECTED PHOTOS OF THE WALKING TOUR:

I'm assuming we all know what this is, but for the Disney movie challenged, it's Notre Dame!

The River Scene - one of my many pictures. Very pretty. Splits Paris into two sections - one is where the rich live, the other is where you can find the Bohemian starving artist types.

Our VERY enthusiastic tour guide. She had a lot of energy.

Just some little place some people call The Louvre.

A piece of modern art put up in 2000 to celebrate the anniversary of the Metro station it covers. It is supposed to represent night and day. Obviously.

Where the French Revolution ACTUALLY started.

The cafe/sandwich shop where we had lunch. Obvious, but it was the most amazing bread ever. And boy do they love to put random shit on their sandwiches... I ate one with mozzerella, lettuce, tomato, tuna, egg, and onion. Was delicious, though.

Apparently the 2nd most expensive street in the world.

Some of the statues in the Tuileries Gardens.

Some tower... Eiffel I think?

You guys... this is the fountain that Anne Hathaway throws her phone in at the end of The Devil Wears Prada!

Arc de Triomphe!

After the tour ended we were exhausted, our feet hurt, and we'd been walking for 4 hours. So we took a short half hour stroll to the Eiffel Tower so we could actually go up. The tour guide made it sound like it was a lot closer to where we ended than it really was. But no harm. Mostly.

The line to get tickets was slightly obscene as hell. Though we didn't wait nearly as long as I thought we would, probably only just under an hour. And then up we went!

Waiting:

From the top:

Oh, and also this:

Yeah... we didn't know either.

After the wonder that is the top of the Eiffel Tower - and I say that in complete and utter seriousness, it really is fantastic - we took the elevator down to the first floor, and I said - "Why don't we take the stairs the rest of the way down? I can do down, that's no problem." Well, 124232435232 stairs later, my legs were very unhappy with me.

So we kept walking. ;)

Found the nearest metro station and headed out to Monmartre, home of the Sacre Couer, the Red Light District, and a certain red windmill. :)

In front of the Sacre Couer. Sad to say, we did not make the trek up a hundred more stairs to the top. We were insanely crunched for time if we wanted to make it back to the train station on time, and we also just could not have possibly walked up anymore stairs. But, we WERE accosted by men who made lovely (but unwanted) friendship bracelets on our arms and were pretty much forced to pay for them... one of these men can be seen next to me in this picture. So that was pretty weird. But I have a new bracelet now...!...?

Streets of Monmartre.

GETTING CREPES. (So so so delicious).

The HEAVENS shine on the Moulin Rouge. (But not really because the Heavens probably don't appreciate topless women or the streets of the Red Light District...)

Everyone knows how beyond ecastic this make me. :-D

And that, my friends, is the end of my pictures. After our visit to the Moulin Rouge, we got right on the Metro, to the train station, on the train, and to sleep until we got back to London.

Tomorrow we have no solid plans. I know we are NOT setting an alarm so that we can catch up on some sleep, and I know that we WILL be going to the London TKTS booth and seeing something. So... I can't wait!

Until tomorrow!

*K