The Play's The Thing

If you know me personally you know I am a total theater geek. Ive loved it since I was a little girl and that love has never left me. I studied theater in college, though I never made a career out of it  - regret of mine? Possibly, but that's another day & blog post. As much as I love the small, dark theater with a show and actors no one has ever heard of there is nothing that compares to the swelling of passion and emotion you feel in your chest as you leave a West End theater on a chilly London evening.

Unfortunately living in the US I didn't get to see much theater, not like I did when I was young. In college I was never interested in the shows the students were doing and driving to Atlanta for a show was too much.  In high school my theater teacher would buy group tickets to popular shows and I signed up for 95% of them - plus she was a close family friend so if she saw something more avant-garde she would let me & my parents know so we could get tickets.

After college I rarely saw shows. I worked 2 jobs so free time was at a premium, money was tight and I rarely had anyone to go with to see it. I was also out of the loop of what was showing, aside from the big name shows at the Fox.

Now that Steve and I are a stones throw from London we have access to some of the greatest shows on earth, yet having been here 6 weeks we haven't seen anything. Steve isn't the theatre lover I am, he hates Webber (blasphemy!!) and classics like Oklahoma! so I know I have to ease him into the world I love so much. In order to do that I think we should start with big, colorful musicals that you know are box office hits & are easily recognizable.

Both Steve & I really want to go see the Book of Mormon. Only problem is everyone else wants to see it too so I imagine tickets are hard to come by.

Follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that’s about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get. 

Steve wants to see Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - he loves the movies, not sure if he's read the book. I love Roal Dahl so I'm happy to see it. 

The mysterious Willy Wonka is opening his Chocolate Factory for just one day, and for Charlie Bucket it promises to be a mouth-watering chance to feast his eyes on sweets beyond his wildest imagination. 

 I am over the moon this movie has become a musical. I can't wait to see it!

Inspired by a true story and based on  the Miramax film written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, Kinky Boots tells the story of Charlie Price who has reluctantly inherited his father's Northampton shoe factory. Trying to live up to his father's legacy and save the family business from bankruptcy, Charlie finds inspiration in the form of Lola. A fabulous entertainer in need of some sturdy stilettos, Lola turns out to be the one person who can help Charlie become the man he's meant to be. As they work to turn the factory around, this unlikely pair finds that they have more in common than they ever dreamed possible… and discovers that when you change your mind, you can change the world.

Have you seen any shows on the West End? Anything we must see or should skip? 

Our First Visitors

This past weekend we had our first visitors here in the UK! My friend and sorority sister, her husband and their 9 month old daughter came to visit us for the weekend. Seneca is in Barcelona, Spain for 3 weeks for work and Jessica has always wanted to visit London.

They arrived late Friday, after BA failed miserably and losing their stroller and car seat... yes, on a flight that was less then 2 hours they managed to lose a stroller and a car seat! Ugh! Lets just say we are not big fans of BA right now. Thankfully they had a ergo carrier so we were still able to get some sightseeing in.

Saturday morning we headed into London for the day. We started off by taking a double decker bus tour of London - good way to get all the sights in within a few hours. We opted to not take the boat portion of the tour, which I would recommend. We took the boat portion of the tour in February and it takes longer to get to the boat, wait for it, get on & then off it then your actually on the water. Plus since its all enclosed the photos aren't very good.

Jessica, Samantha & Seneca are Canadian 

Big Ben!

London Eye

Tour Bridge

After the bus tour Jessica wanted to the M&M world store, so that's what we did. It was a mad house, mind you it was a beautiful Saturday so everyone in London was out and about, and a good third of them were at the M&M store.

M&M store 

By then it was 4pm and we were STARVING! Steve was craving cheese burgers and the best burgers we know is Shake Shack, so we took a quick cab ride over to Convet Garden. For the record I hailed  the can with one swift movement in 2 seconds. This never happens so I figured it was worth noting.

Piccadilly Circus

From Covent Garden we took a quick walk down to the river where we took a water taxi over to the Globe to walk the South Bank.

London Eye

The Globe

After a few quick photos & a stop at Starbucks for tea and recharging phones we strolled down the South Bank. We had a quick drink at a pub with some friends before we stopped for dinner just below the London Eye. 

It was a long day, we didn't get home till after midnight but it was a great day showing friends from home around our new city. 

Big News out of London Today

Unless you live under a rock, which some of you might, twitter, Facebook, snapchat & every other social media I am too uncool to know about was a buzz today with the news from London, GB. Tweets, posts and "snaps" were coming in from all over the globe over the big news.

Yes, today was the day Steve & I went on our first day trip to London!

We visited the Science Museum 

Then we headed over to Covent Garden for some shopping and a quick bite:

Steve finally took to Shake Shack! It was amazing! They even have their own beer brewed for them! How cool is that? Mind you we spent $53 on 2 burgers, 2 fries and 2 beers but we were so hungry & they were so good! I highly recommend it - but maybe as just a one off treat :)

Here are a few more photos from Covent Garden - one of my favorite places in London. 

Street Performer

More performers

Next we took a short walk over to one of my favorite stores... ladies I'm sure you can guess where this is!

That's right - Kate Spade! I didn't buy anything but it was wonderful to look at see it all in person, not online :)

From there we took a quick walk to Oxford street, went into Primark, like crazy people & dropped by the food court at Selfridges. 

And in other news, Kate & William had their second baby! There is a new Princess in town:

Welcome to the new baby! Wishing the Royal family well :)

London Sightseeing

Sorry for the lack of posts since February. Lots going on, I turned in my notice at both of my jobs, started to sort through stuff to sell, starting to think about a going away party, spending time with my parents & just overall worrying about the move in general. 

So today I'm home sick in bed. Yuck! Watching RHOA and eating soup and tea and thin mints (the real cure). I figured throwing back to our fun day in London doing some sightseeing.

The Queen's guards going through the Marble Arch

Queen's guard

Outside of an entrance to the Palace

Big Ben

London Eye

Big Ben and the Parliament

Tower Bridge

Big Ben

Big Ben and the London Eye

In other news...

Steve proposed right before we left for London and I said yes! This was our Facebook announcement we made on the flight home from the UK. 

Enjoy the photos and I'll get back to my marathon & tea! 

XOXO

Bridget

Platform 9 3/4

Friday night we arrived in London and needed a quick activity to fill some time before we went to dinner. One thing I had never done in London was anything Harry Potter related. When I left Europe in 2000, Harry Potter was big but not huge because the movies hadn't started (first one was in the summer of 2001). So there was little to no hype about it in the city. Obviously things have changed drastically since then, there are studio tours and walking tours and of course, platform 9 3/4.

Since it was pouring rain we grabbed a cab to Kings Cross station, about a 10 minute drive from the hotel. After walking around for about 10 minutes we found the short line where a few other HP fans were lined up to take photos with the famed wall.

Here are some of the photos we took:

Steve rocking a Gryffindor scarf

Steve on his way to Hogwarts 

After doing our obligatory Harry Potter fan photos we went to The Parcel Yard - the British pub right there at Kings Crossing station. They had excellent food and and fun atmosphere. The service was a little slow but the food was outstanding. From the appetizer to the dessert to the beer, it was an all around excellent meal!