London Calling

So it has been over 3 months since I got back from Europe.  Wow.  I’ve been back longer than I was gone! That makes me a little bit sad.    A full on reflective is coming up, and will effectively close out this blog that is so close to my heart, but first, feast your eyes upon a slightly unreliable primary source document (given that the events in question happened a quarter of a year ago- ugh), detailing my spell in London that I apparently forgot to document at the time.

I believe I left you in a boring Slovenian airport, killing many hours due to a delayed flight.  My original plan for my evening in London was to kick it back choral school, and attend Evensong at Westminster Abbey.  Trouble was getting there in time, which proved impossible given that my flight was delayed, and that I had to take the train from Stansted Airport into central London, which took close to 45 mins.  The change in plans sparked something in my newly discovered (if mightily untapped) sense of spontaneity though, and I ended up surfing the web (wifi on the train! Whaddup) for shows that I could potentially see that night. I think my one regret from the entire trip is that I didn’t just stick to something I knew would be awesome and go to Les Mis, but hey, one regret in 7 weeks ain’t bad.  What I did end up booking a last minute rush ticket to was Billy Elliot: The Musical, playing at the Victoria Theatre.  It was quite on a whim.  I figured, hey I love the movie! And sent my credit card details out into the universe.  They had my ticket at will call, it all worked out in that regard.

First things first though.  My train got me to Tottenham Hale station, from which I took the tube (yay memories of SCC UK Tour 2009!) to the Hyde Park station, proceeded to walk back and forth up and down the block in the dampness and the dark for about 20 minutes before finally figuring out how to get to my hotel.  I thought that I was splurging for a fancy place my last night out in Europe, but the Paddington Hotel 27 wasn’t all that special.  The reception was located a couple doors down from the hotel rooms, which was weird, and it was just one teenage girl playing on her computer at the check-in desk.  She did help me print off my Billy Elliot confirmation number though, so that was nice.  My room was on the ground floor, next to a busy street, but it had one heck of a nice shower, and a big fluffy bed, so I couldn’t really ask for more.  I quickly changed out of my travel clothes and walked up the street to Paddington Station- a big train stop as well as a connection for many of the tube lines.  I took the Victoria line to the theatre (after grabbing a Starbucks, obviously [and ordering in English!]), grabbed my ticket and headed up to the nosebleeds to spend my evening attending a musical, like any culturally-sound 20 something world-traveler would. 

27 Paddington Hotel

Sad to say, I wasn’t hugely impressed by the show.  It was cutesy- which some people like, but I’m more of a show-stopping numbers and high-drama kind of girl.  The one thing I will say is that the kid who played Billy was an extremely talented dancer.  My favourite scene of the whole show was a dream sequence where little Billy was hooked into wires that allowed him to fly around the room, and “big Billy”, who must be a professional ballet dancer, doing a duet to that big number that closes the movie version.  Very magical.

The woman who played Billy’s grandmother was also hilarious, so props to her.

I headed home right after the play, had a nice little group fb chat with my famjam, had a super cozy shower, watched an episode of Bomb Girls (cause I missed Canada a lot at this point), and then went to bed.

A decently sized bed.