 Arrival in London |
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Morning
We're on the train to London. I can't believe this is our last train ride! We slept well and ate a hearty breakfast at the Sycamore Guest House, which was a lovely place to stay for £46, especially considering that it included such an awesome breakfast. We are obsessed with the cereal served at each B&B with nuts and seeds and dried fruit. I suspect that our room in London will be small and hot, but those are the breaks for a double for £45 in London, I think. It beats sharing a room, I say, forever and ever, AMEN. I need to get in touch with Andrew and Annie. Hopefully we can get together. I can't believe we only have three more nights! It will be weird to go home and get back to the grind. Afternoon
 We've checked into our hotel and are now sitting in Sadler's Wells waiting for the matinee of Singin' in the Rain to start. We bought half-price tickets in Leicester Square this afternoon. 
We then booked it to the National Gallery and ran in to see van Gogh and Seurat and Michelangelo and observe the masses at Trafalgar Square and then we booked it over to Covent Gardens which was a madhouse and we ran into Lush and she got a mango frappucino and I got a lemon berry smoothie from Ben & Jerry's which demonstrated yet again that Europeans lack any concept of ICE. Latenight
 We're at the Georgian House Hotel near Victoria Station in our little £45 attic room with its microscopic window watching a special about Match of the Day which is making me want to become a soccer fan! I mean football. This is perhaps the hottest room in the history of the modern hotel industry.  Okay! So. Singin' in the Rain. The dude who played Cosmo was a natural dancer and comedian and was the absolute best of the bunch. Just adorable. There wasn't much that wasn't mostly delightful about the show -- clearly no one can ever even come close to matching Gene Kelly -- but it was a jolly show. I was struck with the sudden realization about midway through when reading on a flyer during intermission that the lead actor was a big time ballet dancer that he was none other than the adult Billy Elliot. I almost plotzed!! As did I when it actually rained onstage. He had impossible shoes to fill, especially in the rain sequence, but he didn't try to mimic it exactly, which was a smart move. And despite being obviously a really excellent dancer, he kind of lacked the charisma to be this leading man, I think, but his wholeheartedness and choreography and the supporting cast made up for it, especially Cosmo and Kathy, who were especially adorable in "Good Morning." The romantic scenes were essentially unbearable but overall it was a nice way to spend an early evening. We took the tube back to Victoria Station, stopped to check our email, and got take-away from Kazan and snuck it back to our room. Now I am hot and weary and must retire promptly! About this time in ...
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