So the Toy Museum was a little lame, but it was cute. It had a lot of really old dolls that freaked me out. The gift shop was fun. I got to play with some stuff.
Leanne found out about a premiere that night for Did you hear about the Morgans? so we went to that in Leicester Square. WE SAW SARAH JESSICA PARKER AND HUGH GRANT! it was so exciting! i wish i had something for them to sign, but i probably wouldn't have gotten anything anyway. the crowds were pretty intense, but it was so awesome. SJP looked so good!
Seize the Day was really good! I enjoyed it a lot and we saw the original production of it. It was basically an all black cast and it took place in modern time and it was about a black man running for mayor of London. It was very well done, so I’ll probably write a review about it.
Yesterday (12/9) was a very touristy day. We woke up on the earlier side to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (for the record, I always thought that Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament were the same thing. Well they’re not :P the one next to Big Ben that you see in all the pictures is the Houses are Parliament) the actual changing of the guards was pretty boring, but the whole experience was really great. Apparently it is the biggest visited tourist spot in the world. I definitely believe that because I heard so many different languages there. There was also a parade kind of thing that went on. There was a marching band and they played a medley of show tunes! It was so great! I’ll put a video below so you can see what I mean.
After that we walked through this park, which was really pretty. The walkway was named after Princess Diana which I thought was really nice. At the end of the walk we arrived at the Cabinet War Rooms, which was where Winston Churchill lead operations during WWII. It was also a Churchill museum and the place was basically left the way it was since WWII. It was pretty cool, and I little scary to see how it was then, but definitely an experience.
After this we went to Westminster Abbey which is where a lot of English figures are buried, including Queen Elizabeth I. it was a little freaky seeing tombs and whatnot, but the church was very pretty. It looked a lot like Hogwarts from the Harry Potter movies, so I have a feeling it might have been designed after that.
From there we walked over the bridge to the South Bank for our tour of the National Theatre, which is where we saw Mother Courage and her Children. It was cool to see the backstage workings and whatnot, but I was so tired so I didn’t get to really appreciate it unfortunately.
When we finally got back to the flat, I literally passed out (around 7:30). I woke up about 4 hours later and stayed up for a while. Luckily my sleep cycle wasn’t completely screwed up this morning!
So I woke up a little early this morning and Faryn and I walked to Starbucks for breakfast and then to the grocery store to get some food. Definitely needed to do that because I totally didn’t have any food in the apartment.
Today’s big sight was the Bevis Marks Synagogue, which is the biggest operating Sephardic synagogue in London (which is orthodox). It was nice seeing some Jewish culture considering half the sites in Europe are churches. This was in the East End of London where apparently a lot of Jews live. To be honest, I didn’t see anyone that looked Jewish outside of a 20-foot radius of the temple. The area seemed very Arabic, but it was cool to see a different part of London for sure. While seeing the temple we walked on the trail of Jack the Ripper, which was interesting. The shopping in this area was also very cheap so I might be heading back there.
Right now I’m on a little break until we see Pied Piper tonight, which is supposed to involve so hip-hop so that should be fun. Probably won’t write a review on this one however. I need to start writing about Mother Courage before Scotland tomorrow! I refuse to fall behind!
