Day Two

Today was another really busy day. To begin, showers are a bit of an adventure. There are four little rooms and each has a shower stall that mostly closes watertight, and then has a little space to hang up your towel and then get changed. The one in the corner has the most room so you hope that one will be open. 

We started out with breakfast at the hostel – cereal, toast and juice at the bar below. Then stopped in at a store that is close by to get muffins, apples, juice and water for snacks and then stopped at the Pret on the way to the train station to get lattes.

Just across the road from Victoria Station there are two theatres. One showing Billy Elliott and the other showing Wicked. We decided that we’d try to get tickets for Wicked since, well, it looked better. So we lined up to get day of tickets. They were a little pricey at 42 pounds each, but I just had to. And it was under our 50 pound limit.

Onto the tube and away we headed to the Tower of London. Being here off season is really quite good. There wasn’t much of a line up to get tickets and then we only had to wait about 15 minutes to get into one of the Beefeater tours. It was about an hour long and so worth it. Our guide was really funny and he told stories about all the famous prisoners and some of the more gruesome beheadings. The tour ended in the little church that’s just to the back of Tower Green where Anne Boleyn is buried.

We spent a few more hours here, looking at the crown jewels and through the White Tower armoury collection and then when we left, we made a quick stop on the side of the Thames to take photos of Tower Bridge.

Next stop was Hamley’s on Oxford Street. It’s the largest toy store in the world and Brandon desperately wanted to see it. There are five floors of every kind of toy you can imagine. And some you can’t! It was really a lot of fun. The best part for me was the squawking bird puppets. They were so, so funny!

We were both feeling the length of the day by this point so we made our way slowly back through the crowd and to the tube station. When we got back to Victoria, we stopped to pick up soup and sandwiches from the grocery store for supper. Then hurried back to the hostel to eat and get cleaned up for the theatre.

It was amazing. I’m so terribly happy that we spent the cash on the tickets. It was quite possibly the best play I’ve ever seen. The girls who played Glinda and Elphaba (the two witches) were outstandingly talented. And at one point I was close to tears thinking, “I can’t believe I’m here!” We were both so terribly tired and laughed at intermission how we both had to close our eyes during one of the musical numbers, but we made it through and gushed afterwards how we were so happy we went.

When we got back here to the hostel we sat out in the hallway for a bit to decompress from the day and to use the computer. We were hoping to be able to do this in the common room/kitchen, but it was full. (Not hard to do since there are only about 5 seats.) And our room was out of the question because there was someone sleeping in here already. (Though I don’t think much would’ve woken him up – he slept through the door opening and closing half a dozen times and the lights going on and off repeatedly!) While in the hall we met two people staying in the room next door. They’re from Brazil and super friendly. The girl is living in Dublin studying and working as an au pair, while the man is her friend here to visit. We tried to go down to the pub with them for a beer but they had just done last call and were closing up – at 11:30!