Day 9: A not-so-foggy day in London-town :)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Today has quite possibly been one of the best days of my life so far – no joke. After spending a full day in London, I’ve decided that it’s my favorite city in the world so far. Definitely tops both Chicago and NYC. I am love struck with this city! I would pack up and move here in a heartbeat, I’m pretty positive.

We all hated to say goodbye to John last night but hugs went all around and I think we all went to bed excited for today to come. Free day in London? Aaklsdhfakasdkfa!!!!!! A group of us (Team London) all wanted to do similar things so we decided to try to stick together. We sat down and made our plans for the day. Then we all headed for bed.

This morning we went to breakfast around 8:30 and left the hotel around 9:00. Our tube passes didn’t start working until 9:30, so Lauren, Taylor, Ashlee, Noah and I decided to shop on the blocks closest to our hotel for awhile, then head to the tube and hit Oxford Street – one of the best shopping areas in London according to John. We shopped for a little over an hour, and then took the tube to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery where we met up with another smaller group. We went into the Gallery and saw the enormous painting "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey" by Paul Delaroche that we saw and discussed in class. It was pretty spectacular – I wasn’t disappointed. I could have spent hours in the Gallery – it’s magnificent (and completely free!!). I saw some Van Gogh, Cezanne, Serrat, and countless others... so much wonderful art.

I worked out to where my afternoon was free to tour Shakespeare's Globe Theatre! I originally had a big group interested but it ended up only being a few of us. Last night when we were working out the day’s schedule, it had looked like I was going to have to take the tube from the National Gallery to the Globe by myself but Dr. Buck wouldn’t have that, so he was so kind as to meet me outside the National Gallery and accompany me to the Globe. We stopped for lunch and were running a little behind, so after we got off the tube, he even flagged down a cab to get us there. We got there just in time, and Kellie, Jonica, Nancy, Kay, Andrea and I got to tour Shakespeare’s Globe. I was so happy. It was great. I loved the tour. There were people working on putting up a set while we were there (they’re currently doing Much Ado About Nothing and All’s Well that Ends Well – they switch from week to week, sometimes day to day, and sometimes they’ll even have a matinee of one show and an evening performance of another). While we were up in the highest level of seating, one of the actors from Much Ado came out and rehearsed one of his scenes – that was really neat. I was just so happy that I ended up being able to take the tour. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get to, and I probably would have cried to have come to London and not seen the Globe. :) But I got to. I was thrilled. :)

Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready and dressed up! The entire group met in the lobby at 4:30, got a couple of group photos, and then headed to Salieri for dinner. It was very good – I really enjoyed it. Then we headed for the Queen’s Theatre and Les Misérables – probably the absolute best ending to a trip there couple possibly be in the world. I was... of course... blown away. I lost count of how many times I got chills from how powerful and wonderful it was. You had to pay for playbills unfortunately and Cale bought one for me, which was very sweet of him. And to put the icing on the cake, the group went down to the stage door after the show and managed to catch... that’s right... Samantha Barks as she was coming out of the theatre. Several of us got her autograph and we even got a group photo with her. It was fantastic. :) She’s the same girl who played Eponine in the 25th Anniversary Concert Edition. Javert was also played by the same guy who was in the 25^th Anniversary Concert Edition and was magnificent – Norm Lewis. He darted off before we could catch him. Those two were the best in my opinion. Jean Valjean was played by the understudy tonight and he was very good but just wasn’t as much of a powerhouse as the one in the 25^th. The actor who played Enjolras – Killian Donnelly – was fantastic, and the guy who played Marius – Gareth Gates – was SO much better than Nick Jonas. Ha.

Then we came back to the hotel. It has been an utterly marvelous trip. I seriously could not have asked for anything better. This has been absolutely brilliant. There really aren’t words to describe how fantastic it’s been.

Tomorrow morning we’re eating breakfast, packing up, getting on a coach to the airport, and then getting on a plane and heading home.