Saturday 19 February 2011

February 18: Hotels and a Musical

I spent today searching for a suitable hotel for my family for when they come to visit me. I walked all over the Kensington area. I wish I'd had something to measure how far I walked, becuase I bet it was several miles. It was colder outside than it looked, so when I got too chilly I stopped by the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs and get Erin a present I'd seen there the last time I'd visited. I found a few places that seem worth looking in to, and a few that I wouldn't return to if someone paid me. I decided to make another "quick" stop at Sainsbury's since I was walking past it anyway, which became a very long trip when the checkout lines got crazy. For some reason the English haven't discovered an efficient way to check out at the grocery store. There was a gentleman who wanted to use a coupon that took 10 minutes to get through the checkout, then a lady whose milk carton was leaking so she demanded a new one but the employee kept telling her he'd just put her leaky one in a bag and it would be fine and she kept explaining that that was unacceptable and she needed a new one that took a good 15 minutes while I stood there with my jar of cinnamon, bag of brown sugar, box of tea and clump of bananas waiting and waiting and waiting. After half an hour of waiting in the checkout, it was so late when I got home I didn't even have time to make the wonderful new tea I'd just bought. Oh well, dinner time.

I made spaghetti for supper, which turned out great. I had half a loaf of garlic bread in the freezer, so it turned out to be a fantastic meal. After supper I decided I wanted to do something fun besides go out to a club like my flatmates were planning, so my friend Mandy and I headed to Leicester Square to find the half-price theater ticket booth. We got there at 7 because of horrific traffic, which was later than we had hoped (we'd left at 6 and the shows mostly start at 7:30). The nice men at the TKTS booth (the only official one) were very helpful, but the tickets they had available all seemed relatively expensive, with nothing lower than 35 pounds. We really didn't want to pay so much, so just as we were resigning ourselves to a night at the movie theatre, the guy told us to try the theatres themselves, because they often sold really cheap tickets just before the shows started. He even gave us a map to find the Prince Edward Theatre, where a musical called "Jersey Boys" was playing. I've seen the show before, but it was back in high school and I was sick, and I loved the music and my friend really wanted to see it, so we decided to run. By some miracle, we got there at 7:10 and were able to get to the box office. We had decided if they had anything for 20 pounds or under we'd buy tickets, and the lady said she had "obscured view" seats for 20 pounds, which seemed fine to us. She said there was a railing in the way, but we figured oh well, we'll take it, but then two perfect seats became suddenly available for 20 pounds so we took those instead. It was PERFECT! We had gotten there just in time! We found our seats, which were in the farthest back row, way the heck above the stage (I suddenly understood why the lady had asked us if we were afraid of heights before we could buy the tickets), but dead center and we had a great view. I love this musical so much! It tells the story of Frankie Valli and the band "The Four Seasons" through its music, so it's great fun because you recognize every song. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the show, and the songs will be stuck in my head for a looooooooong time!

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