Welcome to London!
Our second destination on Eurotrip 2014 and my first ever visit to England! Hooray!
Exhausted from our action-packed escapades around Ireland, we spent our first day in London sleeping in and doing some much needed laundry. It honestly felt amazing to have nowhere to be with nothing to do. AHHHH. But we figured we should probably do SOMETHING so we purchased some spur-of-the-moment tickets to Billy Elliot the Musical that evening and dragged ourselves out of our sweet flat in Shoreditch for some pre-show sightseeing.
Somehow we made it to Buckingham Palace which like…. BAM. You know. Buckingham Palace. So surreal. I finally had the realization that oh wow I am actually in London.
The sun was out, the weather was fine and we were feeling GOOD, probably due to the fact that we had finally had enough sleep the night before. Sleep is good.
We left Buckingham Palace and walked towards Victoria Theatre, running into Westminister Cathedral on the way. What a nice surprise! Although I am sure if we had actually studied a map we would have realized that the Cathedral is literally across the street from Victoria Palace. However our attitude towards this leg of our travels was to relax and and enjoy ourselves without planning too much in advance. Oh and to sleep. We needed sleep!
The Cathedral was absolutely majestic and wonderful contrast to the busy street outside. I love visiting churches around the world, they are just so beautiful and calming.
We were stoked to find the Chapel of St. Patrick and of the Saints of Ireland. I went in to say a little prayer to St. Patrick to thank him for keeping us safe and letting us see his beautiful country. I also said a prayers to my grandpas to say hello and thank them for watching over me on this life-changing journey.
Soon it was time to head over to the theatre for Billy Elliot! I have actually seen the musical before so I knew we were in for a treat. After a quick dinner at Pret a Manger, we picked up our tickets and walked inside the grand Victoria Palace.
Since we had purchased our tickets that same day, our seats were at the very top row of the theater. However, it didn’t really matter since the top section was relatively empty and we could move around to better seats. Our plush velvets chairs offered us a bird-eye-view down onto the stage which came to life with the charming and hilarious story of Billy Elliot.
We absolutely loved the show and found ourselves dancing, laughing and even crying at all the right moments. The little boy playing Billy was marvelous and all the dancing numbers were just wild! And of course the music was amazing and I loved all the big choral numbers. We had so much fun that by the end of the performance we were jumping out of our seats and clapping our hands for an encore.
By the end of the show were so pumped that we ran out of the theater laughing our heads off like maniacs and accidentally ran in the wrong direction! Weirdos. We caught the tube back to Shoreditch with smiles on our faces and visions of Billy Elliot dancing in our heads.
What a great way to start our 5 day adventure in London! Stay tuned for more…
