Day 2 in London: British Museum and Avenue Q

One of the things that Ashley and I knew that we for sure wanted to do in London was to see a play on West End. We discussed it a LOT before leaving, and knew we wanted to see a musical, and we didn't want to break our banks, even though we were saving with this in mind. So, after a little online research, we decided to wait to purchase our tickets and try our luck with the TKTS booth in Leicester Square on the day of, since we weren't married to the idea of seeing one particular musical.

We left HPR Hotel and took the tube to Leicester Square, which was being set up for a big premiere the next day. On our way in towards the square from the street we noticed a TON of booths all claiming to be the best "Half-Priced Tickets" in town. I knew, however, that the ORIGINAL half-priced tickets could be found in the TKTS Booth, the only stand alone building within the actual square. So, we approached the booth and waited in a short (about 10 minutes) line to get our tickets. I remember a few of the musicals that were playing -- the biggies, of course: Wicked, Les Miserables, and Phantom of the Opera. These were all a little out of our price range, even at half-price, and I had actually seen all three of those musicals professionally performed...Phantom and Les Mis more than once! I'm pretty sure Ashley had, too, so we ruled them out right away.

Legally Blonde the Musical was one of my top choices, Grease was playing as well, Billy Elliot, Sister Act the Musical, etc. etc. all were available. However, we made a choice that neither of us really expected, but both of use ended up enjoying immensely: Avenue Q the Musical. A racy puppet show with staple songs like, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "The Internet is for Porn" had been on my radar for a while, but I'd never seen it, or even really listened to the soundtrack, much to the dismay of most of my drama class cohorts in high school and in college. I believe the tickets ended up being about 36 GBP. So we grabbed our tickets and headed back to the tube to take in some culture at the British Museum before returning for the play that night. On the way to our culture we stopped for lunch at Marks & Spencer (I had some really great tomato soup) and shopping (got some cute stuff from H&M, discovered that Gap in London is just like Gap in Bakersfield, etc.)

The British Museum was not something that Ashley was necessarily looking forward to, but me being the nerd I am had insisted that we simply HAD to go. Overall, it was...AMAZING! I love history and mummies and art, and was enthralled by the whole museum. I could have easily spent hours and hours going through this place. We hit the highlights, of course: the mummy room, the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, and wandered around for two or so hours looking at the exhibits. One of my favorites (aside from the Elgin Marbles) was the exhibit about monies of the world. I looooved that they had Harry Potter money (galleons, sickles and knuts) in the exhibit as well!

Me in front of a panel from the Elgin Marbles

MUMMIES!

You're a Wizard, Harry...

So, I enjoyed myself at the British Museum, and then Ashley and I headed back to HPR hotel to change and get ready for the evening. I wore one of my new dresses from H&M with some tights (which were much trendier in the UK than they were in California during the summer, for some reason). We then headed back to Leicester Square for our night out!

Avenue Q was SOOOOO good! I loved loved loved it! The theater was small, so it was a pretty intimate setting for a big stage musical, and the acting was phenomenal. We had great seats for a bargain, and found ourselves quoting some parts of the play ("It's the bad idea beeeeaaars!") for the rest of our trip. I'm so glad we had the advance knowledge - thank you, TA and Rick Steves - to get our tickets at the official TKTS booth. After the show we went to a cafe across the street to get some food (what I jokingly, or not-so-jokingly, refer to as my best meal in London - a bagel with cream cheese and cucumbers) and ice cream, before returning for a semi-early night to the HPR Hotel.

Overall it was an AMAZING night following up a GREAT day in London.

My next post: Day 3 in London - Changing of the Guard, Tower of London, London Eye and the Ceremony of the Keys (what? it was a busy day!!)

Review: Day 1 in London and Hyde Park Rooms Hotel

Since Ashley and I decided to do this summer's trip ourselves, rather than get on one of those all-inclusive, on-and-off-the-bus tours, we had to rely a lot on internet travel sites (like TripAdvisor) and guide books (like Rick Steves) to be able to make our determinations on where we would visit and stay.

Overall, I think we were really pleased with our choices. We didn't stay anywhere that was dirty or felt unsafe, and we had a very enjoyable, adventurous (but not crazy-eventful) time on our three week whirlwind tour of Western Europe.

Upon our arrival (at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am) in London at Gatwick, we got our bags and our train tickets and made our way to the platform to catch the train to London proper. It's definitely a good thing that we started in another English speaking country, because the combination of jet-lag, the gross "I just got off of an airplane and all of my clothes are now stretched out" feeling, the new public transport system, and the unwieldy bags -- we thought we did suuuch a good job of limiting our packing...we were WRONG -- would have proved too much to handle had we been forced to translate, too.

Once we got to Victoria station, we switched to the Tube and took it to the Paddington station, walked about three blocks, and found our (rather sweet looking) hotel. We'd elected to stay at the Hyde Park Rooms Hotel in Sussex Gardens because of a multitude of factors: first and foremost, the price was right at 56 GBP per night for two twins, there was constant free wi-fi, it was in a GREAT location (very close to LOTS of things), breakfast was included, and it got really good reviews on TA. When we checked in it was around 9 am, far too early to actually check in and get our room, but I had arranged ahead of time to leave our bags in the office with Carol, the proprietor, while we went and explored until 2pm, check-in time.

After a bit of a delay (there was no one actually in the office), we were let in, greeted, payed for our room in cash, and dropped off our bags. Then we got some coffee at a nearby shop (reminiscent of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, but not as good, sadly) and picked up a day pass for the tube. We headed to Notting Hill and Portobello Road to take in some sights, get some food, and maybe do a little shopping. This reeeeeeally crazy guy came in to the kind of weird restaurant we stopped at - it reminded me of a restaurant you would see in Berkeley or something - and offered to do an aura reading for me. I paid for his smoothie, but really that was more in an effort to get him to leave than anything else.

(At the restaurant...pre-aura reading)

Unfortunately, the amount of Dramamine Ashley consumed on the plane partnered with a lack of sleep and far more grease on the food than we were used to caused Ashley to feel pretty darn sick after about two hours, so we hustled back to the hotel, where thankfully our room was ready a little early and we were able to settle in. Ashley, poor thing, slept for the rest of the day/night. I took a nap and then walked to a nearby store and got her some saltines and water. I also picked up some fish and chips for myself. Sadly, I was disappointed. The texture wasn't that great (Mossmans in Bakersfield was better, IMHO), and they just wrapped the fries/chips and fish in the same newspaper, causing the fries to get soggy and taste fishy.

Oh, well...at least I can say I tried it.

Throughout our stay in London we found the HPR hotel to be very nice, especially for the price. The breakfast was good, the wi-fi access was great, and the location couldn't be beat! We had a sink in our room but did have to walk down a short flight of stairs to get to the bathroom (no biggie), and there was only one working outlet in our room, so we couldn't both charge our phones at once.

The room was a LOT smaller than hotel rooms here, but I had read about that online and wasn't too worried...this turned out to be not just a "London" thing, but a "Europe" thing, apparently. Our room faced a lovely, tree-lined street, which was wonderful during the day, but unfortunately not so wonderful at night, when it tended to get a little noisy, what with the traffic and all.

A twin room at Hyde Park Rooms Hotel

Overall, I was really impressed with our first cheap European hotel experience. No bed bugs (which I had become paranoid about after reading all of the horror stories on TA), no thieves, no moldy carpets or falling ceiling -- just really nice people and a very elegantly appointed (if a little threadbare) bed and breakfast.

Next post: DAY 2 - Leicester Square, British Museum, Shopping, Mark & Spencer, and Avenue Q.