A foggy day in London town...: No Place Like London: Day 1

On Saturday morning (11^th September) I packed my bags and headed to the station to catch my train to London, where I would be spending the weekend. As luck would have it I packed everything I needed…except for my Young Persons Railcard. So after racing home and back again I sat at the station waiting for the next train which was an hour away!

When I got to London I caught the tube straight to Leicester Square to hit up the TKTS booth for some cheap theatre tickets. Turns out Billy Elliot was the best on offer for the matinee that day. After sorting out the tickets I headed to my hotel to check in and get ready for the show.

My mate Andrew was also in town for the weekend so we met up before heading to the show together for some lunch. Billy Elliot was showing at the Victoria Palace Theatre, just around the corner from Buckingham Palace. Before the show started we checked out the Palace and then booked out tickets to walk through the State Rooms the next day.

Billy Elliot was fantastic. Genevieve Lemon, who played Mrs Wilkinson (the dance teacher) in Melbourne is now performing the role here in the UK. She was fantastic then and still is now. I can understand why they have an Australian playing the role in England! Billy was great but his singing wasn’t quite strong enough. Otherwise a great show and it was on the top of my ‘too see’ list!

After the show we started wandering around and found ourselves outside of a magical place called Harrods. The shop is huge. Andrew and I played the “Spot the white/Anglo-Saxon in Harrods”…I got to 7…that included the two of us. There is a lot of oil money walking around which isn’t surprising considering the shop used to be owned by Mohammed Al-Fayed. Another result of ownership by Al-Fayed are the memorials to Dodi and Diana on every level of the store, Dodi being his son.

I grew depressed rather quickly because I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford shopping at a place like this. I’m not sure where this realisation struck me…perhaps somewhere between the floor dedicated to Persian rugs or the floor dedicated to watches and phones. What hurts the most is the fact that you can do your ordinary grocery shopping there. What’s even more painful is the fact that people DO do their grocery shopping there. Then they leave through the side doors and hop into their Rolls Royce Phantom idling out in the street.

I left in complete disgust!

After some dinner at the pub near my hotel we headed over to Westminster to take some photos of the stunning scenery from Westminster Bridge! The views are absolutely breathtaking. I’m sure you’ll agree. Sondheim certainly got it right when he wrote the song No Place Like London...