London Calling (yeah, original, I know…)

I went to London last week, mainly because I wanted to see a few musicals on West End but also just to be a tourist and enjoy the city:)

We (I travelled with my friend Lucie) came to Gatwick on Monday evening, and was taken to our hotel in Kensington by taxi. Going by train would probably have been cheaper, but it was so late at night and we had so much luggage (which we had managed to lose track of a few times already) that we decided to let us selves have that luxury… Well, except that the cabdriver obviously had a death wish or something, and the ride to the hotel seemed more like a scene from Rush Hour! When we hinted that he might try not to hit the brakes every ten seconds, he responded “Well, if I don’t brake, I will hit the car in front of us”… Oh well.

The next morning we didn’t know what way best to amuse ourselves as London tourist, but somehow we ended up spending a few hours at the Natural History Museum.
It was really interessting to see the animals and all, and it was such a nice building!

The first evening we went to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. I’ve heard many people call this the best show they’ve ever seen, and I can understand why. The athmosphere that the dancers and actors on stage manage to create is magic, the costumes are amazing, the songs are so good and put together it all makes a wonderful show. The actors were all amazing (even the little children who portrayed Simba and Nala as cubs), and we especcially liked Scar. Allthough, being “the bad guy” he was booed at during the curtain call…

The next day did some shopping and looked around in central London. We were planning to go to Madame Tusseaud’s, but it just didn’t turn out that way.

The second evening we went to see Wicked, which was my travelling partner’s favourite show. She had already seen it lots of times, but I had no idea what to expect. Wicked is the “other side of the story” about the Wicked Witch of Oz. Sort of, the adult version of the Oz universe. As it turns out, the Wicked Witch wasn’t really all that wicked, she was just misunderstood. The story is presented with a lot of humour, but also a lot of seriousness. The songs are amazing, and the actors were great. Lucie was a bit dissapointed that the usual “Glinda” (that would be the good fairy), Dianne Pilkington, wasn’t on, but her replacement was all right, and the other main character, Alexia Khadime as “Elphaba” (the witch) was really good and had a great voice.

The third day we went to the London Eye. It was very nice, even though we had to wait in line for half an eternity or so.

he last musical we saw was Mamma Mia. I’ve loved that story since the movie came out last year, and I’ve loved the Abba songs since I was little, so it goes without saying that I had a good time that evening. The West End version of the musical can’t measure up to the movie ( I mean, Meryl Streep is in the movie, need I say more?) but it’s still a great fun show. The tickets were actually twice as expensive as the other shows we saw (40 pounds) but it was worth it. After the show we went to stage door and got our programmes signed by all the actors, which was embarrassing (I’m just not the type to do that, I guess) but fun:)

The day after we went back home (once again taken to the airport by the taxidriver of all my nightmares) to boring old Norway. We had a great trip and will definitely go back sometime to see more musicals (I hear Sister Act just opened, that sounds good). Cheers, everyone!

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