Elise visits London Town

You know what's AWESOME? When friends visit in London.

Elise McKenna paid me a little visit in London just in time for Thanksgiving! 

We had a lot of fun exploring London. 

Arriving in Central London and she found this! 

 Delicious brunch at the Sherlock Holmes pub. 

This is a replica of one of the rooms inside the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Crossing the Millennium Bridge 

On our way to the Tate Modern

Installation piece at the Tate Modern. The strips displayed cliche sayings on a loop and we must have sat there for at least 15 minutes reading them all.

Yay! Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland

 Just hanging at Winter Wonderland

At Sommerset House, which is literally right next to my school

Thanksgiving dinner. Two of my favorite people.

ALFIE! We've been waiting a year to see this amazing man 

perform the role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

What a great man.

Trying on crazy hats at Piccadilly Circus.

Obligatory tourist photo

I really like my friends. Rach and Elise became fast friends. On the train to Windsor!

At Windsor Castle! I am the proud owner of a Windsor Castle season pass. 

I will literally go there EVERY week. :)

The girls excited about visiting the place of the educational beginnings of many great men,

 i.e., Eddie Redmayne and Prince William

Because sometimes being delirious wins over logic or socially acceptable behaviour.

The pastry table at Portobello Market is ridiculous. I mean... how do you even choose???

So happy to finally visit!

At the Greenwich visitor's center. We all did this. 

Amazing hall in Greenwich. Absolutely beautiful painted ceiling. There is a lot of symbology and history painted into that ceiling. I loved just starring at it.

 We're on the prime meridian!

 Well, technically Elise is in one hemisphere, I'm in the other and Michael is in both.

Mandatory trip to Harrod's and more specifically the Harry Potter Shop.

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

On our way to church, we passed the Natural History Museum

Dress up at the Victoria and Albert Museum! 

They had a theatre costume and set exhibit which resulted in this.

 My love Jonathan. Here he is looking quite dapper.


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xoxo,
A

{A Night with the Phantom}

Michelle, Devin and I absolutely love Ramin Karimloo.

I will declare here and now that I am responsible for that. 

Ever since I saw him perform in the 25th Anniversary Les Mis concert as Enjolras,

 I have been all about his fantastic voice. That was a weird sentence...

Anyway, about a month ago, the girls and I took a trip to Birmingham to see him perform live. 

It was a lot of fun to do a girls getaway. We headed into town and ate lunch at Nando's (my favorite), watched The Help (and scored two complimentary movie tickets since the sound cut out and we were not able to finish our movie), ate Indian food and went to the show.

Ramin Karimloo. What a man. I have to say he is at the very top of my favorite male vocalist list. 

He shared a fantastic selection of songs from Sunset Boulevard, Carousel, South Pacific, Les Miserables (which we got to sing along to), Phantom, and the Phantom sequel "Love Never Dies."

After the show, we got to chat with the man himself. What a cool guy! I was so impressed with his ability to not only patiently speak to every single person who waited for him, but also his individual attention to those people.

After the concert, we were a bit wiped out but not enough to go back to our hotel. We ended up at a casino where we proceeded to order hot chocolate and hang out by a fire pit. Random? Yes. Awesome? DEFINITELY.

The next day, the girls and I had lunch and then returned to the movies to see Ides of March starring the very handsome Ryan Gosling.

All in all, it was a great trip. I love seeing Ramin live and I am thrilled that he has now joined the London cast of Les Miserables as Jean Valjean.

Here are some videos I found on YouTube... We're sitting just behind him on the choir balcony.




It's hard to see his beautiful face, but his voice is FANTASTIC.