London Calls: August 7, 2008

We left the Isle of Wight on the 11:15am ferry and traveled to London Waterloo. Here we caught the Tube to Paddington (15 minutes on the District line) and to our hotel (The Hilton) located above Paddington Rail station. The hotel was nice, but our welcome was lukewarm. We were not made to feel welcome by the front desk staff. Our package rate included breakfast both days and dinner on our first night, but the free dinner didn't start until 6:30pm. We had theater tickets for Billy Elliot at 7:30 in Victoria and there would not be enough time. The first desk clerk was not very helpful, so we returned to the desk later and asked if it would be possible to have an earlier dinner because of our timing issue. He didn't smile, but did call the restaurant and they agreed to allow us to start at 6pm.

Despite the earlier dinner, we didn't have time for 2 of our 3 courses. We both had the salmon and "crashed potatoes" and it was delicious. On the Tube there were further problems as the planned direct train was delayed. Thanks to the electronic signs, we realized our train would not come in time and were able to figure out another route via Oxford Circus and we arrived at the theater 15 minutes before curtain time.

Our seats were the last two seats in the very last balcony row. This proved to be a good thing because this old theater was built when people were shorter. Our knees were pressed into the seat in front of me the whole first half and it was very uncomfortable. At the intermission we stood up and realized that there was a wall behind us that was quite a bit taller than the seats. So for the first bit of the second half, we stood and leaned on the wall. This gave us some relief. However, the theater is also very steep, and so it was a bit scary looking down. Eventually we sat back down. The show itself was magnificent. I loved the music. Graham felt he couldn't hear the words very well, but I was more familiar with the music which probably helped me.

We retraced our steps back to the hotel on the direct route and prepared our things for a quick start in the morning. We will be doing a lot tomorrow and need to be on the train by 8:30am.