December 28 (Saturday)

The Underground tunnels are a great place to get entertainment ideas.  Posters for all the West End theatrical productions line the escalator walls, so we got the idea to introduce the kids to live theater via Seussical The Musical.  We bought some matinee tickets online and headed into the West End for a kid-friendly 11:00 a.m. showing.

Isabella has gotten really into chorus over the past three years, even winning a few solos for her school concerts, and earning the highest All State audition score for her entire school.  We thought she’d appreciate all the work and skill that goes into a production like this, and a nice glimpse into what a singing career might look like.  Most people who are into the performing arts don’t become rock stars; they end up (if they are lucky) working on productions such as these.

We showed up 45 minutes early and got our tickets.  The doors wouldn’t open for another half hour, so we went down the street to kill some time in a cafe.

Holden and Josie were already less enthused than Isabella was about seeing the play because they’ve been forced to sit through Isabella’s school concerts from time to time.  It was in this cafe, though, that those two finally got around to asking, “What exactly is it that we’re doing now?”  I started explaining the story and it finally dawned on Holden that it was a musical, in spite of us repeating the phrase “Seussical The Musical” for three days.  “Wait a minute … you’re telling me that the whole thing is singing?”
“Yup, probably almost all of it.”
“How do they tell the story then?”
“Though songs.  You have to listen to the words.”
“What?!  NO!  Why are you punishing us?”

Inside the theater, the stage was not what I expected at all.  It was tiny.  The entire auditorium was probably less than 1/3rd the size of the auditorium at Isabella’s middle school.  If one were so inclined, one could hawk a loogie from our seats into the middle of the stage.  The set reminded me of the storytime areas in public libraries.  I whispered to Adam, “I think this might have been a mistake.”  

The production turned out to be very well done.  The singing was excellent, and yet the props and stage sets were pretty minimal and required a lot of imagination on the part of the viewers (which was essentially the point of the whole play; “Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try.”)  Adam and I sat there in the dark thinking the kids were going to hate it because it lacked whizbangery.  I spent the entire second act getting ready to hiss at the kids, “Shhhhhh, no talking until we get out of the theater” because I was terrified one of them was going to loudly announce “That was SO LAME!” the minute the house lights came up.

Instead, Holden grabbed my arm and said, “Wow!  That was really good!  I didn’t know it was going to be that good!  That was so good!  I can’t believe how good that was!”  Josie was equally ebullient.  Isabella didn’t say anything until we got outside, and then said, “That.  Was.  AWESOME!  Can we see another one?  Pleeeeeeease?! Oh please?”

We headed across the street to an English pub called The Porcupine for lunch.  All three kids were still begging to see another play and discussion of Seussical was the main topic all through our meal.

Long story short:  we have tickets to see Wicked on Dec 31 and Adam and I have tickets (just for the two of us) to see The Book of Mormon on Jan 8.  Isabella will babysit.

Killing time in a cafe before the show.

Josie, dressed in her best “Dr. Seuss” outfit. She’s ready!

Teeny tiny stage, and the entire cast. This is what they call “an intimate theater.” (The guy playing Cat in the Hat was exceptionally good.)

After lunch we popped into the London Portrait Museum.  As the name suggests, it’s a museum filled with people’s portraits.  We buzzed through pretty quickly.

Then it was back home early enough to feed the park birds.  I’d been feeling bad about giving them all that bread, so we stopped at a grocery store on the way over and I bought a bag of popcorn to hand out instead.

The birds didn’t like it.

“You brought me bread?? Oh. Popcorn. Nope.”

December 29 (Sunday)

First up was the Victoria & Albert Museum.  It had some great exhibits, but we rushed through at Mayse speed.  They have a neat section of jewelry and silver … Holden was actually pretty interested in how they crafted the silver things.  (That little guy pays a lot more attention in museums than I ever expect, as long as they aren’t painting museums.  He is profoundly uninterested in paintings.)

Holden studying up on silver works.

Jewelry and gem exhibit.

We found a restaurant near the museum called Thai Square and had a fabulous lunch.

Squirrels and pigeons in Hyde Park. We love squirrels and pigeons.

We then wandered through Hyde Park to visit Speaker’s Corner – where the nutjobs get up on ladders and speak out about any subject – politics, religion, whatever.  They are only allowed to speak on Sunday afternoons, so we went by to see what we were missing  (nothing…)  There were only four Speakers; three Christians hollering about Jesus, and one Muslim guy hollering about not-Jesus.  We were hoping to hear something interesting about alien abductions or about how the government secretly implants tracking devices with every vaccination or something, but no.  Just your run-of-the-mill religious fanatics.  They were definitely nutjobs, but in a really boring, plebeian way.  They didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said a billion times.

One of the Jesus freaks. Oh, and BTW, he also appreciated donations. I know this because he kept hollering, “Jesus appreciates your donations!”

More walking, and we stumbled into London’s version of Chinatown.  I found a tea shop that sells real tea and stocked up.  Score!  (Britain is always linked with tea drinking, but they don’t have what I consider real tea here.  It’s always a bag filled with the dust they sweep off the tea factory floor.  Whole, loose-leaf tea is hard to come by.)

Back at the apartment, the best part of our day revealed itself.  Adam was sitting at the kitchen table on his computer and said, “Oh.  We have a mouse.”  I thought he was talking about a Youtube video so I stood up to go see it, and he said “You just scared him away.”

We have a real mouse!  There is a gap between the baseboards under the kitchen sink, and the cutest little mouse pops out to snatch crumbs off the floor.  Adam said, “I’ll send an email to the rental company letting them know they have a rodent problem” but Josie was already on the floor shoving bits of pretzel into the hole.  “You can’t do that!” she said.  “They’ll put out poison!”  After some arguing about what to do, Adam lost.

We now feed the mouse.  I know we shouldn’t.  It’s irresponsible, etc etc etc.  But he’s cute, and we don’t live here so it’s ultimately not our problem.  We’ll enjoy having a “pet” for the next couple of weeks.  (Until I find mouse turds on the kitchen counter … then all bets are off.)

December 30 (Monday)

Today was a dismal failure.  We took 3 different trains to get to Canary Wharf, which turned out to be nothing more than a giant underground mall.  We ate lunch in a Spanish restaurant that looked really fancy, but served sub-par food for outrageous prices.  Both the city and the trains were more crowded than we’ve yet experienced … we stopped at Harrods on the way home, thinking that Monday afternoon would be a decent time to check out the sales, but we got trapped in claustrophobic crowds.  Making it even a more miserable experience, Harrods insists on cranking up the heat so high you can’t breathe.

It’s as though the population of the city tripled overnight.  What happened?!

The only glimmering bright spot in the day was stumbling upon a Crockett & Jones where Adam was able to buy the very last pair of Islay boots in his size in all of London … he had to put the money down in advance to hold them, and they will be delivered to that location by tomorrow morning.  We can pick them up before heading over to see Wicked.

We retreated to our apartment late in the afternoon and were never so glad to be out of the fray.  Our evening’s entertainment is putting crumbs of various foods by the mouse hole and placing bets on how long it takes for Mouse to dart out and grab it.  (It takes him a long time to come out for cheese, but mere moments if the offering is a flake of corn chip.)  Prediction:  I will not be the only fat creature in this apartment by the end of our vacation.

Adam only took eight photos today and they were all lame.  I won’t bother posting any of them.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve day, and Wicked.  We’re looking forward to that.  With any luck, today will be our low spot … every vacation has to have one day that qualifies as the least-best.  I hope this was ours.