London, Leah, Starbucks and Queen

Day 1
My trip to London from Munich got off with a bang –literally– while we were descending into heathrow. It was stormy and because of the static charge from the rain (I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but this is how the captain explained it) a giant static charge occurred on the right wing and it sounded like a million guns going off at the same time. I flipped out. It actually looked like lightning hit our wing. Alas I’m alive to tell, so all ended fine. Thank God.

Met up with Leah at our hotel near Paddington, caught up a little and headed straight for the town. Leah was of course looking great sporting brown hair! It makes her eyes really pop. She actually did her hair brown in the fall, so she’s had more time adjust to her new self than I have.

Got to Leicester square despite the torrential downpour and crazy high winds, and purchased tickets to Queen’s musical We Will Rock You. Turns out this was a great choice! Among hundreds of adoring teenage fans waving glowsticks, punk rockerish 20-somethings and 50-somethings reliving their youth we oooed and awed at the most high-energy show I’ve ever seen performed in the theatre. I felt like I was at a massive rock concert. We Will Rock You is in my top 3 fave shows along with the likes of the Lion King and my all-time fave, Joseph.

Day 2 – Couldn’t get enough Starbucks…
After our relaxing morning sipping java at the Paddington Starbucks, we faced a jittery experience at H+M.

While in the change room and a massive H+M on the corner of oxford and regent street a crazy alarm started going off and the staff freaked out and told us to drop everything and go outside. I was a little scared that it was a terrorist threat or something. At the time, I wasn’t wearing any H+M clothes, but leah was, so we got separated and she was ushered away across the street to a location unknown to me. At the time I was really scared because I didn’t know how long we’d be huddled on the street sans jackets in 2-degree weather. The situation resolved itself quickly and we were harmoniously reunited in the change rooms. I later found out that Leah had quite a funny experience huddling with other H+M refugees and staffers while trying to keep warm.

After a quick bite at Pret-a-Manger, one of my fave take-away cafes in London, we headed to Camden town. Because it was so cold, we spent most of the time at a Starbucks bordering the river. It was quite a picturesque location. While there I used an oddly-located, one-room unisex bathroom above the building and I accidentally walked in on the security guard doing something weird and drugish maybe, but I didn’t see anything because he shut the door quickly. Lets just say when I went back inside of the Starbucks, it was awkward between me and the security guard.

To put the icing on the cake of my London experience, we went to see The Queen. What a though-provoking movie –especially seeing it while in London!

Day 3
Due to certain annoying experiences this day due to travel and lack of sleep, I must say the latter part of the day was TERRIBLE.

Here’s a synopsis-
1) Good: Had a lovely morning with Leah walking in Hyde Park and sipping a Starbucks at Paddington before we both went out separate ways. :(
2) Bad: Our hotel’s boiler broke which = no hot water that morning or the night before. Don’t even get me started.
3) Bad: Bristish Airways flight to Seattle was delayed for 3 hours……this delay occurred on the tarmac while I sandwiched between two nice-ish men who may not have used strong enough deodorant….
4) Bad: Whenever I travel alone back from Europe (3 times in past 6 years) the customs people always think it’s suspicious that a single woman would travel by herself on vacation to Europe. I will spare everyone my rant as to why this thought is highly old fashioned. It also took me 1.5 hours after our plane landed to get out of the airport because our bags took ages and an annoying circumstance with customs.