Unlimited!

It was one down, two more to go until I arrived at the Apollo Theater where the West End production of Wicked was to be performed. My friend Emma had suggested I go and watch it after she saw the Broadway version and then several songs were performed on Glee so it was on my list of "To Watch Musicals" (not that I have one although now that I think about it...). It was completely different from what I imagined and was awesome! I loved it, it was hilarious! I don't want to ruin it for anyone who has yet to see it but it is really interesting how people sometimes view good and evil. The themes that resonated throughout the musical were really charming. Elphaba was my favourite!

Wicked stage, the only picture I was allowed to take (understandably)

We were at Wicked until 5ish so we went out to search for dinner afterwards in Covent Garden. Just like in many parts of the city there is always some type of entertainment nearby just like the group below. I can honestly say that I love going out with my parents. Even though their humor sometimes...distresses me...they can be very funny and we're always laughing (unless we get lost...the giggling stops there). I think I should now take the time to publicly say, "thanks mom and dad, this trip has been amazing. I'm so glad I got to see London with you two" (you may now "aww" to your heart's content!) It really has been an incredible experience that I will cherish (and get to read about) when I am older.

Well moving on to less sappy things, my parent's 20th anniversary (!) is coming up in a few weeks and my mom has included me in her brainstorming on how to present him with his gift. So my mom decided that we would go to a cute restaurant and I would leave the table for a moment while she gave him his first gift. Then when I came out I subtly whipped out a camera and got to photograph them frame by frame as my dad opened up a wrapped gift with a guidebook to Istanbul! He was so happy and surprised! They will be leaving (well, actually, they are in Istanbul as I write this) Sunday and won't come back until next Tuesday. So I am pretty much alone for the next few days (YESSS) when I go out into the city...or other places in the UK ;] Anyone want to guess where??

Unlike the ice cream picture from the previous post, this "real" Kodak moment shot is, well, real!

My dad and I, looking all sharp!

Update You Later,
Andre

Out and About in London!

I have completely lost track of time it's great, Only in the Dominican Republic during the summer will the days fly by (or very slowly progress) to the point where I don't know what day it is anymore and I rarely check my watch. I actually went out today without a watch and it didn't bother me it all! I think I am now truly starting to relax and enjoy the fact that I'm vacation and don't have to think about work or school or friends etc. It's all about me me me!

So yesterday my Dad arrived to join me and my mum (he he) in London. Just like our first day, my dad got to take a nap and then we went out to the middle of the city. Except when we went out this time I was way more oriented and didn't feel lost at all! I'm clearly becoming a Londoner quickly =]

Me and my godfather, Jochy

 We rode a double decker bus for the first time yesterday and I'm upset that I hadn't gotten on one earlier because they are so much fun! On the 2nd floor there are seats right above where the driver would be so you get to see everything crystal clear. It also doesn't hurt that you are sightseeing without having to actually walk!

As always, we ended up visiting a church. I had already been to St. Paul's the day before (Churchill, Lady Diane, Queen's 80th, ring a bell?) but got to take a picture from the front side this time.

Mom, Andre and Amelia in front of one of the many helpful maps in London

 So about the map above...I think it's time for a mini US vs. UK. It is very hard to get lost in London from what I've experienced. There are maps (it isn't often as big as the one above though) on basically every other street as well as Tube stations on every other street. There's also a lot of signs on the street that direct you to major attractions or Tube stations as well as how many minutes it takes to get there. Now in DC...well it's just not as helpful and I have gotten lost several times. So go London for being great for the directionaly challenged!

Apparently my mom and I hadn't seen everything because we missed the Somerset house which is located right next to the Thames.

Me dad and I!

 We returned to the Queen's walk and ate at a Wagamama which is a very delicious Asian noodle restaurant. The only thing that was a little weird about the restaurant was that the food didn't come out all at once...I ended up eating right as my parents finished their plates, oh well!

Even though I can't enter any because I'm still a minor (drinking age here, along with almost every other European country is 18...just a little over one more year until I can!) English pubs looked really fun. We passed several that were so packed that people just kind of spilled out into the streets. Everyone looked like they were having such a good time with their beers in hand!

We also decided to have a good time (alcohol free of course) with some delicious gelato again. I had Cream and Cookies (Amelia was right, the British really do do everything backwards!) Clearly we were having a good time =]

UYL,
Andre

London Bridge Ain't Falling Down

According to my mom it has only rained in London once out of the five times that she has visited. Anytime you read about London in novels rarely is it bright and sunny. But luck seems to be on my side because the weather yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. There weren't many clouds in the sky and it got so warm that I was able to walk around in a t-shirt for half the day! Londoners all over the city also took advantage of the nice sun rays and stretched out on any green space available in the city!

In front of the Port of London Authority. 

The Tube station left us right in front of Tower of London which is an old castle that is almost 1000 years old (!) We didn't get to see much from the outside since it was so heavily fortified but I might return again and visit the inside one day since it looked so grand and regal.

 Right next to the Tower of London was the Tower Bridge! Just like Big Ben I think this is another classic icon of London. So classic that I think people sometimes think that Tower Bridge is London Bridge from the popular nursery rhyme. I can assure you folks that neither Tower or London Bridge will be falling down anytime soon, it felt quite sturdy underneath my feet as I crossed it. I have dozens of pictures of Tower Bridge it is so beautiful. My mother and I say that it looks like it came out of a Disney movie =]

View from Tower Bridge of the skyline of The City of London, the financial sector of London.

A picture taken from the other side of the Thames River.

This is London Bridge. 

 After crossing the bridge we were on The Queen's Walk, a nice little riverside promenade for pedestrians to walk with lots of little cafes, shops, and restaurants among other things. As I'm sure you've noticed one of the things that I have loved the most about London is it's history and architecture which is why I cannot resist taking pictures of any and all churches I pass by with their Gothic architecture. There's just so much detail in the exterior of every church that I am amazed with the architect's skill and vision! Below we have the first Gothic Church in London, Southwark Cathedral.

Southwark Cathedral

Invisible Man!

The Queen's walk was really fun to go down not only because of all the cafe's and beautiful churches but because there were historical things such as Sir Francis Drake's galleon. It's very cool to see something that I have studied in history class come to "life" (because ships are obviously inanimate) before my eyes. For those of you that don't remember Sir Francis Drake was a very famous (or infamous I should say) "privateer" (aka pirate) that was despised by the Spanish but loved by the Queen, Elizabeth I. Not only did I see stuff from History but also English class! Shakespeare's Globe in all its glory! I would have loved to gone and seen a play by him in his own Theatre but unfortunately they didn't have anything for available for the day I could have gone. That didn't stop me from snapping a few pictures though!

The Golden Hinde

The Globe

 And then here we have the Millennium Bridge which, as its name implies, was built for the new millennium back in 2000. It is pedestrian only and was "destroyed" by the Death Eaters in the 6th Harry Potter movie (I'm such a nerd...and hard-core fan!) In the background you can see St. Paul's cathedral which was where the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill was observed, Prince Charles and Lady Diana where married and where the Queen had a service in honour of her 80th birthday ;P

Millennium Bridge

In the gardens of St. Paul's Cathedral

 As if we hadn't taken pictures of enough churches we went on to Westminster Catherdral (not to be confused with the Abbey from yesterday) which is Catholic as oppposed to most of the ther churches which are Anglican. We went inside for a little prayer and came out quite peaceful =] The Cathedral ended up being a few blocks away from Buckingham so we decided to revisit it and take advantage of the fact that it wasn't as busy as the day before for some pictures.

Mommy =]

Me in front of Buckingham Palace

Random soldier but I like their uniforms!

 And so we pretty much saw all the major tourist hot spots in London and OMG WAIT. So after Buckingham we went down Savile Row which is famous for its tailoring and went down another street and ended up at one of the few Abercrombie and Fitch stores in the entire European Union. NO I didn't go shopping (who travels to London to shop? Oh yeah, Italians...lol just kidding (sort of) there were also a lot of other Europeans there) but it was definetely the nicest A&F store I've ever seen (nicer than the one in NY) and the best part of all? The employees were dancing! No, seriously. That's literally what they are scheduled to do, just stand by one of the store balconies and dance. My 'aunt' Amelia one time asked them if that's all they do and the employee she was talking to said "yeah sometimes you get scheduled to dance on the balcony from 2-3" LOL.

Well anyways back to what I was saying, we pretty much saw most of the tourist sttractions in London and ended up eating at a nice ristorant italiano were my mother and I had some amazing pasta and pizza, yum! We concluded our day with some delicious gelato (sorry KScoops, you've got nothing on Italian ice cream) in Piccadilly Circus.

Yeah the day sort of cooled down...

UYL,
Andre!

And We Went Dancing!

You know, I noticed that when I do stuff over a period of a few days but don't blog about it, I start forgetting about that event! I am so happy to have this blog which will create a permanent record of my travel here because otherwise London would just become a hazy memory a few years from now! SO, without further ado, I present day two of my trip in London!

Surprisingly my day did not start out at the crack of dawn but at 10PM instead! My mother and I literally slept like dead people. We awoke in the exact same position that we fell asleep in, our bodies were so tired! But we had to hurry because the changing of the guard's at Buckingham Palace waits for no one!

I've never really taken cops on horses seriously back home but this lady was rocking it!
Oh and the horses name was Merlin, ha!

 We proceded to walk down St. James' Park where I saw the adorable little squirrel in the previous post as well as a lot of other little birds. There were ducks, swans, geese even an obese pelican!

Eventually we ended up in front of the most iconic and well recognized clock towers in the world, Big Ben! It was really quite amazing and we heard it as it was chiming for noon which, in my opinion, makes it extra special.

And of course I needed to take a picture in front of a London phone booth! It's so awesome that London is full of them because quite frankly not everyone has a cell phone and that's something that peeves me off about the US, the lack of public phones...hmm writing this at 2AM in the morning might not be a good idea if I'm going to go off into random rants...Oh and I forgot to mention that my "piggy bank" is actually a miniature phone booth back in the US =]

Farther down the street from Big Ben is Westminster Abbey which was architecturally gorgeous and I wish I had taken more picture of. It sort of reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame even though clearly I'm not in France and this isn't Notre Dame...

And for those of you Harry Potter fans I hope that this looks familiar! It's the Palace of Westminster (aka Houses of Parliament) and it appears in the...6th movie I believe! Again, everything here is so beautiful and regal I love it!

After you cross Westminster bridge there's a sort of boardwalk called the Queen's Walk which we went along right next to the Thames River. There were a lot of little restaurants and entertainers it was really, well, entertaining! I feel like a kid for saying this but my favorite where the entertainers who worked with bubbles because they came out so huge and so colorful!

It looks like Big Bubble is gonna eat little bubble!

Our bellies started to rumble a bit after that so we went in search of food passing Trafalgar square once again! We ended up eating a Cheese and Bacon (not bacon and cheese! We made the mistake of asking for two bacon and cheese burgers and all we got back was a blank stare for a few minutes and then "Oh, do you mean a cheese and bacon burger? -.- ) burger with chips (aka French fries! Although seeing as the British and French never really got along I can see why they don't call 'em that...)

Lions at the base of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square

The 'chips' tasted WAY better than American ones and the bun was made out of ciabatta bread I think

Afterwards we jumped on The Tube and went down to South Kensington which has some very posh neighborhoods and stores and just strolled around there. I loved the townhouses/apartments around here with the red bricks it was amazing for taking pictures! We also stopped by Harrod's which is apparently now a tourist destination judging by the amount of people with camera's swinging around their necks and not urchasing anything! Harrod's is like a...Bloomingdales I guess but everything is full price...yeah...I kept on thinking, "you know you're in a rich neighborhood when you see four Porsche cars parked right next to each other!"

I like this sort of serious picture of mine =]

There's three right next to me and one a little farther down the road towards the far right of the picture.

We took the Tube back up to Covent Garden where I had a hot chocolate and almost croissant (yum!) and then wandered into this little park that had live performers and people where just chilling on the lawn. My mom and I just sat on a bench and talked for an hour as well as People Watching (funnest thing to do when you need to kill time in a foreign place!)

To end the night we ended up going to my first Musical in London called Blood Brothers. It was excellent I really enjoyed it! Even though the plot was a little sad (A mother must give up one of her twins because she can't afford him but then the sons find each other and become BFFs and "blood brothers" (they cut their palms open and shook hands! but not for real of course) but then they get separated again and then...well point is one of the brothers goes a little insane and is going to kill the other because of a girl but then the mom pleads him not to shoot him because that's his real brother but then a they both end up dead anyways because the police shoot or something...it was GOOOOD). The woman who played the mom was especially good since when they finished the musical you could see that she was crying for real, plus she had an amazing voice ("and we went daaaancing!"). It was an excellent way to end the night =]

UYL,
Andre

I Couldn't Resist My Obsession

You know for someone who has some many post about animals you'd think that I'd want to become a vet when I really don't...So I apologize, because I just couldn't resist talking a picture of...a BRITISH SQUIRREL!!!

Looking all cute, eating his nuts while we tourist are shooting away like the paparazzi!

That is all...for now...

UYL,
Andre