Once

Good morning London! Ashleigh and I went to our new favorite coffee shop- Bermondsey Cafe. It has the best dirty chai I’ve ever tasted and we both wanted to go back.
After we took the metro to Oxford Street. It is a pretty popular street with many top bands and clothing shops. It was fun to window shop and pretend I could afford the things inside. 😁

We walked up and down the street, then made our way to Buckingham palace, Big Ben and took more than enough pictures of the guards, people and beautiful architecture. So many tourists waiting to see the changing of the guards, but Ashleigh and I were very content with just walking around and taking pictures of people. It was actually a lot of fun!

Once we got all the pictures we wanted and explored the area as much as we thought appropriate, Ashleigh and I went to the British museum. It was amazing… And free! The bigger areas were separated by countries. We didn’t stay for very long at all because it was just so big and overwhelming. But if anyone was going to London on a budget I recommend that museum.

We were both a bit thirsty so we stopped at a cafe called apostrophe cafe…
A little refreshment before we went to our next stop.

We both just felt head over heals for Camden market, so we took the metro and went back up to Camden lock. We bought some jewelry, drank coffee and walked around the shops up until the clouds opened and we were forced in a store due to the rain. The rain died down a bit so we sped walked to the nearest metro stop and took it to London bridge (our normal stop to get off for our host’s flat. By the time we got to Claire’s we were drenched from head to toe. We got in around 5:30pm and had to change quick so we could go out to dinner and to a show that started at 7:30pm. Our dinner was nice and reasonably priced- the restaurant was on the queens walk. The view & the people watching was perfect.

I don’t know what people are complaining about when it comes to London’s food. Everywhere Ash and I have gone the food and drinks have been really good! Of course overpriced due to being in a city; and of course the food does not have as much flavor because we’re not in Provence… But besides that the food is awesome.

After the dinner we took the metro to the theatre district were we saw a musical called Once. Once is about a man named Guy. He is an Irish singer and songwriter who spends his days fixing vacuums in the Dublin shop he runs with his father. And at night plays his music in local pubs. He is on the verge of giving up music altogether when a woman who is a Czech immigrant walks into the bar, hears him play and refuses to let him abandon his guitar. As it turns out, she has a broken vacuum cleaner, Guy repairs it, and she pays him in music on a piano she plays in a record shop. Over the course of a week, the girl convinces Guy to believe in the power of his music and his love for the woman who inspired his songs. They scrape together money to record a demo album with a motley crew of bar friends, and their unexpected friendship and collaboration evolves into a powerful but very complicated love story.

The musical is about musicians so my hopes were high. Thank God that my expectations we beyond met! During the entire musical I had goose bumps. The end of the play I was wrapped up in the story and got a bit teary eyed because of how beautiful the story was mixed with the live heart felt music. The musical made me want to wake up each morning and fall in love with life and people.