putting on my tourist hat :-)

for the second week in a row, jen's motel has visitors and this time, my mama is the star guest! she's a sneaky little devil and crawled in to sleep on the air mattress while i was brushing my teeth, so i guiltily slept in my bed. (however we both agree that the air mattress is strangely comfortable.)

our friday agenda was action packed:

bus tour of london
dinner in the theatre district
theatre

i took Mom for her first ride on the underground and she did pretty well. it was clear that this apple (read: me) hasn't fallen far from the tree, as i caught her beaming and smiling at the other passengers on the northern line. :-) how are the brits going to handle the two of us for the next four days?!?

london wasn't being the most cooperative with its weather and was alternating between bouts of sunshine and sideways downpours. and it was about 7 degrees. bleh. :-) nevertheless we piled onto a double decker tour bus to have a looksee at all the interesting stuff around the city. what's funny is that we were never more than a 50 minute walk from my flat most of the time we were on the bus!

we managed to hit most of the highlights, stopping at café rouge by st. paul's for soup and bloody mary's (Mom had coffee) then eventually getting off the bus because i kept having to wee...and we had to get ready to go to the theatre!

we LOVE going to musicals and used to see at least one per year when i lived in cincy. i have been wanting to see les miserables forever, and it just so happens to be constantly running in london. and we scored wicked seats! at the last minute, mind you.

i don't spend much time in the piccadilly circus area and was at a loss for where we could get a decent dinner. luckily there is timeout, a web site where you can search by neighborhood. we were hungry for italian and after reading 5-6 really bad reviews of other restaurants, finally settled on one that had good reviews for its pasta: il cucciolo on denman street. it was tiny and the waitstaff was actually italian. :-) even better, the food was delicious! i'm addicted to gnocchi with gorgonzola so i tried it and was very impressed. (i really wanted spaghetti carbonara but it was good friday...)

the queen's theatre was only a few steps away down shaftesbury avenue, so we got there in plenty of time to collect our tickets from will call and find our very, very excellent seats. the musical was incredible. theatre in london is a bit different, i think - more dramatic? or maybe it was because it was a night show and i usually see matinees? not sure but i would highly recommend this one if you ever come to london!

it was LONG though, so by the time we let out it was getting close to 11 and we foolishly decided to take the underground. what a zoo. there were massive cues just to get through the card scanners, then people were standing all over the escalator. augh. claustrophobia! we finally got on a train and settled into seats across from each other, while 80 other people crammed into the aisle between us. they were just closing the doors when a voice came over the loudspeaker and said:

"this train is being held by the british transport police"

oh dear.

this has NEVER happened to me and i have spent the last 1.5 days making a case as to why it's fine for me to run around london alone at night. train fights are not helping my cause. we sat there for a bit and as i peeked across the aisle, i could see my mother chatting merrily with the teen next to her. :-) the bobbies eventually broke up the fight and we made it back to old street, just as it started to piss it down sideways. as we walked back to my place, we played a fun game called "who had a more disgusting experience on the tube?"

mine: the guy next to me had a takeaway box full of what looked and smelled like vomit

hers: someone had forgotten to pull their pants up all the way and was showing 6 inches of crack

ha ha. not sure who wins this one.