Janessa's Adventures Abroad: April 2012

Rapunzel: I've been looking out of a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what I might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it's not everything I dreamed it would be?
Flynn Rider: It will be.
Rapunzel: And what if it is? What do I do then?
Flynn Rider: Well,that's the good part I guess. You get to go find a new dream.

This is how I felt/have been feeling about London. Haha, I love it so much that it feels like there couldn't possibly be anything better but like Flynn Rider said, I'll be able to find a new dream when the time comes :)

Today we had class in the morning and then we came home for lunch. After that we all headed over to see the British Library as a group and I had my first pasty! It was delicious! I will definitely be eating more of those :) I was really excited to see the music section of the gallery at the library and it was even cooler than I expected it to be! They had the original hand written scores of Handel's Messiah, Elgar's 3rd Symphony, Ravel's Bolero, Schubert's An Die Musik, Beethoven's Violin Sonata in G Major, Hayden's Symphony no. 96, Mozart's Horn Concerto in E Flat, Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and Grainger's Country Gardens. They also had Mozart's marriage certificate, the Libretto from the 1st performance of The Messiah, and Beethoven's tuning fork. There was a cool story about the tuning for, too. Apparently it eventually ended up in the hands of Gustav Holst who gave it to Ralph Vaughn Williams. Then his wife gave it to the library in hopes that it would inspire other people in the world of music. That was one of my favorite things in the gallery. They also had Jane Austen's writing desk and a notebook with short stories and pieces written by her between the ages of 12 and 17. There was also Charlotte Bronte's manuscript for Jane Eyre. The exhibit had a lot of religious things as well like sacred texts from Judaism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Islam along with a Gutenberg Bible and some hand painted picture bibles. I think I enjoyed the Beatles display the most though. They had hand written lyrics for "Hard Day's Night," "Ticket to Ride," "Yesterday," and "Help!" "Hard Day's Night" was written on the back of John Lennon's son's birthday card. It was really cool. There was also a ticket to one of their shows in London and a certificate of membership in their fanclub.

After the library we decided to just walk around central London. We went to Buckingham Palace and then walked through St. James Park to get to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. Then we walked down to Trafalgar Square and saw a countdown for the Olympics and a chalk drawing of flags from different countries. People were putting coins on the flag they were from and it looked really awesome! St. James Park is probably my favorite thing in London so far. It is absolutely beautiful! We walked around in the park forever and took so many pictures! It is so green here in London in general but this park was particularly green and colorful with flowers. I'm definitely going back there as much as possible! Then I was going to see The King's Speech and Brittany wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera but when we got to the theater, Phantom was sold out. Then I decided to just see something else with Brittany because King's Speech looks cool but it's not at the top of my list. So we decided to see if Billy Elliot was sold out. And it wasn't! So we got in! Neither of us really knew anything about the musical other than that it was supposed to have some pretty cool dancing in it. Boy were we surprised! It was absolutely terrific! I loved it so much! It was so much more amazing than anything we expected. The dancing was phenomenal and it was very entertaining! The little boy who played Billy Elliot was outstanding! Seriously, I am still in awe at his dancing and the dancing of the whole cast. The story was also very entertaining. It had me laughing for most of the time but at one point I do have to say that I cried. If anyone has the chance to see Billy Elliot then take advantage of that opportunity! It will definitely be worth it! Tomorrow we are seeing Matilda the Musical as a group and I'm kind of excited to see how they brought the story to the stage. It should be interesting!