It was spectacular! Everything I could have wanted and more :] The vocals were amazing, at parts a bit too emotional for my taste but astounding none the less. Raoul was by far my favorite character. His vocal range was exceptional and the way he acted was so believable I forgot it was just a show at times. *Sigh...* I want to go see it again! There is a sequel coming out to 'Phantom', it's called "Love Never Dies." I am not holding out high expectations out for it at all, but I feel obligated to go because I love the 'Phantom' so much. Guess I'll see how it is! It can't be that bad, Andrew Lloyd Webber did write it as well, so it probably will be good. Before I saw the show, I went out and got delicious dessert with the girls who I saw the show with. It was at this amazing restaurant called 'Cafe Concerto' and the cakes and pastries made me want to go to culinary school to make such amazing masterpieces! Think I'm exaggerating the grandeur? Just take a look!
The cake I got was White Chocolate Gateau. Normally I am not a lover of white chocolate (because it's fake chocolate) but this was an exception. It's not very clear in the picture, but the top of the cake supports a thin strip of white chocolate rolled into a cone. The chocolate was so rich and creamy that it melted in my mouth. The cake was chocolate sponge cake, just perfectly prepared, light and fluffy that you barely felt it in your mouth but the taste was massive and delicious. The white filling in between the sponge cake was homemade whipped cream. In Europe, whipped cream is unsugared so has a rather tart taste to it, but this kind was made using 100% cream and was just the right balance of sweet and tart. the back of the cake was covered in white chocolate shavings and dollops of the cream. Jeepers I'm wanting another piece so badly now! Change of subject!!
The cake-straight-from-Heaven and the show were my activities for Monday night, but Monday afternoon was spent doing homework and taking a walk (which is a homework assignment) around a part of London known as 'Little Venice.' It really should have been called 'Micro-' or 'Nano- Venice' because it can all be seen in this one picture it's so small:
Yup. That's it. I'm standing under one bridge that is the start and the bridge in the background of the photo is the end. Don't get me wrong, it was gorgeous, but I was expecting gondolas, Italian music and food, the Lady and the Tramp eating pasta... that kind of stuff. I was with Cam and Laura (two other program people) and we wandered around the rest of the city and did see other very cool sites but were all a bit disappointed in our ideas of what we thought it was. On a bright note, it was sunny! Here are some other beautiful pictures of 'Little Venice:'
One of these pictures is of a shaft of light shinning through a tree on the canal, and the other three are of St Mary's Chapel and it's graveyard. Very elegant church. There would be more photos but I was scared by a hobo sleeping on the steps that I left rather quickly.
In the Tube stop, we spotted these delight some people:
If you can't tell, the picture is a group of about 10 young adults dressed up like sheep. As the man in the left side of the picture is doing, we scratched our heads trying to decide why this was. The Tube is a very interesting place, I love it. I have seen a man dressed up like Abraham Lincoln, a cowboy, and three ladies each 60+ years old on there way to a gay bar and looking like they were hookers (trust me, 60+ year old hookers are not a pretty sight). But all of those were relatively normal, at least more normal than ten sheep. That's when we realized, there was a football match that day that New Zealand was playing in. (This is football as in soccer not the lame American woosy rugby kind)Football is a big deal here and the New Zealand mascot is a sheep, problem solved. On Tuesday, the whole group went on a Day Trip. Usually these are on Wednesdays, but since most of us are leaving for our extended weekend on Wednesday, the D.T. was bumped up to Tuesday. And I am very glad it was! It was sunny again today and Day Trips mean we can be outside in the sun!! I miss the sun very much. If it were possible, I'd ask for a bottle of sunshine for my birthday. Anyways, we went to three places today. The first was Runnymede. This tiny little place on the outskirts of London is where the Magna Carta was signed, very important thing in history. The next place was my favorite by far though, Windsor Castle! Originally, the plan was to see this place on March 10th (my birthday) but it was moved up for reasons unknown, yet it was very fun! Here are some beautiful pictures of the castle, the town of Windsor, and of Eton college (please pardon my bad hair, it was very windy):
Our last stop of the day was Slough Poges. This weird, hidden little spot was breath taking. I wish I could paint or draw and make this place the subject of my work. In these few pictures see if you can spot the evil Goldfinger's hideout (James Bond anyone?) A famous poet whom I had never heard of until today became famous for writing about this place and is buried here.The church on the grounds is tiny but had some of the prettiest stain glass I've seen yet, I love stain glass. I decided that I want some in my house when I grow up. It was a lovely place to take pictures and the fact that it was sunny was miraculous. enjoy :]
That's all the excitement for now, but stay tuned! Spain is up next! Have a great day!
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