The End of a Great Day - Day Two (Part Two)

So after the wax museum, I quickly went to see if the Sherlock Holmes Museum was any good, but it didn't seem worth the 10 pounds. Robyn made some phone calls to figure out what we were going to do for New Years. We then went to this really cool restaurant/pub place. It was a great atmosphere, and I liked the food. So we made the decision not to stay in London for New Years for a few reasons:

1. It was now Friday. The trains would be closed on New Year's Day. So that meant we would have to stay in London until Tues (that's 4 more nights).
2. We didn't want to burden Phil & Ingrid with staying that long, because they and their kids were battling sickness.
3. Robyn's other friend only had a couch, so one of us would have to sleep on the floor.
4. We just weren't in the mood to stick around in those conditions.

So we decided to stay in London one more night and travel to Lincolnshire on Sat evening.

After lunch I'm not exactly sure what we did. My mind was a bit fuzzy for some reason...I think we went to the National Gallery next. They have a bunch of paintings there. We didn't spend a whole lot of time, I would like to go back when I'm more aware. Somehow or other we got to the Parliament buildings at about 4. In that area is Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. After that we roamed around Piccadilly Circus. Our main objective was to find the theatre where Mary Poppins was playing (cause we were going there the next day). For supper we went to McDonald's (I'm an addict!).

I had seen these signs for a play called "The 39 Steps" in Piccadilly Circus. One of Alfred Hitchcock's first movies was based on the book. I have that movie and it's pretty good, so I thought, let's check it out. When we got to the theatre we noticed these posters with different reviews on it. I don't remember what the exact quotes were (Robyn should hopefully post them soon), but they said things like "Hilarious" and "Funny". I couldn't remember the movie being that funny, so I didn't really know what to make of it. We decided to go and bought the cheapest seats we could find. One of the quotes that stood out to us was something like, "It goes down like Hannay's Whiskey & Soda." We both were intrigued...what does that even mean?!? None of us had tried a Hannay's Whiskey & Soda so we had no frame of reference. This set us on a mission!

We wandered around looking for a pub with a nice feel to it. We passed a few, but nothing grabbed our attention, until we got to this quaint little place off on its own. We went inside and asked for two Hannay's Whiskey & Sodas. The bartender had no clue what we were talking about. So we decided just to try a different brand of whiskey. We took our drinks and prepared to analyze it to understand how we might experience the play. All I remember was it didn't really taste like anything, it was like drinking air. Did that mean the play would be insignificant to me?? Would I sit through the play and not realize I was watching actors??? Robyn commented it reminded her of smoke...I think she had a bias coming into this against all whiskey. This wasn't a good sign before the play...

So we left the pub scratching our heads, what did this all mean?!? After puttering around until it was closer to showtime, we made our way into the theatre and into our own private box! When we had bought the tickets it had said there was "restricted view". We weren't sure if that meant a post in the way or what. So we get in our box and right away we realize we could hardly even see the stage! Haha, I had to lean over the edge the whole time and I still couldn't totally see everything!!!

But regardless of the poor seats and the mixed signals we got from our drinks, the play ended up being really funny! We had a blast, even sitting in the box was fun in it's own right. In the play there are about 150 different characters, but they had 4 actors playing all the roles. They were really good, and they made it enjoyable to watch.


"Am I rrrrrright sir?"

I began to realize that what we had read about this play was slightly misleading. One write up said, "Nothing has been cut from this spectacular premiere of Britain’s most spellbinding thriller—the legendary scenes include the chase on the Flying Scotsman, the escape on the Forth Bridge, the first theatrical bi-plane crash ever staged and the death defying finale at a packed London Palladium." They had very little props so they had to really use their acting skills to make us believe they were at these certain locations. I don't want to ruin how they managed to get a bi-plane to crash on their small stage (you'll have to see it yourself!).


Notice they are not really in a car...

Also, I noted right away that the main character's last name was Hannay. In the play his drink of choice was guess what??? WHISKEY & SODA!!!!! Hannay was not a brand of whiskey!!!! I felt kinda stupid after that. But I still don't know what that review had to say about the play??!

That was good choice, I'm glad we went! Afterwards we made our way back to the Watts' residence. On the way there Robyn bought me some Irn-Bru...a very popular drink in Scotland. It was basically just like McD's orange drink but carbonated. Yum!!! I fell asleep wonderfully, because remember, I had overcome my jetlag just like that!


"Day two goes down like Roste's IRN-BRU." - West End Review