So my favorite place in London (England) for discount theatre tickets is TKTS half-price ticktes located in Leicester Square, it’s sort of in the park so you can’t miss it.

I discovered they list the available tickets on-line so that’s a bonus for next trip, no reason to rush down for tickets if there isn’t anything you like!

They are opening a second location in the Brent Cross Shopping Centre officially on June 29, 2008 but since I’m not there I can’t go check it out (that’s today!). I think they carry the same tickets at both locations.

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So I got some more photos up. London Day one, not a lot, but I did do some okay descriptions :)

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So at some of the theater’s in London (and I’m sure in other places in the world) you place your order and pay for interval drinks before the show starts. This way when it’s time for intermission, your drink is already ready for you and there is no line. Very civilized :)

It’s just coincidence that it’s in “position L”, that was already on the sheet when I scribbled my name on it. So when I went to get my drink there was my bottle of Schweppes, a glass with ice and my order sheet (see attached photo).

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So for the Waffle Toffee Crunch score: We were there eight days (Saturday to Saturday) and I was able to have a Waffle Toffee Crunch dessert seven of the eight days! They only day I didn’t succeed was the day we left for Cardiff. In my defense we were on the way to the train station before Garfunkel’s opened and they didn’t appear to have any in Cardiff (they few people I asked didn’t even know what Garfunkel’s was).

So I consider the dessert portion of the vacation as much of a success as possible :)

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So I’ve got a few photos that I put together from Cardiff City Center. I’m not sure if the castle is technically in the city center or not but I including those few anyways. There are captions on a few of the photos.

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It’s been a very long flight and we took off late so we’re going to get in late. They were having problems with one of the bathrooms and they tried fixing it, then they gave up and had to drain the tanks(?) and that took more time. The long bathroom lines are annoying slow but at least they’re moving. The flight home was already eight hours and fifty minutes; I’m glad it was a direct flight, I’m not sure how it’s affecting the the people with connecting flights.

Saw some cool ice “stuff” while flying, not sure if it was part of Greenland or something else, it was a huge massive land formation that was all while and looked like it was ice.

I’ve got a bunch of other entries and posts that I still have to put on-line (or finish and put on-line still) so they’ll be more to come on-line….

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So at StreetCar you can rent a car by the hour. They’ve got 500 pickup locations (and I think this is just spots where parked on the side of the street). It’s about 5.95 pounds ($12 an hour) for a Golf (Polo for 3.95) an hour or 49.50 pounds a day (and you get 30 miles of fuel). You must be a member for 50 pounds a year (show your OysterCard and get two memberships for the price of one).

Assuming you don’t have a need for a car very often, this is economical and ecological: you don’t need to pay for a car or insurance or parking, except for the times you need it; it’s such a waste otherwise if you don’t use it often. You don’t need to maintain it or anything like that. If I lived somewhere like London I would only need it a time or two a week (at the most), maybe big shopping trips.

This is very cool IMHO, this is the idea of of Sci-Fi/Future Utopian stories. Every shares a car or bicycles and has great public transportation. This is very unlike Michigan with poor public transportation and everyone owns a car (or two).

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This was an off-”Broadway” show (called Haunted) we saw someone bring flyers into one of the restaurants we were eating at so we took one and it sounding interesting. Then shortly after we happened to walk by the Arts Theatre and Haunted stuck in our heads so we decided to go…

Nineteen empty flats and just one sold. Why? What’s wrong with the place? And why does it want Alex and her children?

Four friends for supper. No supper.

An extra guest. A kitchen full of implements.

The evening veers off its polite rails and ends up somewhere very dark.

(from the Haunted flyer)

Now finding the place again was tricky, they didn’t bother to print the address on the brochure; it’s at 6/7 (Great) Newport Street, London WC2 in case you’re looking for it. But it’s only there until June 14.

Great acting, it all took place in one room but it was done excellent! It was a little confusing at times, but it didn’t really affect the story: Were there spirits in the house? Were they a little cRaZy? Was it a bit in their heads? Was anyone actually possessed? I actually think you weren’t supposed to know…

I think the stories based on the property are actually true (at least I read it on-line somewhere, so it must be true).

My only ture complaint was that it ended abruptly, too abruptly for me, but Mom didn’t seem to mind…Rats, while putting this post together I just noticed I could have saved $13.00 by getting Mom the senior discount :(

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The Oyster Card is a debit-type card for using the Tube (subway) and bus systems. It’s very very convienent, why they don’t push the Oyster Card as an alternative for tourists I have no clue. There’s advertising everywhere but not pushing it for tourists (the airports and train stations would be a logical choice). It’s a “gift card” that you load up with any dollar pound amount and just tap it (like the new Visa cards with the tap or blink function) to get onto a tube train or bus. If you use it a lot, it can automatically top up from your credit card so you’ll always have enough (and I think you can get your photo put on a more permanent card).

“Our aim is to ensure that Oyster always charges the lowest fare.
Where it doesn’t, we will refund the difference.”

It’s much easier and faster plus you don’t have to decide if you need a all day tube ticket or bus option or anything. It calculates the best possible fare for you at the end of the day and they promise it’ll be cheaper than tickets. Plus you can use it on the cool red double-decker busses!

It’s a 3 pound deposit, but I’m under the impression that when we return our cards we get the 3 pounds plus any other cash we still have on it returned to us. Our only concern has been not having enough on it when we get on a bus (it’d be too late to put more ca$h on it then).

So my vote is get a Oyster Card as soon you get to the London area!Later: We did get the deposit (3 pounds) and all our money back with no problem.

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So the first show we saw in London was a musical called Marguerite, it took place in German occupied France. Marguerite was married to a German general for convenience and falls in love with a jazz piano player. It was a beautiful old theatre with at least two balconies (there might have been a higher one but I couldn’t see it from the main floor).

We had tenth row great seats (halfway between center and the edge); we picked them up from the TKTS booth at Leicester Square which has different discount (almost all are half-off) tickets every day (I usually look there first when looking for tickets). I think they just have tickets for “west end” theatre but I’m not sure where the “east end” is (or north or south for that matter).

The writer/producer of Marguerite also did