Swans

Time to tell you about my goings-on in London this week. Bria and I don't have class on Wednesdays (most people don't here...still haven't gotten used to that, but it's a beautiful thing to have a mid-week weekend), so we decided it was time to cross off another item on our to-do list: see Swan Lake performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House!

The hard core season ticket hopefuls

As tickets are pretty hard to come by, the best way to obtain them is by waiting in line in the morning at the ticket office, so that's what we did. Up bright and early at 7 a.m., we headed down to Covent Garden and joined the line. Little did we know it was also the first day of public booking for next season, so a line trailed around the entire building. Luckily, though, this also meant the Royal Opera House brought out free coffee (a beautiful thing on a cold morning waiting in line).

It ALSO meant that the seasoned veterans in line knew Bria and I should get in a separate line for day tickets. We followed their advice and it paid off exponentially; at 10:00 a.m. when the ticket office opened Bria and I were then first in line in front of people who had been there longer than us, and we were able to score amazing tickets close to the stage from the side for only £27. For crazy good tickets to see the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake? Worth it.

The view from our seats (albeit a bit better than actuality)

We had some time to kill before the matinee performance at 2:00, so we also headed over to Waterloo to buy theater tickets! Look at us being cultured. Upon arriving in London, I saw that Hedda Gabler (my favorite play by my favorite playwright, Ibsen) was playing at the Old Vic and it became a must-do while I'm here. After reaching the box office, we were clearly having a wildly successful day and bought FRONT ROW tickets to Hedda Gabler for October 31. Seriously, the center two seats in the very front row. I can't wait. The ticket woman even asked us if the seats were okay for £12.

What a joke.

The Royal Opera House! C'est Magnifique!

So after killing some time at Starbucks (and me taking a quick cat nap on a table—getting up at 6:30am is hard), it was finally 2 pm and we headed back to the Royal Opera House. Despite seeing the iconic Tchaikovsky ballet numerous times on video tape, I've never seen it live, and the Royal Opera House was a gorgeous place to do so.

Overall the performance was excellent; the leads were absolutely divine (Odette's painstakingly slow finger turns were unbelievable) even though a few of the wobbly soloists left some to be desired. But hey, I'm a ballet nerd.

Swan Lake was fantastic. I'm already looking forward to Hedda in a couple of weeks and hopefully get more rush tickets to see other Royal Ballet performances—they're doing a combination ballet in a month that I'd love to see.

Anyways, my dearest MOTHER is now in London for a week...I can't wait! We're going to do a lot of the touristy London things that I haven't gotten to thus far, so hopefully I'll have a lot of exciting things to write about next week!

'Til then, hope everyone in the states is surviving the election for better or worse. Talk to you soon!

PS: Here are those Holland fries pictures I promised from the Amsterdam Trip:

Before

After