It was our final day in London, and, not to be cliché but it was rather bittersweet.
In one sense, I’m glad to be going home, back to a country where the restrooms are free, my cords work in the outlets, and air conditioning is abundant, but of course, it’s also rather sad going back to normal reality. I’m going to have to return to work in a few days, start packing for school, coordinate dorm decorations with my new roommates – things I’ve been putting off thinking about since I’ve been here in London.
We started off our day in the same way as always – a crumpet, some coffee, and fresh fruit. Sue, our host, has been so lovely about letting us stay with her, even getting to know our breakfast preferences and having them set out for us on the table every day when we wake up. It’s because of her we’ve even been able to come on this trip – like seriously, is a broke college kid going to be able to afford a hotel in London for two weeks? No.
We brought her some chocolates when we first arrived as a hostess gift, but Amanda and I both felt like we needed to do something more. She suggested that I do a little drawing of her and her daughters, so over the last few nights, I’ve been working on doing this little doodle. It’s nothing special, but people like getting art, and I like doing it.
After the unfortunate fires that went through Camden Lock just a day before we had been planning to go (we were going to go right after we did Shoreditch, but we found out that morning that there had been some bad fires in that part of town), we didn’t think we were going to be able to get there during our time in London, but thankfully, they managed to contain the fires enough that we could still see parts of the area and market.
Camden Town was cool, but I don’t know – I might’ve liked Shoreditch and its market better. Perhaps that was partially because we didn’t get to see all of Camden Lock due to the fires, but mostly, I just liked how colorful and artistic Shoreditch was. Camden has its own quirky personality – there were some really awesome goth and alternative fashion stores that I could’ve spent hours in – and I loved the canal (I think it’s a canal?) that runs through the area, but it just didn’t quite have the same soul to it.
After spending plenty of money on street food, Amanda and I headed back over to West End for another show – this time, we got tickets for Les Mis, a personal favorite for both of us. By then, both our phones were in the single digits in terms of battery, and we were desperately trying to conserve their failing energies while still using their GPS’s to navigate the unfamiliar area. We actually might’ve spent more time walking around that area and looking in the shops, but once we found the Queen’s Theatre, we were too afraid to stray very far in fear of our phones dying and having no way to navigate ourselves back!
For real though, Les Mis was excellent. I’ve been a fan ever since I watched the DVD recording of the 25th anniversary Royal Albert Hall concert (which I still argue is one of the best casts ever – with the exception of Nick Jonas as Marius), and I know almost every song by heart, including the odd ones, like “Confrontation” and “The Thénardier Waltz of Treachery.” It was wonderful finally getting to see the show live in-person. The cast did a lovely job, and even with our terrible upper circle seats, I was drawn into the world the staging and sets created.
After the show, we walked back to the Tottenham Court station and took our final Cambridge-bound train back to Broxbourne, and from there, our final overpriced cab (7 pounds! For literally a five minute ride!) back to the house.
London’s been amazing, and [insert clichés about never forgetting the adventures I’ve had, being grateful for the opportunity to travel, yadayadayada]. I joke, but I do mean it. I’ve had a lot of fun out here, and I’m sad to be going back.
That’s it for today! I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!
(Don’t let the sun go down on me, amirite?)
Top: Pitaya
Shorts: Abercrombie
Choker: Madewell
L'ensemble du jour 
Drawing skills 😱❤️
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Haha, thank you!
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That tee is soo cute!
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Thanks! I got it at this lovely little boutique in Louisville, i wish there was one closer to my home so I could shop there all the time!
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I have been a fan of Les Mis ever since I saw the movie, but when I saw it the first time, I did not know if I liked it or not so I had to give Les Mis a second chance and so I watched the movie a second chance and knew there was something special about Les Mis. 2013, Les Mis toured to Charlotte, but my family missed it, but it came to my community so we saw that production instead and I also got to usher twice and that was phenomenal. I eventually found myself watching the DVD of the 25th anniversary concert and then eventually found myself seeing Les Mis in London. I am a passionate and obsessed Les Mis fan and now it is touring to Charlotte in December and hoping I will convince my parents to take me.
Crazy timing you know: I first saw the actual stage show in 2013, next time with stage show was 2015, which was also my first time seeing it professionally, and so if I see it this year in December it will be two years so we have a every two years pattern going on year. December is crazy because it was December when I first saw the movie in 2012. Les Mis challenged everything I once knew about musicals. Boy, you know what, I could go on and on about my journey with Les Mis and how it has affected me because it played such a big role in my musical journey and it did change my love of musicals into a passion.
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Wow, thank you for this comment! I love to hear personal stories like this from my readers; they really make my day.
As I mentioned in my blog, my first experience with Les Mis as a stage production was the 25th anniversary DVD that I rented form my library, but I’d actually been hearing the songs for quite some time before on my Broadway Pandora station. I remember “I Dreamed a Dream” being one of my favorites, I think partially because my grandmother had the Susan Boyle cover on a CD and i remember listening to it in her living room when I was a kid.
Flash forward to December 2012, and I went to see the film with a couple of my friends. Whoa boy, were we excited. I remember one of my closer friends at the time, Courtney, and I could sit there and talk about Les Mis for hours. There was even a time in Social Studies class when my teacher made one mention of the French Revolution and we both perked up and immediately made eye contact with each other!
From there, I remember reading an abridged version of the novel as a part of a unit on heroism in my 8th grade English class. My teacher once asked the class who they thought was the mostly likely to act like the Bishop, and take in an ex-con to their home and help them out, and one of my classmates said me. Was that true? I don’t know. But it’s still one of the most flattering compliments I’ve received in my life!
Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to go on so long. But yeah I really love Les Mis and seeing in in London was super awesome 😅
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Les Mis challenged everything I once knew about musicals. I grew up believing all musicals were happy because that was all I knew so when I saw the movie, I was a bit puzzled when I realized it was a tragedy and I realized it was tragic after Fantine died and I was thinking “wait on a sec, Les Mis tragic? and “musicals aren’t supposed to be tragic”. I was so in shock and confusion that I didn’t know how to reason at all and by the end I didn’t know if I like that movie or not or even Les Mis or not. Despite that, I still went straight to reproaching Les Mis. I requested the songs on Pandora and the second time, I did calm down and I realized there is so much more. Not only did I realize musicals are tragic through Les MIs, I realized heartbreak is a musical emotion even though I did know sad was a musical emotion.
Les Mis has almost everything I want in a musical. It has the strong emotional bond I want, it has a positive and negative emotional score, but the main thing it is missing is spectacle and dance but what makes up for it is the how powerful the emotional nature is. In summer of 2015, I read the unabridged book and through my knowledge of the musical, I was able to understand the book and was able to write in songs and mark up characters and it helped me push through the book. Les Mis turned my love of musicals into a passion. See there is so much to say about my Les Mis journey.
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It’s such a great, intricately-woven and fascinating musical! I think it definitely says something to its complexity that we’re able to have such lengthy in-depth conversations about it. I’m with you girl, I’m such a Les Mis fangirl I could probably go on and on!
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My blog defiantly shows that going on and on factor. I did analyze the characters at one point and did write letters to some of the characters and so on. Les Mis actually helped me understand other musicals
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I feel!
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