The week before that starting 4^th jan, so its more than a week but that’s when I got to England (if this seems a little out of order its cos i wrote it from back to front then copied it into the blog.  its works chronolgoically but may be a little jolted trying to read smoothly)

I was suppose to stay with one of my friends from camp when I got to England but she worked nights and lived with her parents so I kinda thought it might be a little weird staying with her so I phoned ujp the aussie friend id made in sicily – Raquel.  It was all pretty easy, she shares a place with 3 other guys, Id get my own key and she lived right next to Walthamstow!!!!!!  So that was exciting, the home of east 17 baby!!

When I first arrived Raquel was working so I sat and waited for her at one of the stations for 6hrs!!!  I was gonna walk around for a bit but my feet were killing me and I had a while bunch of bags so I walked around and outside the station for a bit – saw the theatre where wicked is showing, found out adam Garcia was playing the lead male role role!!!! Decided that I had to go see whilst I was in London.  Then went back inside and read my book for a few hours. 

The next morning I met up with one of my uni friends form trento – katy and we did a whole bunch of tourist stuff, Trafalgar square, houses of parliament, Westminster abbey, picadilly circus, covent gardens and the british museum.  I always forget about htem useums cos theyre not really my thing and I get bored with them pretty quickly, fortunately katey is exactly the same as me, we even get bored at around the same time so ive decided I It was lways like doingthe cultural stuff with her.  It was pretty good at the british museum cos we got to see the rosetta stone and the mummified body of Cleopatra!  We had heaps of fun cos she hadn’t really done the touristy thing either so she was taking photos, buying postcards and a couple of cheap souvenirs as well.  We met up with her sis at the end of the day then I went back to raquels. 

I stopped in a supermarket and spent about and hour  just staring at all the different food.  I miss the variety so much.  I bought weetbix, teriyaki sauce, salad dressing, jelly, peanut butter, milo a couple of other packet sauces, sliced white bread!  I was having a ball.

The next day it rained and I had to wash my hair so I spent most of the day in front of the telly.  I didn’t think I was really wasting time cos watching telly in English was a big treat for me on holidiays. I did kinda get hooked on celb big brother whilst I was there, it was awful having to leave it behind. In the afternoon I went for a walk to Walthamstow central (also trying to find somewhere to get a key cut) not the prettiest place around but no as awful as I thought itd be.

Sunday Raquel had the day off so we went to see the tower of London.  One of her housemates works for the audio guide desk so we managed to get free entry (saving us £16) and free audio guides.  That was great!  They were really good audio tours so it made it really interesting and we took our time walking around.  The crown jewels were pretty impressive, there was this whole thing going on with prince will and his girlfriend while I was in England, I think cos it was her birthday some time that week and the media were pretty sure that he was gonna pop the question sometime soon so the paparazzi were constantly follwing the girl  around and there was all this talk of her one day being the queen so it kinda gave a little more meaning to  all the jewels and coronation stuff we saw. 

I managed to get in touch with tiff that afternoon so I met up with her and we went to the hillsong church over in London!  It was amazing!  It was held in the dominion theatre, where they play we will rock you during the week.  There were so many people and it was amazing to go to a church like that after not having been for 8 months.  Tiff is a ctually living in London now and has managed to get into the music team on in the church so now shell be playing bass up on stage in front of the hundreds of people there. How exciting.

I arranged to meet up with her the next day aswell.  We walked around a bit more, looked at a few more shops, tried to figure out plans for the rest of the week and figure out what she was going to do work wise as shed been there 2 months and still didn’t have a job.  I think we ended up going to hyde park, and harrods then we went to go meet a friend of hers who was leaving that day.  We were suppose to go to the globe theatre with her friend but we got there too late and didn’t have time to go.  Tiff decided to go help her friend get to the airport whilst I decided to go see a show on broadway.  I caught the bus to Victoria station first to buy tickets for wicked.  I know you can get cheap half price tickets easily enough but none of the places had floor seats left and I wanted floor seats so I payed almost full price for tickets for the Thursday then made my way over to leiscter square and bought cheap tickets for we will rock you.  

It was quite a good musical, not as good as I thought itd be, the sets and costumes were no where near as good as I thought theyd be and I was a little annoyed that every song was sung like a show stopping number even when it wasn’t.  the acting and singing was amazing though and I managed to move from my cheap seats right up the back of the upper level to the 3^rd row of the upper level, im pretty sure they were full price class a seating so I was happy.

The next day tiff had to try and look for work so we didn’t do all that much.  We met up in the afternoon, found and internet café then went for dinner and afterwards bought the cheapest tickets possible for avenue q.  once again though we got upgraded and got moved from restricted view seats on the 3^rd level to pretty good seats on the 2^nd level and seeing as it was a tiny theatre it was a great view.  For those that don’t know avenue q uses puppets like the muppets but is definitely an adult show with songs like “everyones a little bit racist” and “it sucks to be me” its hilarious though.  I admit I was a little wary going to see it (hence why we bought the cheapest tickets - £10) but it had won the tony award for best musical last year so I wanted to see what the fuss was about.  I actually think it was my favourite musical out of the 3 I saw on west end.  

Now were up to Wednesday . . . tiff and I got up early and haded out of London to oxford.  Oh my gosh it was so pretty.  Im not a big fan of London and as that was all I had seen of England, I didn’t think much of it as a country but oxford changed my view altogether.  It was such a pretty and historic town.   We got off the bus at the church, university where they film bits of harry potter then walked around for a bit.  There are lots of old buidings which are all part of the uni and the town centre is so clean with lots of good shops.  We found the old bar where j.r.r. tolkien and c.s. lewis used to sit and discuss heir books, so tiff and I bought a drink each and sat there in that very room for a little while then went for a walk down to the river.  The whole town had a very relaxed atmosphere and lots of gorgeous uni ppl.  

Thursday was rainy again and I had to wash my hair again.  Raquel didn’t have a hair dryer and in that weather it takes my hair a whole day to dry, even then its not totally dry and going out with wet hair is just too cold!  So I stayed in.  I went out later that night to go see wicked.  It was strange cos ive read the book, I have the cd so I know the story pretty well and I had pretty good pictures in my head of what it would look like so it just filled in a few of the blanks.  There were a few aussies in the cast, 2 of the 3 leads were aussie plus a couple in the chorus, the lady who plays professor sprout in harry potter was also in it.  My main concern was that already having the original American cast recording of the music I have gotten used to the songws being sung that way, ive especially fallen in love with the voice of the girl who played elphaba the wicked witch of the west.  that actress, idina menzel had actually come to west end and had been playing that same role for the first 3months of the London production of the musical and had only left on the 30^th dec, 12 days earlier so I was so upset that id missed seeing her play that role but the English girl who had taken over the role did an amazing job and so I was happy enough.  

My last day in London, I had a few bits of running around to do.  I went into the local shops, including one of the toy stores where there were heaps of sylvanians!  And I stupidly went into cash converters and bought a couple of dvds.  I met up with tiff a bit later and we went out to Chinese for dinner.  She made me realise how picky I am with my food, I didn’t think I was that bad as im used to my mum who is 10times pickier than anyone else I know, tiff agreed with me on that which took me by surprise cos I keep forgetting that she worked with my mum for a few months, its strange!    Then we parted ways n I went back to raquels to pack.

The next morning I was up early to catch the bus to the airport, I was a good thing too cos they were checking bags and limits and were being very particular about it all, especially with hand luggage – 1 bag only so even if you had a handbag it would have to go in the other bag.  My friends had told me it was only a 5k limit so I thought I would be horribly over weight with my hand luggage so I took a detour to the bathrooms where I put on everything I could – 2 pairs of tights, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 skirts, 4 tops and 5 jackets!  I made it through ok, I think only cos I managed to pick a line where there weren’t any ppl making you weigh your hand luggage and that was only a very brief moment cos they came back just after I went through.  I later realised that I would have been allowed 10k hand luggage so I probably would have been fine!

I got back to trento ok and had a welcome back dinner with the other aussie girls, crashed the night in the apartment the moved into my new apartment.