The trip part 6

The final few days in the UK really went by terribly quick. We went into central London to conduct a military assault on our credit card balance. First stop was the half price theatre ticket booth in Leister Square. We wanted to see Wicked, and quite honestly, I highly recommend this option. We had looked online the night before and A-Class tix were in the order of £60 each, which with the way the Aussie dollar was nose diving, equated to about $5,000 each. But anyway, after going to the booth we walked away with two A-Class tix for the price of one. Bonus! Then it was shopping time. I mean, people in Melbourne think they have the best shopping? Come on, who are you kidding?? Even country towns in England have a better selection of clothes than the tripe served up at somewhere like Myers. So anyway, Miss R and I successfully wore out the magnetic strip on the back on the credit card. That night we went to see Wicked at the Victoria Apollo. Yes, strictly not the West End, but damn handy to Victoria station and the train home. As far as musicals go, it was very very good, and I'm not a big musical fan by any stretch of the imagination. The good thing about the Victoria Apollo, and it's only a small thing, but it means a great deal, is the fact that as it was one of the more recent theatres built, so the seats aren't built for midget sized people. The next day we headed back down to Brighton on the train. This time we left in good time so I could show Miss R around the place a bit. After dawdling through the North Laine district yet again, we found ourselves in the more touristy Brighton Lanes area. Now, I really cannot for the life of me remember this or not, but quite frankly there were jewellery shops everywhere. It was a dazzling array of silver and gold, and suffice to say Miss R was drooling at every opportunity. We then made our way to the famous Brighton Pier, truly the epitome of tourist tackiness. The worst thing was that the wind was blowing an absolute gale and the thoughts of a pleasant lunch eating fish and chips on the pier were not to be. Anyway, from there we made our way back to Grandma's for what would be my last visit. It was bittersweet, truly it was. It was just so nice to see her again, yet being the last time on the trip was very very sad. I said that we'd be back for her 100th birthday, and you can mark that in your diaries right now folks; December 2010. Our final full day in London, and MIss R and headed up to Camden Market, I had been looking forward to this all trip to be honest, but I was sorely let down. It's funny how your brain plays tricks on you isn't it? I seem to remember things a bit differently up there, yet, all of a sudden every second shop was selling tourist tat and the in between shops were selling punk fashions. Not exactly my bag. Once in the markets, maybe if you're into second hand clothes, then it might be the place for you, but since I've kinda grown out of that then the attraction had kinda worn off. Luckily Miss R and I found a kindly suitcase shop where we had to buy a second suitcase in order to transport our copious amounts of shopping on the plane home with us. From there we decided, as our last touristy thing, that we'd go to the Natural History Museum. In the end we only found ourselves with only 90 minutes, which is simply not enough time to do the place justice. And that was England. I swear, you could spend weeks holidaying there and still not see or do everything you want to. I guess that is like anywhere else too I suppose. And then it was onto Barcelona......