A year ago, a friend and I spent a couple of weeks in Europe (Italy, Austria, Germany – if I ever get my year summary done from last year, I’ll tell you all about it*, which woke up my travel bug that had been lying dormant for years. So when one of my favorite actresses revealed that she was going to be starring in Dreamgirls in the West End and it would be opening around my birthday – well, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I asked for a couple of weeks off when we were making our schedules back in May and a month or so ago, I bought the plane ticket (for a ridiculously good price, thanks Brexit?).

So far, the plan is to meet up with a friend from Sweden for the weekend and to explore London and we’ll see Amber Riley in Dreamgirls on Monday. We’ll be staying in Notting Hill, in a very cozy and cute little hotel. She’ll leave on Tuesday…

And that’s as far as I’ve planned. I’m hoping to somehow get tickets to Harry Potter and the Curse Child, despite the mixed reviews, but tickets are pretty nonexistent. I’d like to get out of the city and explore the areas nearby, but I’ll be doing it by train and/or bus, so I really need to figure that out this week. I sort of have a hankering to go to Wales. And I’m toying with trying to make this an “Unofficial Jane Austen tour” or a “Unofficial Harry Potter tour” ala my trip to Hawaii and Lost (which was so much fun). I’m half tempted to rent a car – I did that in Germany – but this would be driving on the wrong side of the road with the wrong driver’s side and I’m not sure I’d make it out of England unscathed.

On the other hand, there’s an increasingly likelihood that after next Tuesday, I won’t ever want to return, so maybe getting closer acquaintance with the UK medical system wouldn’t be a bad idea.

For those of you who have been to London or the UK, any advice?

*it’s actually done, I just wanted to add pictures to make it more engaging. And it really needed 2014’s year summary done because they blended together at the end, so I’m working on that one. But it’s harder to remember what I did 2 years ago.