On our own in London - Dec 29, 2012

On Saturday, the 29th we were on our own.  We'd each been given all-day passes for the Underground (Tube) for that day and decided we'd head for Madame Tussauds.  We'd been there in 1993 when we came  to England with my parents and wanted to see what had changed.

We left our hotel and walked down to the Waterloo Station and caught the Bakerloo line over to Baker Street.  We're pretty much country hicks when it comes to big cities and it was very nice to find helpful people in the station. They pointed us in the right direction and we came up within a block of Madame Tussauds.

As we approached the building trying to figure out where we needed to go to get tickets, a gentleman who worked there approached and asked how many were in our group. I told him two and he said to get into the pre-bought ticket line as the normal line to buy tickets was very long.  He said to mention his name when we got up to the front; I did and we had no problems at all.  We were directed to a ticket seller and, while there, I also purchased tickets for the London Eye. I'd decided that my fear of heights was not going to prevent me from going up there.

Madame Tussauds has changed a lot in almost twenty years (big surprise.) I don't remember it being two stories tall and I definitely don't remember all the walking we had to do.  I do remember that in 1993, the first figure we came to was Telly Savalas, this time it was Sean Connery.  And although I took lots of pictures I only scrapbooked ten.

One of the neatest things was the last exhibit, actually a show.  It featured the Avengers (super heroes not Mrs. Peel and John Steede) fighting for our world.  But it was in 4D.  It was a good show and I enjoyed both the visual 3D effects and the physical 4D effects.

After we finished with Madame Tussauds it was time for lunch.  We found a pizza place where we could use our vouchers. Their door was open so naturally I went in.  They gave us a seat but told us the cooks wouldn't start cooking for ten minutes.  That was okay with us.  At least we weren't standing in the rain. The pizza was good and we shared a hot-fudge sundae with brownie pieces on top for dessert.

Lunch done we headed back to the Tube and came back to the hotel. We ate in the hotel bar and by 6:30 were on a bus taking us to the London Palladium to see the musical, Scrooge.  John and I really enjoyed the show. The lead singer who played Scrooge had a great singing voice and the show stayed true to A Christmas Carol. From the audience's reaction I gather he was well known in the theatrical world.

Back at the hotel shortly after ten to be up to go on our next excursion to Windsor Castle at 8:30. I put 8,521 steps on my pedometer on Saturday.