London again

I am a lucky person because of my work, without that, I could have never travelled so much. Sometimes I don’t realise it because of all this responsibility and planning and taking care of so many things and people. But despite that, it has brought me together with lots of nice people in different countries and let me see lots of great places. And this year I have decided that I start to like it more again because it keeps me focused, gives me something to look ahead and doesn’t let me think too much about my feelings and such kind of stuff that I am not able to change.

The first time I visited London in 1997 because of my job in tourism and we visited a big Tourism Fair and spent there a marvellous week. As I had attended an English biased school in the totally Soviet country and all my knowledge had come from my students’ books it was like a fairy tale come true and I felt like stepped into a student book all this week. But besides all these tourist attractions I got my first musical experience with “Cats” and that’s where it started.

The second time took very long and in 2014 I went back with my English class students, who were also my colleagues from our school and this time I got my second musical “We Will Rock You”, just some months before it stopped. Wow, that was something really great and I knew that I must go on and keep going.

And that’s what I did. I just worked myself into it, and as a coordinator of international relations at vocational school, it wasn’t so hard. I found a partner school in London and added London to our students’ exchange and now I have sent about 30 students to practice in different companies and it has given me a chance to visit London more often. Yes, it is work and yes, it was also because it’s quite easy to arrange a quick weekend visit to Dublin but it hasn’t worked out like that as much as I thought. But it has worked pretty well to see some more musicals. It’s good that they have got day-time shows when the students are working and it’s always possible to get a ticket to some of them. So, for now, I have also seen “Mamma Mia”, “Wicked”, “Matilda”, “The 42nd Street” and in this January “Dreamgirls”.

And walking back from the theatre I also took some photos of dark London full of lights. And of course, I wanted to pass again the theatre where they play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and just beside it found a house with a sign “The spice of life”. That’s exactly what the musicals are for me – the spice of life, and I need some spice in my life.

 

Once

I had never seen the movie or not even heard about the musical before Sean’s sister went to see it and I started to notice the ads on the buses. That’s quite strange because I really like musicals and also the movies which are full of music and that’s why I try to get myself acquainted with news about musicals. Somehow I managed to miss that one and even before we started to watch the movie I didn’t actually realise that it was happening in Dublin and it was a love story between a Chech girl and an Irish guy. If I had known that before I had probably watched the movie much before. But it’s always nice to discover that there are still a lot of nice things that you can do or see or read for the first time and that makes them much more special.

OnceWe started with the movie and two days later went to see the musical and I loved them both. I really loved the movie because I always love the movies which have been set in Dublin and it’s so nice to recognise all these places. It came out that I had heard some of the songs and I was very happy for the tickets that we got for a present. And this was my first time to go to the theatre in Dublin 🙂

Of course, I couldn’t miss the possibility to go on the stage, where they had their bar which was open before the show and during the intermission. And the show was really brilliant – all that music, cast and the whole stage which actually was the same all the time but with small details, they managed to change the places and made you believe that it took place in several different locations. All the cast was really amazing – I was even thinking that some of them must really be of Chech origin because they played the Chech music so authentically and even talked with an accent but looking them up from the program it seemed that they were all Irish. We both enjoyed it a lot and as the Cork people who were sitting behind us and told that they were doing it for the third time already, I’d love to do it once more one day.

Adams Family

The fabulous school musical at Belvedere College with unbelievable talented children. It was absolutely not less good as any other musical in London and I was so happy that I got this opportunity to go to see it. Just wish that once I can go and see the one where Little Sean is playing as well. Actually, I would like to see them all, I just like such kind of school performances so much – just ask me or give me the tickets 😀

The Fiddler on the Roof

I found the  version from “The Fiddler on the Roof” from 1989 when Helgi Sallo played Golde. This time, in 2016, just after her 75th birthday some days ago, she was the Matchmaker and her daughter Liina was playing Golde. It was good that I had time to give some guidelines about the familiar relations of these two actresses, so it was interesting to Sean to watch them together on the stage. He noticed the things that I didn’t and as the musical had Eglish subtitles up on the wall and as he has seen this musical lots of time, and as we watched the movie together at Christmas time, it was easy for him to catch up. And I am happy that he liked it – but the musical was really well done, with such a good choreography, decorations, and good actors that it was impossible not to like it.

After the musical, we had a light dinner in a Babulja cafe near the Opera House. Babulja is a Russian food cafe and has also a restaurant part, but we had to drive back home to Haapsalu and so we chose the cafe. We tried seafood, plinis, which are small Russian pancakes and of course the Pavlova cake, which was the most delicious Pavlova, I have ever tried. It was so tasty, that I even forgot to take a photo 😀