We woke up early on Saturday morning because we had a full day planned. We each made a little breakfast with the food we bought the night before at the grocery store. Lorien & I enjoyed some smoothies, crepes, & fruit for breakfast. We all took turns getting ready for the day & then got ready to leave. We walked back to the Elephant & Castle train station so we could start our adventure on the tube.
We took the tube to the SOHO neighborhood where all the great shopping is in London. There was an apple store, a microsoft store, & plenty of clothing & jewelry stores. Where did we go? To the Disney Store of course! The Disney Store was on Lorien’s list of “must do’s of London.” We thought the others would hate this, but they ended up loving it too. We spent almost a full hour in the Disney Store. There were 3 huge floors of everything you could ever want. The main floor was stuffed animals, home goods, & adult things. The upper floor was dedicated to all things Star Wars & Marvel, & then the basement was for all the princesses. It was so much fun. We loved looking at everything, posing with the statues of our favorite Disney characters, & loved singing to all the great Disney songs at the top of our lungs. The cast members thought we were great & sang with us. Lorien picked out an adorable yellow sweatshirt with the Disney castle on it for only $15, & then we were on our way.
We walked a little further in SOHO glancing in some of the fancy shops & stopped at Selfridges Department Store. This place was HUGE. Here are a few fun facts about Selfridges Department Store:
Founded in 1909
The Largest Store on Oxford Street with 650,000 feet of retail space
Has been voted the World’s best department store
Has the world’s largest shoe department with more than 100,000 shoes
Selfridges is amazing. It’s HUGE & takes up an entire city block of London. I lost count of how many floors it had, but it was a lot, & everything inside was designer. The window displays were works of art, & we enjoyed looking at each one. We went inside around the perfume & make up area which was massive, & then stopped by the the jewelry counter. We had to get a few pictures next to the Tiffany Jewelry where they sold engagement rings that cost upwards of $450,000.00. We visited the men’s department as well as the women’s department. And because everything inside was designer, there were some “unique” pieces on the mannequins. I had to get a few pictures because they were a little crazy. What made them even crazier was the price tags. Most of the pieces cost well over $2000-$3000. I fell in love with a dress that was $4500. The girls were hilarious. They couldn’t get over some of the outfits. I’ll admit they were strange, but there were a lot of cute things too. We spent about an hour looking at everything & then headed back to the tube so we could make our way to a tea shop for afternoon tea.
On our way we found many beautiful buildings lined with blooming flowers & plenty of red iconic London police boxes which the girls LOVED. We made our way to Boulevard Brasserie (40 Wellington St.). I had scheduled a reservation a few weeks prior to our trip to make sure we had a spot for afternoon tea. Afternoon teas in London can get very expensive . . . like in the 100 pounds per person range. Emily found this one & it was perfect. It was 25 pounds per person, had a wide selection of yummy things, & was a quiet neighborhood with a wonderful staff. They started us off with our choice of tea. Most of us got the raspberry/cranberry tea which was heavenly. I loved it. Lorien ordered a lemon ginger & Claire got classic peppermint. We all LOVED our teas. They were so fresh, warm, & perfect in every way. We each got our own teapot of our tea which equaled out to be about 4 full cups. We drank every drop from every teapot. It was delicious. For the actual luncheon we were brought beautiful 3 tiered racks filled with delightful surprises. My favorite was a little shot glass filled with a passion fruit custard & topped with carmalized meringue. It was the perfect level of sweet vs. sour & I could have eaten it all day. In our 3 tiered racks we had a beautiful selection of scones on the top level (both raisin & plain) as well as clotted cream & a delicious raspberry preserve. The middle tier was our desserts: a rich chocolate tart, some savory carrot cake, & a raspberry macaroon, & the bottom tier was filled with delectable sandwiches. My favorite sandwich had beef slices, pickles, & some amazing dijon mustard sauce. Lorien really liked the cucumber & cream cheese sandwiches. We also enjoyed the egg salad & smoked salmon sandwiches. It was plenty of food to fill us up properly. We enjoyed every second of the tea experience. I’m SO glad we decided to do this. It was one of my favorite parts of our trip.
After enjoying tea, we split up for shows. Lorien’s favorite musical is Wicked, though she’s never actually seen it in person. . . well, technically she has, but she was 4 & doesn’t remember it at all. She knows every word to every song & loves it. I knew I had to take her to see it before we leave Europe. She was SO excited. Her friends decided to go see Phantom of the Opera while we watched Wicked. We hopped back on the tube (after getting a little lost because our GPS in our phones decided to go wonky & spin in circles for 10 minutes), & made our way to the Apollo Victoria Theater to see Wicked. When you walk into the theater, it’s like you’re stepping into the land of Oz itself. Green carpets, green walls, green lights. . . it’s spectacular. We got to see one of Elpheba’s costumes on display as well as several pictures of cast members throughout the hallways. We bought a playbill as a keepsake & made our way to our seats in the stalls. Our tickets were great. You never know what your view will be like when you buy theater tickets, but we did awesome this time. We were in the floor seats in row R so we could see the stage beautifully. It made the show come alive for us. I have seen Wicked 3 times now & I still love it! But watching Lorien experience Wicked for the first time was definitely one of the most amazing moments I’ve had in my life. I shed tears from the opening scene to the closing simply because I was experiencing the magic with her. She cried throughout the entire performance as well. It was such an amazing experience to experience together as mother & daughter. I will never forget it.
When the play ended, we made our way back to the tube. . . we were pros at this point. We hopped on & got off at Piccadilly Circus which is like Times Square in New York. It was a fun area to step out into. We walked around a little bit & found a Hard Rock Cafe where Lorien bought a Hard Rock London pin for her pin collection. Then we called her friends & met up with them for dinner. They loved Phantom of the Opera & the girls just giggled & talked about their play experiences while we walked through Chinatown. There were beautiful red lanterns covering the streets & the smell of Asian food was delicious. We found a nice little street vendor that did Hot Noodles & meats & made our own personal noodle bowls to go. They were delicious. Lorien opted for a satay style peanut sauce for hers, & I got a teriyaki chicken bowl.
We finished up our food & walked around the corner to the Sondheim Theater to watch Les Miserables. Our seats were in almost the identical place our Wicked tickets were, so we were excited & knew we’d have a great view. Nothing could have prepared us for the masterpiece that this show was. I’ve seen Les Miserables on Broadway as well as at local community & school productions, & I’ve never seen anything like it! The London cast was extraordinary in every way. For me, there are 3 characters in the play that have to knock it out of the ballpark: Jean Valjean, Javert, & Eponine. All three were cast masterfully. Jean Valjean had the power & emotion he needed to portray. Javert the most amazing voice & presence on stage. And Eponine was a real treasure. Her vocals were perfect & her emotions made all the difference in the world. The whole production was beautifully done & there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire theater. I feel blessed that I got to experience that particular cast. They were amazing.
After Les Miserables ended, we made our way back to our apartment. It was 11:30 by the time we got off the tube at Elephant & Castle completely worn out & exhausted. As we made our way toward the apartment we noticed a small group of men watching our girls. The girls were walking about ¾ a block ahead of us moms (we were trying to give them some independence & freedom), & one man pointed at them & all the men laughed. The man, who was maybe in his late 20’s, got up & started to follow our girls. He didn’t notice us behind him, but we could see him looking our girls up & down as he followed them. Jennica & I noticed it immediately & almost went into “Mama-Bear” mode, but just watched ready to pounce if we needed to. The girls continued to laugh, dance, & chat without ever noticing there was a strange man following them. We quickened our step until we were right on the man’s ankles when he noticed us eyeing him & our girls. He had fear in his eyes as he quickly turned & walked away from where our girls were. That was a wake up call for me. When we got back to the apartment, we asked the girls if they noticed that they were being followed. They had no idea. We hated to scare them a little bit, but we wanted to bring to their attention what had happened so that they’d be a little more careful & observant of their surroundings when they were out & about, especially now that they were adults. They were a little scared after that & they asked a LOT of questions about what to do in those situations which made for a great adult discussion together. I was actually really grateful we got to sit down & talk about it. We went to bed around 1:30am & decided to swap beds a little bit. Lorien slept with Claire on the sofa bed & Emily switched over to my room since the sofa bed wasn’t so great the night before. We all slept like logs. It was wonderful.
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