My other most memorable Christmas gift/trip was in December 2001, a trip to London! My niece and sister and I went (the prices were very low) specifically so that my niece could see her very favorite singing group STEPS in concert. They're a British group whose gimmick is to have simple choreography so that all of their fans can dance along with them...and they did! They never really made it big in the US, but my niece got their CDs from England and fell in love with them. We saw them twice in two days (in the same venue).
We also went to Kew Gardens and walked around London quite a bit. We took a couple of walking tours and both times our tour guide was this guy named Tom who was very nice. We went to the Tower of London and on our own, we walked along Fleet Street to where Sweeney Todd's tonsorial parlour was supposed to be! We also stayed in a hotel a block from South Lambeth (almost a
Me and My Girl reference!). We went into this church that had a section the back where most people can't go. It held a big book with names of all the Americans who died in England during World War II. Because we were Americans, one of the nuns let us go back and see it. It was quite impressive and very moving.
We saw the first two acts of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Brendan Fraser (very nice to look at
), Frances O'Connor and Ned Beatty as Big Daddy. I can't remember why we had to leave, but we did. On other nights, we saw
Starlight Express (which was going to close in January 2002) and
Kiss Me, Kate with the WSMA (that's the "World's Sexiest Man Alive" in HHW lingo
) Brent Barrett, Marin Mazzie, Michael Berresse and Nancy Anderson. I got pictures and autographs (but not of Brent...he hadn't left the theater by the time I had to leave. Dammit
).
