After a total of 8 hours on a plane, we finally made it to London. The thing about planes is, they are incredibly hard to sleep on, so hardly anyone got proper rest for the upcoming day ahead of us. Of course, we were all excited, so it was a little easier to forget all that.

The customs line was short, and we all got through without a problem.

Once we got outside we experienced our first taste of the famous English Weather. It was cool, and breezy in the middle of May and I loved every minute of it. Then we hopped on a bus, or as it’s referred to here, a coach, and saw everything from the airport to our hotel. This view wasn’t much, but it was definitely cool to see all the houses and, you know, normal things one would expect from a city.

We dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and since it was later than planned, skipped the walking tour and just took the tube to Covent Garden. We got to see the St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a whole bunch of shops and entertainers.

We had free time, and since we were all hungry, my friends and I took a trip to Tesco, the British equivalent of Walmart, or Publix. I bought a bottle of water and Kinder chocolate, which is super hard to find in America by the way, and was rather content. I’d eat properly at dinner. Which is actually what came next.

We went to this fancy restaurant and had a three course meal, with the main course being fish and chips. Unfortunately, I had to skip dessert to make it to Les Miserables.

I’m a huge fan of the movie, and book, so it was a show I had to see live. Plus, I knew the current Marius, Rob Houchen, from the Room 9 Advent Calendar videos that he and Anton Zetterholm had made, and he was too precious for this world.

The videos I’d seen were mainly Christmas Carols, and man Rob can sing. He’s tiny in comparison to a lot of guys, so wouldn’t expect his voice to be so, well, big, but it was. Not only that, but his acting was phenomenal. Since Marius doesn’t come in till mid-show, I spotted him in a few minor roles, and let me just say that even though none of them had lines, there were certain nuances that made those characters feel like proper characters. He was just amazing. The whole cast was amazing. The whole show was amazing.

I could go on for hours about how much I loved it, but instead I’ll just leave one of my favorite pictures of Rob, so you can put a face to the name.