Ben Crowder

Friday, 2.20.09

As our plane prepared to land, I began to doubt the wisdom of getting only an hour of sleep on the flight, but it was too late to do anything about it. Besides, running on empty is part of the adventure, right? (Wrong.)

I pulled out my mapbook of London and started trying to figure out my route once I landed, since I needed to drop my suitcase off at the hostel and then book it down to the Apollo to get in line for front-row Wicked tickets. The guy across the aisle saw the book and asked if I needed help figuring anything out. Turns out he was a farmer from Scotland (but with zero traces of the accent — I would have thought he was from London) who’d been visiting friends in Texas. Nice fellow.

England has you fill out landing cards if you’re a foreigner, so I filled mine out and then waited as we dropped altitude and pulled into Heathrow Airport. I’d had all sorts of preconceptions of England, and I knew that many of them would end up being false, because that’s just the life cycle of a preconception. No, London was about to burst out of my imagination to land solidly in my reality. And that gave me goosebumps. I mean, this whole island was just names on a map to me till now.

My first impression when I got off the plane was that Heathrow is cold. Did they believe in indoor heating? I wasn’t sure. After getting drilled by the border guy on whether I knew anyone in England — I had a friend in Cambridge — and how I knew him and what he did and all sorts of other questions I had no idea how to answer, and after picking up my suitcase, I set off in search of the Heathrow Connect. (I’d originally planned to just take the Tube, since it would be cheaper, but it also would take around half an hour longer and I was in a hurry to get to the Apollo for those tickets.)

Turns out you have to take the Heathrow Express from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3, and then you switch to the Heathrow Connect. Most of the ride (all, maybe? I can’t remember) was aboveground, and as I watched the buildings go by, I realized that the England of my imagination was old England. This was modern England, a rather different creature.

After getting off the Connect at Paddington Station, I bought a seven-day Travelcard (which they put on an Oyster card, a very convenient credit-card sized card that you can use as your Tube pass) and took the Tube to Warren Street Station. I climbed out the stairs and took it in: London!

Checking my map to make sure I was headed in the right direction, I found my way to the YMCA Indian Hostel, dropped off my suitcase in their cloakroom, then returned to the Warren Street Station and took the Tube to Leicester Square. Again reorienting myself (you come out of a Tube station and it’s hard to remember which direction is which — no nice Utah mountains reminding you which way is east), I followed the map past Leicester Square, up Wardour Street, and along Shaftesbury Avenue to the Apollo Theatre.

There were no signs for Wicked.

I looked everywhere, but the Apollo was apparently playing some show with James McAvoy that was decidly not Wicked, and I saw nothing in sight that even hinted that the show was ever there. Had it closed and nobody has told me? But I’d bought a ticket for it — it had to be open! I wandered back towards Leicester Square and sat down outside of a Pret a Manger to figure out what I was going to do next.

Wait, I told myself. Maybe you should check the confirmation page. I did, and it said “Apollo Victoria Theatre.” Apollo Victoria. Were there two Apollos? Before I left for London, I’d printed out this “London Theatreland Map,” and so I pulled it out and sure enough, there was an Apollo Victoria Theatre listed as well as the Apollo Theatre. Blast. Wrong theater. Now, the theater box office opens at 10:00 to release 24 front-row tickets; it was 9:25, and I had no idea how long the line would be, but it was a safe bet that I wouldn’t be the first in line.

And here’s where we come to the wonderful awesomeness that is the London Underground. I raced back to Leicester Square Station, took the Piccadilly line to Green Park, switched to Victoria line, and ended up at Victoria Station by 9:40. This is in a city I’d never been to before, mind you. Luckily the Apollo Victoria is just outside the station, so I hopped into line and crossed my fingers. It worked: I got the very last front-row ticket (A 13), on the rightmost edge of the row. Mission accomplished. :)

Now that the rush was over, I took the Tube back to Warren Street and returned to my hostel to check in. My key didn’t work at first, though. One of the cleaning girls tried hers, and it didn’t work either. Finally another girl tried her key and it suddenly worked, and after that mine worked, too. Weird.

The room was small, divided into two rooms with two beds in each. In the outer room there were four luggage compartment closets with locks, and luckily they were big enough to hold a suitcase (mine, anyway). I stashed my luggage away and set off to find food.

Walking along the streets, I felt like I’d just moved to a new area on my mission, except I didn’t have a companion and I wasn’t preaching the gospel. And it wasn’t sweat-drippingly hot. (I was a missionary in Thailand for two years.)

From my map I could tell that the nearby Tottenham Court Road was a fairly major street, so that seemed like the place to go. Sure enough, just as I turned the corner I saw a Coffee Republic and a Pret a Manger. Ate a quick breakfast at Coffee Republic, found an ATM to get some cash (since not every place would be able to take credit cards, I was guessing), and then went back to my hostel room for a nap.

I was the only person in the room so far as I could tell and I hoped it would stay that way. The dorm rooms were cheaper (£25/night), which was why I’d gone with them, but the idea of sleeping in a room with strangers kind of weirded me out. Chalk another one up for my runaway imagination. Also, the bathroom on our floor (which was right outside my room) was under construction, so I had to trek upstairs to the one on the third floor.

My nap was only supposed to last an hour. Five and a half hours later, I woke up, seriously out of it. London? I’m in London? Holy smokes. My stomach was telling me it was hungry, so I pulled out the map and tried to see if I could find a good place to eat. Coming out of a nap like that left me in a dream-like state again, which was disconcerting, but luckily it didn’t last long once I got out on Tottenham Court Road again. My travel guide said there was this Thai place called Joi’s not too far down the road, so I walked to where I thought it was supposed to be. It wasn’t there. I kept walking and kept looking but before long was down far enough that I knew I had to have passed it, so I found some hole-in-the-wall café and got a sandwich instead.

There are so many people in London. It reminded me of Bangkok almost every step of the way — not because London and Bangkok the same (they’re not), but I began realizing that most big cities share more in common than you’d expect. Or at least than I’d expect. :) Provo’s great, but it’s small and even when you’re on BYU campus in between campus, there still aren’t that many people out — not in comparison.

Oh, the other thing is that waiting for the light to cross the street is rare. As soon as there’s a gap in the traffic, people cross. It’s surprisingly liberating, actually — you have to be careful so you don’t get squashed by a double-decker, but it’s fun and great for impatient folk like me who want to get where we’re going as soon as we can. (Clarification: I do enjoy walking slowly sometimes, breathing in the experience. But most of the time my legs speed up to full throttle unless I consciously force them to take it easy. I think I was born a fast walker.)

Sitting there in the café after finishing my sandwich, I did what any self-respecting writer does in a café: I wrote. (Started a short story that felt decidedly British. In fact, I have to say that as soon as I arrived in London, my internal dialogue completely switched to a British accent. I kept hoping I wouldn’t open my mouth to find some obviously fake English accent come out; I’m somewhat of an accent chameleon, where I find myself imitating whoever I’m speaking with.

It was at this point that I also realized my watch no longer kept the time. That’s what you get for buying a $15 watch, I guess.

When the time drew near, I headed back over to the Apollo Victoria to see Wicked. My response? Wow. I mean, I was on the edge and so half the time I couldn’t see the actors on the stage (because other actors were in front of them), but even so, wow. Great show. Was it my favorite ever? No. In fact, to be totally honest, I prefer musicals like Jane Eyre, but I still really liked Wicked. When I got back to my room I felt kind of homesick, which surprised me, but then I realized that I was homesick for Wicked and not actually for him. (I don’t know what that says about me. :P) Anyway, the show was a lot of fun. I’d bought the soundtrack years ago and listened to it dozens upon dozens of times, so I knew the music, or so I thought — turns out I’d mixed up a lot of the storyline in my head. (I thought Elphaba and Boq were a thing, for example. And I didn’t realize Glinda sings the “I’m Not That Girl” reprise. Stuff like that.) (And yes, I’m listening to the Wicked soundtrack as I write this part. :))

After the show ended I took the Tube back home. When I got off at Warren Street and walked home, the streets were almost deserted, and for a few brief minutes I felt a little scared. That was the last time I felt scared during the whole trip, however. There are so many people in London that it’s hard to feel unsafe.

Back in my room, with still no roommates in sight, I thought about upgrading to a private suite. (Mostly because I was worried about my stuff getting stolen, I think. And because I had no idea if/when I would get roommates. I’m not very good at handling suspense. :)) I tried to get data roaming to work so I could start twittering, but for a while I couldn’t get it up, and that feeling — being disconnected from everybody — sunk into my heart for a bit. I didn’t mind being on my own; I spend a lot of time alone, actually. But being cut off from everyone back home? That was hard. But then I finally figured it out and was able to twitter away to my heart’s content. And then I hit the sack.

To be continued in the next day or two when I can write up the rest…