Picture it: Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre (now the Sony Centre), early March 1988. A seven year-old girl takes a seat near the front of the theatre’s balcony section, trying to figure out why she had to get all dressed up to sit for hours of this Shakespeare stuff instead of being allowed to stay at home and play. But then that little girl gets a glimpse of the night’s playbill. Wait…is that Captain Von Trapp on the cover? He’s in this thing? This night is …
Category: London
Most people, if they’re lucky, fall in love at least once in their lifetime. I, for better or worse, have fallen head over heels for a city. It was surely love at first sight but I played hard to get, waiting nearly 25 years after our first meeting to move in and commit. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t keenly feel our quarter-century separation. How did I cope? With a crap load of distracting television, film and music, that’s how. But I went …
…not, strictly speaking, me. But it’s all fine. I’ve been in London now for just over a week and I’m feeling as at home as I’ve ever felt. It’s the natural fit I’d assumed it would be – at least it is so far. The weather has been rainy but hovering around the 10 degree mark, so absolutely no complaints from this ex-pat girl. The week kicked off (very, very early in the morning) with watching Hollywood’s biggest night…the 87th …
Day Three of the Best Trip Ever ™ dawned bright but chilly. We were not deterred as we made our way to South Kensington for a spot of shopping followed by a bit of history. The first stop of our Friday fun-day had my mother’s eyes alight with joy…but who could blame her, with the joy that is Sophie Conran’s flagship store, The Conran Shop. A brief walk from the Tube station, the store was hard to miss with its seasonally-bright …
Now that our accommodations had been properly Christmas-ified, it was time to head out and get our London on. The first stop? My must-visit spot of each and every visit, the National Portrait Gallery. I love every corner of this place but can’t really explain why…but coming here feels a bit like coming to visit old friends. And considering the age of some of the paintings, “old” is somewhat of an understatement. As always, I shot right for the top floor …
The Best Trip Ever (TM) is now officially underway. Though the often onerous flight from Pearson to Heathrow was relatively smooth and seemed mercifully shorter than usual (with the added bonus of sitting behind Eddie Marsan), the resulting hour-long queue at UK Border Control was not. Though the bonus of waiting forever to clear customs is that by the time you reach baggage claim (or reclaim, as they term it here), your bags have usually beat you there…and ours had. …
In just over one week, I’ll be (attempting) to snuggle down in my little corner of Air Canada’s Economy Plus seating, hurtling through the air at 30,000 feet, on my way to spend the holidays in my favourite city. That’s right. This blogger is headed across the pond to London-town for three weeks of Christmas markets, holiday lights, cozy pub evenings, museums and galleries, side train trips to Cambridge and Bletchley Park, and general Christmas-y chaos. In the past two …
T-minus two weeks until I head to London to experience my second “Dickensian Christmas,” so naturally it’s time to take a look back at the first. Check out the photos below or click on the an image to view as a gallery…
As the countdown begins to Christmas in London 2014 ™, it’s time to take a look back at my trip from two years ago – my first visit to the motherland in a decade. Stay tuned for a nostalgic glimpse back at Christmas in London 2012 and at my last visit from March/Easter 2013. In the meantime, click an image to view the gallery below!