Second Star to the Right: Children are Maggots

Despite the title of my blog, I actually like children. Understanding shall come eventually so read on dear friends! Today I got to meet a lot of different people that led to quite an interesting day. There were the Scottish people that were quite revolting, the great French man that came to our rescue, the cute Asian girl that cheered for us, the English man that enforced justice and a bunch of students from the US that were having quite a day. Let’s get going!

Today we were given free reign again, and we took advantage of that! In the morning Paul, Karley, Valerie, Emilee, Sarah and I woke up bright and early so that we could go and get tickets to Matilda the Musical. We heard from various people, magazines and reviews that it’s the new hit in London, having won a record number of Olivier awards. The show has been selling like crazy, but they do a really cool promotion where they save eight tickets for students that are between the ages of 16 and 25. However, they usually go really fast and you have to be at the theater first thing to get the tickets. We left the center at 7:30 and made it to the theater around 8:00, getting ourselves a spot in the line. There were 16 tickets available today (8 for the matinee and 8 for the evening show). We had gotten there and found that our group brought the queue to 17 people. We were all chilling out and waiting until the box office opened at ten that morning when four people came and walked in front of the doors to the box office. We kept glancing over at them, but we weren’t quite sure what they were doing. They weren’t in the queue but we could tell that they were waiting for something. These were the Scottish people.

As we were all there the amazing French man walked over to these people and told them that we had organized a queue, and asked them to go behind the Americans because we were there first. The Scottish people said that they were fine waiting where they were. Well ten minutes before the box office was about to open they walked to the front of the line and would not move. We all started arguing with them, and apparently they thought that they had rights to the front of the line because they took it. There is no “official” queue and it belonged to whoever put themselves in front. Needless to say we were all a little angry with them. We were nervous because since we were at right at the 16 line we would be the ones out of the tickets. Fortunately everyone else in the line stood up for us, even though they would still be getting their tickets. Mr. French man and all of his friends stood up for us. The box office opened and we explained the situation to the worker and he let the rest of us through and we managed to get the student tickets for £5. It started off as a frustrating situation as we saw some people acting selfishly, but I had to smile at all the people that were also so kind to help us out. Since we technically hit the 17^th mark, we had to buy a ticket at full price (£65) but split the cost between us all, which was still much cheaper. Hooray for justice and right. The worker laughed and told us, “We are English. We invented the queue. What did they think they were doing?”

After that little ordeal we were tired and a bit shaky too, so we made our way back to the center where we had lunch and watched Olympics in the kitchen. We had leftover chocolate cake from dinner yesterday! I even managed to squeeze in some laundry and watched The King’s Speech. I was so surprised at how much of the film I was already familiar with as we have been learning a lot about the culture and how the coronation and stuff like that works! I found myself smiling at all the things that I understood.

Later I went with Kim, Emilee and Meagan to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We started out being very cultured as we looked at old Victorian gowns and artwork, but then we found the discovery zone and we couldn’t get away. We made a chair, tried on Victorian clothes, put together a mirror frame, danced in a ballroom and acted ridiculous. We made our way out to the garden where we found some entertaining swivel chairs that distracted us for the rest of our time there. Who knew that museums could be so fun?!

In the evening Paul, Sarah, Emilee and I made our way over to Matilda (Karley and Valerie got tickets for the matinee). As we were sitting down in our seats we saw our French friends from before and their Asian friend that was also there. When they saw us they yelled out, “YOU MADE IT!” It was great and we walked over and visited with them for a while. As cooky as that whole situation was, we seem to have made new friends. We sat down to watch the show and it was AMAZING! I was probably smiling the entire time. The stage was so creative, the music was great and the story was so much fun. The cast had a ton of kids in it and they were all crazy good singers and dancers. During intermission Sarah bought the soundtrack and we will all be listening to it for the rest of the evening.

I haven’t ever actually read the story of Matilda, but I have seen the old movie before. I really love the story’s message about learning, reading, and how sometimes people will treat us unkindly. I couldn’t help but smile and think about the people that were unkind this morning as being Miss Trunchbull who says, “Children are Maggots” and the people that helped us were Miss Honey. I am continually amazed at the kindness that I have seen from people here. There are certainly those that cause trouble and may make us feel bad, but there are good people there too that are willing to stand up with you. Then you can smile and cheer about how you all made it to the theater later. I am so grateful for all the good people that I have been meeting here and all the good people I know back home! Fortunately they are the more abundant people in my life.

Also, we got frozen yogurt at a place called Snog. Teehee.