Star Wars: A Musical Journey

So, when I left off, I was en route to Sutton for a few days with my mates from the Army.

On Saturday I headed off to Tariro's to see just who might be about, and spent most of the day there with Becci and Laura catching up.  Got to see a few others, Adam, Gemma and the lovely Hope, who is sooo grown up now, as well as Graeme and Emily and so on.  It was nice.

Saturday night I went with Laura to the O2 to see Star Wars: A Musical Journey. The last time I was at the O2 was when it was the ill-fated Millennium Dome, which to be honest, I don't remember much of, as it was so crap. Seem to recall some Blackadder Back and Forth film, and that giant body thing (which was rubbish), a few street performers and that's about it. So I was quite interested to see what they've done with the thing since then, especially because of all the debate about what to do with it once the millennium experience was over.

Its actually pretty good, there's a load of restaurants and things, and a cinema, and then the big arena, exhibition areas and so on - I was quite impressed.  And the Star Wars? It was just awesome!  We arrived there and were instantly enveloped in fans of all shapes and sizes, kitted out in all sorts of Star Wars paraphenalia - just like a regular Star Wars convention.  It was fantastic!  I instantly went a bit nuts at the merchandise counters, trying to decide what to buy at this once in a lifetime experience... Laura was much more level-headed about it all, concentrating on taking photos and absorbing the atmosphere... whilst I was like a little kid lost in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory!

The performance was awesome, magnificent music, played magnificiently, and timed to match the video scene changes and laser display.  Just wonderful.

The next day, Sunday, I was at Sutton, and was able to catch up with my friends, which was fab.  Katie, Andy, Laura and I went for lunch at the Belmont, a traditional Sunday carvery, just yum.  We then spent the afternoon playing guitar hero, which I was actually terrible at - primarily because there really isn't any musical rhyme nor reason to the timings of the dots passing on the staff.  That being said, the wii version, which they have, is more musical than the PS2 one, which I really can't play at all.  Oh well.

Monday was a rushed trip back to Agnieszka's to dump my stuff then whizz out to Jessie's to say g'day.  Unfortunately Jess had injured her foot and was really unable to walk around anywhere much - so I went out to hers, rather than meet up with her in town.  The problem was, being a public holiday (Easter Monday) many of the buses were on strange timetables, and also, there was engineering works on the train, so a journey which should've taken maybe an hour took more than 2 1/2!  Incredible...

We had a lovely afternoon catching up.

Tuesday was a day of saying hi to kids at the Royal Festival Hall, plus saying farewell to Erik, before heading out to meet with Steve and Jo and the kids.  We had a lovely dinner, Ira and Neil and Col came too, and it was so nice to see everyone.

Wednesday was a day of lastminute shopping, saying goodbye to Mat, and a dinner with Ken and Jeff.  It was lovely to see Ken and Jeff, and we had a really good evening.

I stayed over at Ken's, as it was easier to head off to the airport the next day from there.

How quickly the time has gone!  I can't quite believe it!