Stephanies Wicked Adventure

Once upon a time in Zandvoorde, near Oostende in Belgium! Way to early in the morning - about 3 am - my alarm went off! I slept for about two hours I think, but that didn’t matter, I was totally ready for my trip to London. I was too excited to sleep that night anyway.

My best friend Delphine picked me up at 4 am and we drove straight to the station. We caught the early train at 4.35 am to Brussels. It all went well, until we stopped. The conductor told us that there was a problem with the engine and that they were trying to fix it as fast as possible. We knew already that there were problems with the trains because of the weather and that the first Eurostar from Brussels had been cancelled! We waited for about 30 minutes and then luckily they told us that the problem had been solved.

We arrived in Brussels safe and sound, but there was an enormous queue for the next Eurostar to London! We managed to secure a seat on the train and we actually left on time.

Please, no more problems.… but unfortunately! Due to the bad weather the train wasn’t able to travel anywhere near its full speed and to top it off there was another problem with one of the engines when we reached Ashford.

We eventually arrived at King’s Cross St.Pancras after a huge delay at about 11 am. Oh my god, what a journey. Luckily we had a lot of fun!

We took the underground to Euston Square where our hotel was situated. Once we arrived, the receptionist could not find our booking. He made a few phone calls and finally we got the key of our room. He may count himself lucky that he was so cute !

Normally we had planned to go to the theatre by noon to catch the cast coming in, but we got there at 12.45pm, so we had missed most of them. Rachel was already in getting greenified. We waited for a while but just as we decided to leave, Lewis came out to get his favourite eggnog latte! He was very lovely and he was pleased to have a picture with us.

We had tickets for the evening performance, so we decided that we should wait at stage door again after the evening show.

In the afternoon, we went to see Madame Tussauds and we had a lot of fun. We also went to the “Abercrombie & Fitch” store but we had to wait in queue for about a half an hour just to get in. All this just for clothes??? Inside the store it was very crowded and we had to wait for another hour just to get to the till. Unbelievable!

Almost 6 o’clock, just enough time left for a quick stop at our hotel to have a wash and brush-up!

We arrived the theatre at about 7 pm. I bought a program because I didn’t bother last time. We were sitting at row P of the Stalls and we had a very good view from there. I have seen the show already on September 28th so I was really excited to go through this adventure all again.

The show began and Louise was fantastic on her bubble. I really liked her performance as Glinda! I was waiting for Rachel coming on stage and finally, there she was, beautiful as always! Her first song “The wizard and I” was truly amazing. Wonderful how she manage her magnificent riffs! Louise’s performance of “Popular” was hilarious, especially during her “la la la”! Lewis was wonderful too, but Rachel still remains the star of the show. I know most of the songs off by heart so I sang along, but not out loud off course, lol ! My singing abilities are not that good. All of Rachels songs made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, especially during “Defying Gravity”. She has so much power and feeling behind her vocals. Rachel is just so amazingly special!

I really enjoyed the whole show and I actually cried at the end! There was an enormous standing ovation when Rachel and Louise came on stage after the performance. Rachel gave Louise a big hug and even foot popped, how cute!

After the show we did walk down to the stage door. I saw Louise talking with a couple of girls. While we were waiting to speak to Louise, Cassie Compton came out and we had a picture together and she signed my book. Unfortunately while we were doing this Louise actually left, what a pity I missed her!

While waiting for Rachel, we met a girl from the USA who was studying in London. It was fun meeting her and we even took a picture together. Rachel came out at about 11 pm and I was surprised how quick that was. She was so lovely, really kind and all smiling. She signed my book (with a green pen ) and we had a picture together. We chatted for a while and I really loved her cute Irish accent! I told her that I cried at the end of the show and she said “Ooh, was it that horrible?”, lol ! I also wanted to show her something special. Did I mention that I won Rachel’s jewellery from the Wicked Day auction on Ebay? I brought it with me and she said “Oh my god, you’re that girl who won my jewellery, how lovely”! The selling price was a bit beyond my reach but it was for a good charity.

After this wonderful meeting we took the underground to our hotel because we were both very tired. It had been a long day! We went off to sleep but after a while I had to go to the toilet really bad. Oh no, I realized that there was no toilet in our room, so I had to go outside and I was already in my pyjamas. I pulled on my fluffy boots. I looked into the mirror before I left and I thought “Oh my god, my hair is a mess, I wear a pink squared pyjamas with fluffy brown boots under it”! I looked “beautifully tragic”, lol ! I opened the door as quiet as possible, looked left and right down the hall and then ran as fast as I could to the toilet. OK, nobody saw me, what a relief! I did the same maneuver to get back to my room. What an excited adventure!

After a good night’s rest we had breakfast and then we went off for Christmas shopping. It was even more crowded than the day before.

We went to the station at about 3.30pm because our train at 6.25pm had been cancelled. They recommended we take the 3:30pm train because it might be the last one to Brussels. There were no big problems during our return and we arrived in Brussels at 7.30pm, local time. We had to take the train to Oostende and got home safe and sound at about 9.30 pm!

In spite of all the problems we had been through, we had a wonderful time in London!

And Rachel, if you read this, thanks for everything! It was perfect, everything I hoped it would be and more!