Terry's Visit, Day 1

Terry came to London for the weekend and the plan for Friday was to go to a museum or two before going to see Billy Elliot that night. The first museum we went to was the Charles Dickens Museum, which usually isn't one of the sites many people visit (doesn't even appear in my Rick Steve's guide) and is located in the house he lived in. It was very nice and enjoyable for anyone who has read a Dickens novel.

Our next stop was the Museum of London, which we only got to see part of because half the museum (post 1666) was closed for renovations and we had to leave so we wouldn't be late for the theatre. We saw the pre-Roman galleries and half the Roman galleries. It is one of the best museums I've been to so far and I haven't seen that much of it. I look forward to going back to see more of it before I return home.

Then it was time to grab dinner before heading off to the show. Billy Elliot is set in a fictional town in (the real) County Durham during the 1984-85 Miner's Strike. Billy is a kid who take sup ballet, against his father's wishes and eventually tries out for the Royal Ballet School. The show was extremely good, probably the best I've seen over here so far (at the time of seeing the show). The beginning was a little slow, but once the show got going with the dancing, it was fantastic.