#and i sent kat a copy of the email so shes in the loop and i feel like kat for sure is also going to think its too harsh (which she does

[pikonv5]

hhh as soon as mutual respect is shown not to be had its so hard for me to even feign politeness

[talldrink-o-h2o]

Travel: West End Shows

Everyone in my life is fully aware of my love for my sister. My boss has told me on more than one occasion that she knows I’m feeling my alcohol because I start talking about Katrina. I find any excuse to visit her because she’s home to me. When Katrina invited me to crash her work trip to London since her husband couldn’t go, I had my flights booked and agenda planned.

I sent Katrina a list of things I thought one or both of us would be interested in doing while we were there. The ideas ranged from visiting the Tower of London to seeing a West End show. I had studied abroad in London when I was 19 as part of an English Literature program. My tuition for the six-week schooling included tickets for multiple plays. I love the theater and thought that because Katrina had enjoyed Cirque du Soleil when we saw it during my bachelorette in Vegas, that she did too.

That is until she copied me on an email she sent to a co-worker she knows in London asking for recommendations. Katrina used my list as the starting point for suggestions and next to my “West End Show” bullet, she added the comment, “I have a slight preference for non-musicals over musicals.”

Fast forward to our first day in London. The hotel her company put us up in was just outside of Covent Garden and the theater district. While walking through, I decided to ask Katrina about her comment, one that had thrown me off so much I became paralyzed and didn’t buy any tickets. All I want to do is make sure everyone around me is having a good time, to the point that during a movie, I spend as much time looking at whoever I came in with as I do the actual movie because my enjoyment hinges on knowing they are having a good time. This is exponentially so when I am the one who chose the movie, or in the case of London, the play.

“I just don’t think I want to sit and listen to people since with British accents for two hours,” was her explanation. But for some reason, I couldn’t accept that.

“But you love Adele,” I started in. Katrina loves Adele. “And Sam Smith…”and I continued rattling off all the British artists she is openly obsessed with, none of whom sound off-puttingly British when they sing.

“Fair point,” she conceded, laughing.

That evening, we had an incredible dinner across the street from a theater boasting the longest-running play in London: Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. Katrina loved Agatha Christie murder mysteries as a teenager as much as she loves Adele as an adult. Knowing it met her criteria of being explicitly not a musical, we bought tickets to see it on the last night we would be in London, as a capstone to what we knew would be an amazing week.

And then, two nights before we were set to see that play, with no real plans of our own for the evening, we threw caution to the wind and bought tickets to see Waitress, a musical, but an American musical. We didn’t know anything about the plot, having never seen the movie, but were lured in by the posters of Kat McPhee, who had ended her run on the West End two weeks prior.

And wouldn’t you know it? We loved it. Both of us crying at parts and singing the main song on loop after we exited the theater. We each would include it as one of our favorite things we did the entire trip.

Two nights later, when we attended Mousetrap, at intermission, the Christie aficionado amongst us had already accurately identified the murderer. The play was fine, but only fine, and it was unclear why it had been running for so long, but also very clear why the seats were less than half full.

Afterward, Katrina summed it up nicely: “Turns out, it’s more annoying to listen to Brits talk for two hours than it is to hear them sing.”