When my daughter and I realized that Breaking Dawn Part 2 — the final movie in The Twilight Saga — would be coming out while both of us would be outside of the U.S., we immediately began checking international release dates. We had seen all of the others together and we weren’t going to let a little thing like traveling separately keep us from this last one. I realized that I would be in London at the time of the release, so I said “Meet me in London. We’ll see it there.” And that’s exactly what we did. She’s studying Spanish at a university in Spain, but between classes, flew into London for about a day and a half of whirlwind time together.
We were staying not far from Victoria Station in order to be near or easily accessible to any tourist areas we might want to visit. Aside from, at some point, making it to the movie theater near Piccadilly Circus, we had no other agenda. Since she arrived in London very late the night before, we didn’t get started too early. By the time we got out and ate breakfast, it was nearly noon. We started walking around and very quickly came upon an entire building painted with a sign for the musical Wicked (one of my daughter’s favorites). Crowds were pouring into the Apollo Victoria Theater, so it was clear that a show would be starting shortly. In 30 minutes, to be exact – and yes they had tickets available.
If we went into this theater, it would be dark when we came out and our entire day (minus the 30 minutes we had been out at this point) would be in a theater and in the dark. (It gets dark at the ridiculous hour of 4 p.m. here . . . FOUR O’CLOCK!!!) We went for it and I got to see the show for the first time, while she got to experience it with a British accent. Brilliant!
Then, in the dark, we grabbed some fish and chips, wandered past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and Picadilly Circus. I have to admit, the scene in Breaking Dawn Part 2, when they show London (including Big Ben) was pretty cool, since that was exactly where we were and because we had seen those very landmarks just moments before.
