When I was in NY on vacation I saw two musicals, namely “The Lion King” and “In The Heights”. I’ll write a post about The Lion King another time. We (as in June, Jenny, Ana and me) bought tickets for Pamela as a surprise and b-day present. More info in my previous post: Vacation time, New York. In the Heights is a musical with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. The story explores three days in the characters’ lives in the New York City Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights. The score features hip-hop, salsa, merengue and soul music. The musical’s 2008 Broadway production was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards and won the Tony Award for Best Musical at the 62nd Tony Awards.
The musical was very nice, I loved the Latin, Urban feel of it and ofcourse the music and songs. Story wise it itsn’t anything really new but the way the actors and crew perform are what made “In The Heights” a pleasure to watch. Liked the dancing choreography since I am a streetdancer myself, ok well not streetdancer but my style of dancing is very street, urban. I also like latin dances like Salsa, Merengue, Bachata to name a few. So the music in the musical is really up my alley. Latin and urban, what else do I want. 
I have the soundtrack and it has been on heavy rotation since I got back from my vacation. These are my favorite tracks from the soundtrack and have a heavy rotation on my winamp playlist:
- Usnavi, Company – In The Heights (7:38)
- Usnavi, Benny, Sonny, Graffiti Pete, Carla, Daniela, Vanessa, Company – 96,000 (5:35)
- Piragua Guy – Piragua (1:53)
- Company – The Club (5:58)
- Company – Blackout (3:57)
- Abuela Claudia, Usnavi – Hundreds Of Stories (3:40)
- Daniela, Company – Carnaval Del Barrio (7:26)
- Piragua Guy – Piragua (Reprise) (0:52)
- Vanessa, Usnavi – Champagne (2:44)
And here are two songs from the soundtrack for you to listen to. Visit the official website for more info and vids http://www.intheheightsthemusical.com
Well last week wednesday, damn it’s almost a week ago O_o me, Marco, Jay & Dennis went to London to have a small midweek holiday. The original plan was to go to the MJ concert on the 24th but well … everyone knows what happened last month with the King of Pop so I’ll just skip that. Enough has been said in the media and in my last post. Anyway, we left wednesdaymorning and after an one hour flight we landed at Gatwick airport around 10 am ish and off we were to Russell Square where our hostel was located. After a train trip and tube ride we arrived at our hotel around 12 ish.
We got at the hostel and I went to check in as the others walked off to somewhere. While I was busy checking in I got tapped on the shoulder and I turned around to see who tapped me on the shoulder and boy was I in for a BIG SURPRISE!!! I saw my girlfriend Ana standing there with a smile while I was thinking I was seeing things and thinking that I was hallucinating tripping and all of that … My brain just got a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death, just like Windows does) as I was staring at my sweetheart. Not really comprehending and while my brain was rebooting Ana was saying “Hi. Breathe, it’s really me. Are you ok?” and I just started realizing she was actually in London and started hugging her. 
What a hell of a surprise it was. The others were in on the surprise and when I thought they were just checking out the hostel while I was checking in they went to find Ana. After turning back to reality and checking in and dropping off our bags the five of us were off to stroll around London.
The first day was just chilling walking around New Oxford street and then we were off to Chinatown near/in West End to check if we could see a musical. In the end we didn’t go to a musical but had a late lunch. After that we ended up near Tower Bridge where we chillaxed to some latin american music, walked around a bit before we had dinner somewhere and ended the day. Thursday we took the hop on and off bus and were all over London seeing Big Ben, Wesminster Abby, the changing of the gueards, Harrods, did a boat tour from the millenium eye to Tower Bridge and ended our day there at Saint Katherines Lock having dinner at Dickens Inn with fellow TSF Louise. Friday was a cultural day where we went to the British museum and St. Pauls Cathedral. We had lunch at GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) and ended at Tate Modern art museum. After that we went back to West End to get some tickets for Avenue Q. This is just one amazing and funny musical, I was laughing my ass off and enjoyed it very much. Currently listening to the soundtrack while typing this post. See the youtube vid at the end of this post. Is the Internet for porn? 
Anyway Saturday we went chillaxing with Louise joining us going to Burough market tasting food and having lunch there. After that we went to Hyde park and walked around before heading off to Camden Lock where we had a stroll around the area. We had Indian food in the east of London, can’t remember the name of the place and after that we went off to Leicester Square for a drink with Amanda. Sunday we checked out of the hostel and went to have some lunch before heading off to Gatwick. The lunchplace was GBK again since they had a killer burger and the milkshakes were very Taté. 
After lunch we went back to get our bags and we were off to the airports, Ana to Heathrow and the rest of us back to Gatwick. The trip back was interesting, we got at Gatwick on time only to see a massive line of people waiting to check in. At some point our flight got called and we were allowed to check in in faster, I really don’t know why but anyway. We checked in and were off to the gate to have some food before boarding the plane. When we were at the gate and boardning Jay wasn’t allowed to bring his trolley on the plane as carry on and had to pay. Totally rediculous since he took the same thing as carry on when we went to London. O_o Anyway, in the end had to check in the trolley and we were off to Dutchland.
The trip was really amazing and I just want to thank Marco, Jay & Dennis for being such good sports and friends for their part in the surprise. And ofcourse my sweet girlfriend Ana for flying from NY to London to surprise me. 我爱你!!! and I can’t wait to see you in Washington DC in september.
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