Borrowed Angels

Quote:  Nothing but a drug to me. A hazy day philosophy. I never learn. I always burn myself.
Song:  Blind – Julie Atherton
Mood: Sad and tired

Ilse and I only slept about three hours last night. We had to get up at 5am to get ready to leave London today We packed our last things and got dressed before we headed out the door at 6:20.  it took us seriously about half an hour or longer to get to the bus stop. We had two large suitcases and 5 bags xD I was carrying three bags and a suitcase and it was just way too heavy really. But being who I am, I just kept on going (although I had to stop every so often to rearrange my bags or switch the suitcase with the bag in my hand)

We took the bus to Victoria Station, with a driver that didn’t seem to have enough patience. He couldn’t wait long enough for Ilse to make her way in to the door far enough before he started driving. She still had to come to the space for the bags and wheelchairs. She barely made it there before he raced around the corner, throwing me in to the railing and the suitcase skidding to the other side. So the rest of the bus ride was spent keeping all the bags and suitcases in one place.

When we arrived at Victoria 45 minutes later, we quickly had to unload the bags from the bus, because he seemed to be eager to leave again. So then we crossed the street in to Victoria Station and heading towards the coach station. Let me tell you that the coach station is like twice as far if you are heavy packed. But we made it and checked in and then waited for the bus to arrive at 8:30am.

When the bus arrived, we quickly put our bags in the baggage area and got on the bus. The bus left about 10 minutes later and we were then headed for Dover. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, we were heading towards these white sandy beaches and blue water O_O the only thing that stopped me from thinking we were not on vacation was the lack of palm trees. More people got on the bus, but it was still fine because there was so much space that Ilse and I sat on two seats each always a good thing to have so much room.

We left the Dover ferries behind us and headed towards the train station where our bus would go on the train. It freaked this one woman out and she kept repeating how she felt like we were in a coffin and how we were all going to die if something happened. Gee thanks, I’m sure everyone loved hearing that. The woman was actually one of those people that constantly talks when she’s nervous. It was funny at some times, because we joined in the conversation, but even after we stopped talking and were trying to sleep or read, she would continue to talk. I had to put on my music at some points just to drown her out :s

When we got out of the tunnel, we had a quick passport check and we were on our way again. We drove through France pretty quickly and were supposed to stop in Brussels, which we didn’t. So we then kept on driving to Antwerpen, where we stopped only briefly to let some people off, as there was no space to stop the bus… the place where we were supposed to stop was taken! So we then drove on to this trucker stop with a little restaurant where Ilse and I got ice-cream and something to drink. We sat outside on a bench, but it really smelled bad… and when I say smell bad, think of a dead animal left out in the sun for three weeks or something. That’s how bad. So we quickly went on the bus again (we only had half an hour stop anyway).

We then drove to Breda, where we stopped at the train station, from there we went to Utrecht, which would be our final stop… well at least for Ilse and I, because the bus would go on to Amsterdam, actually So we got off the bus and went to get our suitcases… the two biggest suitcases had somehow moves all the way to the back of the cargo room. So Ilse had to climb in to get them and I pulled them out. We then waited for Ilse’s parents to come and pick us up. They would bring me home, because I went to London to come and pick Ilse up. Well it was really sweet of them I had called my parents before when we were in France to see if they could pick me up in Utrecht but they weren’t at home -_- they were on the campsite again. Too bad…. Well Ilse’s parents dropped me off and that was the end really of our vacation.

I sure do miss London already…

Until next time!
Mo

Quote: You are very artsy craftsy aren’t you – Paul Spicer
Song: Blind – Julie Atherton
Mood: Over the moon and past the stars

Today we woke up laaaate! I guess because we were so active yesterday we were finally exhausted enough to sleep a full 8 hours But it was so warm, ugh. I actually finished my blog this morning, just because I was way too tired yesterday. So it was actually around 2pm when I finished my blog… It was long! Over 1700 words.. that was a first this week

So after that got done, I showered because I was so hot. It almost felt like I had a fever or something, because it wasn’t that warm outside (it actually rained the whole night). So when I got showered and dressed we started on this sock puppet we wanted to make for Julie. After seeing the Miranda Sings performance, where Julie had to put on this stinky sock, Ilse came up with the idea of making her a sock puppet and I worked on the idea and we got the stuff and made it today. It only took three hours to make, but it was well worth it.

When we were done with the puppet, we packed our bags; we ate a little (had a doughnut and a small cheesecake) and waited for 6pm to come around. We then went out of the apartment and headed for the bus stop, as we thought it would be easier to take the bus to the theatre than the tube. Bus came pretty quickly, so we got on and I wrote some more things in the little booklet we also got for Julie. Even made a little drawing of Missfit and Piggy, Julie’s cats hahaha. The only difficult thing was that I was writing on the bus and the bus stops and pulls up and when the bus is in motion, it’s just impossible to write

So then we arrived at the theatre (it was actually in the Mama Mia theatre hahaha) and we got our tickets and these gorgeous postcards with Julie on it ^_^ then took out some money so I could actually buy the album. When the guy told me they were only 10 pounds, I immediately got three One for me and two for my friends Then we went down and almost ran in to Paul Spicer hahaha xD I do love that. Like, you are walking and looking down and when you look up  “oh hello Paul”  hahaha xD

The room was a lot smaller than expected, which wasn’t bad, it just meant we could actually stand closer to Julie than we thought at first ^_^ there was about three meters (say… 9 feet) between her and us and we were standing almost right in front of her. We still had like 15 minutes to go, so we just watched the people coming in to the room. Saw some famous faces too, besides Paul Spicer We saw John Lee (former S-club 7 member), LeeAnne Jones (who we had also seen in Tick, Tick… Boom, at Miranda Sings and the Freedom Bar), then we also saw Michael Bruce (whose concert we had gone to last November) and Greg Adams (this famous musical director).

Then I was looking directly at Paul and he saw me and recognized me. His whole face lit up, he blew me kisses, waved at me and gave me the thumbs up. Mouthing a hello He was still talking with a group of people, then came our way, rubber my arm and Ilse’s back, telling us we would meet up after the show… oookidoki mister. We just didn’t know when or where, but I guess we would find out later

Then Paul rushed to the back room to go and get Julie and her band, which included Tom Parsons   Paul talked a little about why they made the album (because they just wanted to shove Julie in to a room and tell her to get on with it… which was exactly what they did hahaha) and then Julie came up to the mic and thanked us all for coming, as she was afraid it was just gonna be her mom and her sisters, but the room was actually quite packed. It was a good turn out if you ask me ^_^ Julie said that she did the album because she wanted to show people that the musical world is just old and outdated, which is a pretty damn good reason to make an album if you ask me

So Julie first did a cover by Skunk Anansi. She was marvellous and it wasn’t until she got to the chorus that I recognised the song as being Weak. That was actually a slip of the tongue Julie made. She said “ this song was weak”  and the whole room laughed so she laughingly corrected herself by saying “ the song is called weak” Julie than continued with a song writing by Michael Bruce, who also wrote Not In A Disney Way, which she wasn’t gonna perform unfortunately, but she still hinted at her doing the song for the Michael Bruce album (yaaaay). The song was so freaking awesome! I think it’s my new favourite song. There was rocky guitars and Julie singing gorgeously and up beat. And it just couldn’t have been better!  Julie also introduced her band at this point, as well. Two violinist, a fiddle, a chello, Tom on electric guitar (telling us “ I love this guy” ) a drummer, another guitarist, a pianist and a background singer. I can’t really remember all their names, except for Tom and Anna on the Chello.

Julie then continued on with doing two songs from her previous album. She did A Girl of Few Words and upgraded the song a little (read: sang FUCK instead of HELL hehe) and she did Be Careful, which she said was rated R tonight  After the songs she started telling us about Greg Adams and the musical Lift, where the song Lost In Translation, which was her next song, came from. The song is gorgeous and starts out with a rocky beat, but then moves in to a slow song. No idea how you dance to that in a club though, hahaha.

She then told this little story about Paul Spicer “ to embarrass him” she said, how they were in rehearsals together and they had this serious scene together and Paul walks in with a pair of tights on his head, just to make her laugh. It was actually really sweet of him (plus it shows he has a good sense humour) then she continued to tell us how she listened to the next song in her dressing room at that time, and Rage Against The Machine, but she wouldn’t do that hahaha. So I knew the song she was gonna do had to be Crawling, a cover by Linkin Park. I love that song so much and it makes Julie ever cooler that she actually knows them, hehehe.

After Crawling, Julie made some cracks about her mom, and Tom told her to stop picking on her mom, but I guess Julie was just really nervous. She then went on to a slower song and lost her earring. We all laughed because she made jokes about it, saying she was never gonna get it in again, or how it didn’t matter because she was allergic anyway but she was still gutted. xD the woman has a sense of humour. The song was slow and she sat together with the guitarist (who was hott by the way… just so you know, hahaha) and the song was about when you first fall in love, that feeling. And it was beautiful and sweet. It was called Never Seen Blue Like That.

She then grabbed her album from her music stand and cracked jokes about that too. Like she said “ hey, this is my new album… hmm who put that here. You should buy it, it’s only 10 pounds tonight… this is my cd you know)

After Never Seen Blue Like That, she talked about how she first learned about Tori Amos when she stole her sister’s cd. And the song she did was Leather. It’s a gorgeous song that’s a little PG13 The song was more jazzy and sway, but still amazing with Julie’s voice. Then she performed Anywhere But Here, telling us that would be her last song she had the West End Gospel Choir to support her in that song, which was the same gospel as with Miranda Sings. But they sounded a lot better than at Miranda Sings. I don’t know what the difference was, but I just liked it better. This song also had Tom giving us some more of his amazing guitar skills. God, if Julie hadn’t snatched that guy… I would have so fallen for him!

She then also performed another slow song called Silent Whispers. For this song, she asked a friend of her, for whom she plays demo girl , if he had some songs she could use. So she went over to his place and she listened to some of them and she couldn’t find anything that she wanted to add and was almost sorry she asked him. But then he played her Silent Whispers and she KNEW that was the song she had been waiting for.

After the song was finished, Julie was like “ well that’s it”   and walked away. She then came back going “ ooh you didn’t fall for that at all!”  And said she had an encore… Encore. A song from this new vampire musical *queue me squeeing at the words “ vampire musical” * written by Greg Adams. She started the song and it sounded so familiar… I could sing along, then it hit me that she did the song as well at the Freedom Bar And that really was her last song.

Then Paul came back on stage and told us that Julie would be signing later on, if people,e wanted to have stuff signed. So I got out my three cd’s and Ilse bought a second cd for Leah and we walked over to the table. Julie and Paul appeared almost out of nowhere. One moment the table was empty, the next they were there. Like magic. Julie first signed some other people’s things. Then Paul saw us and his face just lit up again (such a wonderful thing to see). He asked us if we liked the show and we told him that we LOVED it! Which he seemed pleased to hear. Then it was our turn to talk to Julie. We told her that we had seen her at Miranda Sings, and we thought that next time she performed Fine, Fine Line, she should have this. And then Ilse handed over the bag with the presents. So Julie was like “ what’s this?”  and she looked inside. The look on her face was priceless. She reached in and took out the booklet and the sock puppet and just thought it was amazing. She just had to put it on, she said, and actually did. I took a picture of Julie, Ilse and the sock puppet (which we had modelled to look like Kate Monster). I glanced at Paul, who could barely keep his laughter in. Then Julie signed our album covers and asked what the booklet was. Ilse told her that since postcards never hold enough space to write on, we got the booklet. And I told her “ yeah, like how we gave Paul the sticky notes, we got you this booklet”  and Julie looked at Paul and he grinned and she went like “oooh”. Then I had a picture with Julie and she thanked us again.

Whe then stepped over to Paul, to speak some more with him. I asked him if he liked the sock puppet, which he did. He then asked me if it was Julie’s to keep, which I said it was. He then said “ you are very artsy craftsy, aren’t you?”  Which I am So I agreed with him. Suddenly he asked me if he read it correctly that we were leaving tomorrow, which unfortunately we are And then he almost demanded to know when we would be back. Hahahaha. It’s a good question, indeed. Ilse said September, which seemed to cheer him up. Would he really miss us if we weren’t there? Interesting… So then we said goodbye to Paul and left for the Starbucks to get something to drink.

After the Starbucks, we went up an escalator to this game hall where we just happened to spend two hours of playing Dance Dance Revolutions four times *we both lost the first time and the other three times I rocked it, muhahaha), played this hoppity game where you had to actually jump up and down to get your character moving again (I won) and these machines that shove coins forward and you have to keep doing it until money falls out I have no idea what they are called in English, hahaha! But they sure are fun!

Then we headed back to the apartment, had that stupid security guy AGAIN. Why does he always have to be so mean? I never did anything to him, did I? Plus, I don’t look like a criminal -_____- ah well… we are going home tomorrow and not seeing him ever again is  good thing.. But I really don’t wanna go home, because Paul Spicer is performing at the Freedom Bar tomorrow, which is why he asked if we were really leaving tomorrow. If I had known before, I would have SO stayed an extra day. I seriously love that guy to death… well, him and his voice. I think he should make his own album too.

But for now, Mushi Mushi!

Mo

ps. After listening to Julie’s album, we discovered a secret and let me say… I just looooove it. So will my dad when he hears it ^_^ thanks a million Jules!