HELLO, MY NAME IS ELDER PRICE

I had to go to London because my permit expired before my flight back to Singapore, and I’d risk getting detained by the Swedish customs on the way back if I didn’t leave the Schengen region. Even though it was a day, it was an epic trip, and I could not ask for a better way to end my Euro tour.

Turns out that I almost got detained at the customs in London. The London customs tend to ask a lot of questions to get a sense of who you are bla bla bla. The officer at the counter asked a lot more questions than usual, and he felt that he wasn’t convinced that he should let me into London. I can’t really type the full conversation here, but it was quite an annoying experience. After which, he confiscated my passport and permit and in my head it was like “Walao, in trying to avoid getting detained in Stockholm, I get detained in London”.

Well, his officer cleared me in the end J Thank you boss.

I stayed with Becky, who was my classmate and CCA-mate back in secondary school. It has been many years since we’ve last met and LOL we meet in London. It’s really nice how she crammed in supper and breakfast with me, despite having some rather intense 14 hours/day summer program in school.

After breakfast with Becky, I decided to try queuing for the ridiculously cheap £5(~S$10) Matilda tickets. They sell 16 of these tickets each day and I bought the 15^th ticket!! Here’s a success selfie with the person who bought the 14^th ticket!

We were really lucky because we had only queued for half an hour. In fact, we were probably the 18^th and 19^th in line, but a Korean band of 4 decided to leave because they couldn’t get 4 in a row so YAY for us!

Went to Regent’s Park after a short nap, to chill with a honey cake and a book. I’m definitely going to miss the vast-open-area-park concept! Parks like these are slowly dwindling in Singapore, or at the very least they aren’t as vast.

Given that I had managed to buy the 15^th ticket while queuing for only half an hour, I thought I was feeling really lucky with tickets that day. So I thought “Hey let’s try my luck for the Book of Mormon lottery!”. I formed an alliance with a Brit who had come alone, and Siying & her bf came down to help me ballot as well haha, giving me 4 chances to win.

When 19 tickets had already been given, and they drew the next slip (which didn’t look like mine given the way it was folded), I thought my chances were over. Wasn’t that bad, at the very least, I had Matilda to catch! Turns out that that funny looking slip only requested for ONE ticket, which meant that there was ONE more left.

When the guy drew the next slip, he stared right at me with a wide smile (and it my head it was like “Mai kp la, you mocking me?”)

“This is a ‘ditch’ ticket! OHHH. I’m looking right at you because I remember your name! JIA HUI YAM!!” (He remembered because he was trying to tell my alliance to look out for my name and it just left him confused)

-STUNNED STUNNED STUNNED- -JUST DIED- -WHATJUSTHAPPENED- -AAAAAAAHHHHHHH- -SURREAL- -INCREDIBLE LUCK-

(And one slip was actually disqualified because they only wrote their first name)

So I ditched my alliance, and because we were strangers no hard feelings at all.

OMG I FELT LIKE THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. THE MUSICAL THAT I WANTED TO WATCH THE MOST IN EXCHANGE IS NOW MINEEEEEEE. HAVEN’T FELT SO SURREAL IN SUCH A LONG TIME HAHAHAHA.

And I ditched my Matilda ticket, selling it to some Asian girl I met at a dodgy ticket office holding a Matilda pamphlet. Think I made her feel extremely lucky, because she was in disbelief that I actually had a ticket to sell, and we were cutting the deal in the middle of the streets. Furthermore, I sold it for only £5, the price I had bought it for.

There couldn’t have been a better way to end exchange than watching the Book of Mormon, partly due to the anticipation, and front row seats for £20. The musical was extremely hilarious, to say the least, though at times the jokes were a little too insulting and crude. But still, very very enjoyable, exceeded exceeding my expectations, even after watching Youtube videos and listening to the soundtrack. (Not enough ways to explain how I was blown away)

The best part of the musical? THIS GORGEOUS HUMAN BEING, AKA GAVIN CREEL. (Top left corner)

Appropriately buff, and dimples. Couldn’t help but swoon at his lovely voice when he was only 10 metres away from me. From then on, I left my heart in London.

Also, while watching the musical, I realised that I had actually met one of the performers. I was wondering why he had look SOOOO FAMILIAR. In the last lottery I went for in May, there was a Brit that kept talking nonsense “Show’s cancelled, no lottery” “I know exactly how and when to put a winning slip in”. He came with a HUGE group of 20 people who kept squeezing with me and JX, so that’s why they were memorable. ANDD he was holding a Starbucks cup with his name on it. Searched for the cast online after that and YES IT WAS HIM – EVAN JAMES. He winked at me during the show, and I’m not sure if it was intentional or not (doubt it heh).

There are always happy endings, it just depends on where you choose to end it. My Euro tour (and well, in a way exchange as well) ended on that night ^^.