Okay, I am going to give this a shot. I am not very good at this kinds of stories, but you have to look through that.
After getting home 30th June 9 pm from a trip to Norway, the next I was in the train to the airport again at 9 am. This whole week I had 7 flights. I think I had enough flights for a whole year now.
I was at the airport around 9.30 am. My plane would leave at noon, so I had plenty time. I was heading to a change office for some pounds. I asked for 100 pounds and was paying 400 euro's. While paying, I was thinking that was quite some money, but I was so excited I didn't get it. So when I got my pounds, I got 300! That was a lot of pounds. I didn't need (or want) that much! But I already paid... So I took it with me and would change it when I get back.
The plane took off right on time and I landed noon UK time. At the airport I bought a train ticket to the centre of London, about another 40/50 minutes travel. When I was in line a lady asked me how she could get to the centre. So I told her to take a train ticket. Then she showed me a address and asked how she could get there. I explained here I wasn't from the UK, but the message wasn't getting trhough, because she kept asking me things.
From the airport there was a transfer bus to the train. The journey by train took me about 40 minutes. I arrived about 1.30 pm at the St. Pancras station. The same station where Hannah would arrive about 2 pm. We actually said we would meet at the Harry Potter shop, because I didn't know where she would arrive exactly, but I saw there was only one way out for traveller from the Eurostar, so I texted her that I would wait outside. All those time the train would be on time, till the 1.55. It changed to a delay. Hannah arrived at 2.15 and before she got out it was nearly 2.45. We shopped a bit for drinks and something to eat and took the tube to the hotel. The hotel was really small, but ok.
After we dropped our things we went to the Royal Albert Hall to meet Anita and her husband.
We had a lovely talk about the things we did. Anita and her husband went inside the RAH to get some dinner. Hannah and I were sitting in the park for a bit, before we would go to the Bakkery. At the same moment Jelena (danceteacher) texted that she couldn't find Thalia (batman). She was on her way by bus from the airport to Liverpool street. The bus got a delay, but after a few busses there was still no Thalia. After a while we heard Thalia was on her way to the RAH. Thank god, she was found! In the mean time Row and her husband arrived. While it was easy to talk to Anita (we were all Dutch speaking), we had a little start-up difficulties talking to Row. ;-) We had to change our mind a hard time. The start was a little weird, but it turned out good!
Row and her husband went inside and Hannah and I left for a visit at the Bakkery. We were walking to the tube station, when we saw an accident happening. We were quite shocked. We didn't know what to do. Fortunally there were a lot of people and they helped the poor man. I am still hoping he is ok. After 15 or 20 minutes we decided to go.
The Bakkery was at the other side of London, so it took a while before we were there. It was lovely to be there. It was around 8 pm, so nobody was there and we already heard form Anita that they were at the RAH at 2 pm. So no chance of seeing them.
After the visit we wanted to see another 'Coldplay' place: the tunnels from the Fix You clip. So we took the tube to the London Bridge. Note: The public transport works really good! You can get everywhere, without a long walk! Once we got near the tunnels we saw that they were working at the tunnel. That was to bad, we couldn't take a nice pictues of it.
It was somewhere around 9 pm and we didn't had a dinner yet, so we searched for something to eat. Most of the restaurants were quite posh in this neighbourhood. After a bit off walking a remebered a restaurant were I eated during an earlier visit and suggested to go there. We crossed the Tower Bridge to get there and we did eat some pizza at this nice restaurant, before we got back to the hotel for a sleep.
The next morning Row was coming up the our hotel, she would stay with us after the gig of the 2nd of July. She dropped her things off and we leaved together to catch up with the others. We all met at the Odeon theatre at Leicester Square. We went to Garfunkel together for a lunch, however, some of us ordered lunch, some of ordered breakfast and some ordered desserts. The waitress was really looking weird about all this
Imke's (blue nails) dad made for everyone of us, those beautiful winged necklace of steel! So we all wore this to the gig that evening! I am really happy with it. I already thanked her, but thanks again Imke! During lunch we only missed Emma, she couldn't make it on time, but after lunch we cathed up with her too and made a picture with all of us:
After this lovely morning we had to say goodbye to Anita, her husband and Raphaele, They had to go home. We all did go our own way. Row, Emma, hannah and I bought something to drink and went to Trafalgar Square for another hour, chatting with each other. After an hour we went back to the hotel. I got a 30 minutes sleep, because I was exhausted from the past few days. We freshed up and did go to the RAH. Imke and her mum would be there to, so I texted her that we were on our way. When we got of the tube, we coincidently run into Imke and her mum. They were taking the bus to the RAH. Imke's mum would like a ride in a double bus (don't know the proper word in English). So we waited for the right bus, but you can guess it alreay, we didn't get the double bus. During this short ride we saw Jelena and Thalia walking to the RAH. It was fun to see them, because Thalia was wearing her batman hoodie
When we got off the bus we went straight in the RAH to get us something to eat and collect the tickets. It was getting real now! We took our dinner outside and were sitting down in the park. Imke and her mom were waiting for the second ticket. We had a lovely time there. Run into some other familiar fans. At 6 pm sparky (Marc) was joining us. It's fun to read how he thinks we were joining his meet up, but actually it was the other around.
Half an hour later Hannah couldn't stand the excitement anymore and wanted to go in. So we did. We had to show our photo ID at the doors, but there wasn't a queue, except for the door that Emma had to take. Once in we meet up at the merch stand again. I bought myself a T-shirt and took it right away. I bought something to drink and there we had to split up again. Hannah and I were sitting at the circle, the others were in the stalls. After finding our place, I realised that we were in front of the stage. Chris would face us when he wasn't behind his piano.
At 8 pm the support act started. I wont say much about that, except that I didn't liked it. Maybe it was because I was so looking forward to see the boys..... A lot of seats weren't taken during the support act.
At 9 pm it finally started. The setlist was the same as the 1st of July. I didn't hear the stream yet, but I guess it sounded quite the same. Starting of with Always in My Head. I will post all my pictures, the quality isn't good, but you will have an impression of the evening.
After Always in my Head, Charlie Brown! In our block a lot of people stayed on their seats, but during Charlie Brown Hannah adn I couldn't ressist it anymore. Like a lot of other people in stalls, arena etc.
Paradise:
During Magic they used the 'bowl's' at the roof for some projection. That was really stunning!
Before Clocks, Chris was thanking everyone for coming and told this was the last performance for a while so he'd hoped we could all make it an unforgettable evening:
The Scientist, nice to hear that one again:
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face. Chris throw his guitar in the sky during it!
Till Kingdom Come, I always didn't liked the song really much, but after their performance on the Baden-Baden broadcast, I fell in love:
After that the historic Don't Panic. Jonny sang it three times. Chris stopped the song two times after the part Jonny sang, because he wanted him to sing three times that evening. I loved it!
They just had so much fun togheter!
Another classic one: Everything's not lost:
Then Ink came. One of my favourites:
After this of course True Love, and again they used the bowl's for projection:
After True Love we got Viva La Vida. Will and Chris were on the actual stage. The people over there could almost tough them!
One of the songs I was looking forward to: Midnight:
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall:
From this point I was getting a little sad. I would have wanted to hear much more, but I knew the end was coming. The boys left and came back after 5 minutes or so for the encore.
Oceans:
A Sky Full of Stars was a really joy! Everyone was bouncing. It was some mucg fun to experience that! I tried to film it a little. So I hope you will get what I mean.
And the last one: Fix You
Right after the gig Hannah went downstairs to get some confetti. Anita already got me some, but we collect more. For a moment we wanted to ask for a setlist, but we were quite late, so we guessed there wasn't anyone left. We decided to go back to the merch stand were we meet up with the others again. While we walked up the stairs I saw Phil standing there. So we went up to him and I took some photo's of Hannah and him. He wondered how all of us know who he was.
In all our excitement we told everyone we saw Phil, in Dutch. We totally forgot Row couldn;t understand us. Sorry about that, Row! We said goodbye to Emma, she had to catch a train. We decided to take a walk around the RAH, maybe we could spot one of the others as well. After 30 or 40 minutes we left, guessing they propably sneaking out. We walked downstairs and saw the cars waiting, but as Row said: if we would wait, we wouldn't really see, because they would get in the car and just drove by.... After that we said goodbye to Imke and her mom too. And we left to the hotel. I was that exhausted, I fell in sleep immediatly.
At 7 am some kind of alarm woke us all.... $%$$&*^&*$@$
We had some breakfast at the McDonalds. For some kind of reason I couldn't eat my breakfast. Today I could, so thank god it's not monringsickness, but just the breakfast itself (it was to heavy). We went back to Leicester Square and sat whole morning in the sun. Chatted a lot, we did eat some icecream and about 1 pm we had to leave to go to our trains. We said goodby to Row en took the tube. At the station I walked Hannah to her train, before finding my train to the airport.
This whole trip was a special thing. I never ever travelled alone before. I have never did something crazy like this. Going to a foreign country for a concert, alone, meet 'total' strangers....
But I loved it all! I had a great time and seriously whiped a tear after leaving.
Thanks all of you for this winderfull time. I hope to meet you again and maybe some others too! We are having a great community over here!!