Sara Hammerzmith

As we woke up in the morning, our first proper day together in London began! While walking through Shaftesbury Avenue, Sophie had once again talked to us about how much she would have wanted to see the Frozen West End Musical, so up we went, headed over to the theater streets and bought ourselves tickets for the show in the evening.

While waiting for the show to begin we decided to do a little of a combined shopping and sightseeing tours. As most of you know, I do frequent London at least once or twice a year, but it had been a long ten years since Sophie last set her feet on British soil, and she could not for the life of her remember what she had seen or not. So off we went!

We started our first trip to what probably is a must do for anyone doing London for the first time – Buckingham Palace. With a bit of disappointment, as the King was not in the country right now. Honestly, I still don’t feel accostumed to say there is a KING of England? Oh well.

We took a stroll through the park as we went off to get towards Big Ben and the Southbank – which is one of my favorite locations ever. Ironically, my favorite location in Brisbane is ALSO the southbank – who could have thought?

When arriving at Big Ben, we found ourselves caught up in the middle of a pro-Palestinian demonstration, which all of us loved and supported. It was incredibly beautiful to see people, not just in London but all around the world, getting up behind Palestine. Anywho – we went to visit the Big Ben and then made our way over to the Southbank, London Eye and a very cute bookshop! I guess it is a chain shop in the UK, but I did find some interesting books that I planned to come back for another day.

We headed over to an amazing pizza place close to Waterloo station for some dinner before we went back towards the theatres and attended our very first West End musical! We had gotten some really good seats if you ask me – surely, they were a bit away but it gave us a perfect view over the entire stage.

The musical itself was very good! It was a bit of a mixture between Frozen and Frozen 2 which had me raise my eyebrow a bit due to small changes to the plot, but nothing major! The actresses and actors were amazing and it was an incredible show to watch! I would highly recommend people seeing it.

Once it was over we headed back to our hotel to have an early night. Our most jampacked day was awaiting us the next day – and we could not be more excited.

// Sara

And just like that, Friday came along! I started my morning by checking out and walking the whole of twenty minutes to the hotel me and my friends had booked for our longer stay. The only thing I kept thinking that morning was that I had wished I had simply extended the stay on that hotel rather than taking a different one, but I should consider myself lucky it was but a twenty minute walk only.

I walked there early in the morning with the hopes of being able to leave my luggage for later, as I did not really fancy to bring it with me to the meet – and much to my surprise – not only could I leave the luggage for later, I could also do all the paperwork prior to checking in later! This made me incredibly happy, as it means everything would just be DONE WITH.

Once done, I headed out to Starbucks for some nice breakfast. Yes, shoot me. I do love myself som Starbucks, and while Espresso House will forever be my number one, I do love treating myself Starbucks whenever I’m out and about since we do not have that where I live.

Time went on quicker than I actually expected, and it was time for me to leave. Now let me tell you a tale of London underground. The travel time to the destination of the meet was 30 minutes. So I figured, and hour should be enough. After all, I had no luggage or anything the like, and the underground stations where right next to the Starbucks. And getting to Paddington was really no problem.. But as I stood on the relatively newly opened Elizabeth Line, together with cosplayers galore heading off to Comic Con (which has the same train and destination as I did) only to learn that the ONE train we had to go on was having issues and thus “cancelled” sort of. We got adviced to get on the next train and change to the DLR at some other destination. Said and done.

Then I finally arrived in Canary Wharf for our meeting, but of course I got a bit lost, and being stressed from the trains sure did not help! I was meant to be there around 13.30, but in the end I got there at 14.30. But you know what?

All of the stress and resentment I felt towards the underground simply vanished the moment I saw my beloved Tree standing outside Platform waiting for me! I met her last in April while on the Sabaton tour, but by jove have I missed her! I try to catch her streams as much as I can, bit it quite is not the same as when you can hug someone and talk to someone. I updated her briefly on the drama of the trains and she let me know that Platform had.. mildly fucked up the booking despite promising the hosts a certain way it would be dealt with. That is very sad, to be honest. We scouted this destination when I was in England on tour, and what we loved about the destination was the impeccable service… which.. Just was not quite there anymore, the way we remembered it.

But nevertheless! I got to meet a whole group of amazing people, for example AntTyrant which is someone I’ve seen and interacted a lot with in Tree’s stream and Quillster! We all sat together and played Mario Party at the location and simply caught up on everything and nothing. Despite all the hick ups, it was a splendid time nonetheless. And it was equally amazing meeting all of Matt’s community as well!

If it was not enough that I had had issues with the underground, meanwhile, Sophie had been having her share of issues as well. Her train from Disney to Lille had been delayed, like, heavily delayed to the point where she missed her Eurostar connection taking her to London. And upon looking on the website, all of the remaining Eurostars for the day was sold out. Nathan and I were deep in looking for flights to get her on – because at the end of the day – what matters to us is that she comes, even if we have to break bank to get her there. So it was a turbulent and hectic morning, but by the time I had reached Platform Sophie had managed to get on a no-show seat in Eurostar, and as we sat down in a nearby pub for a drink I got the message Sophie was approaching St Pancras and I had to leave the meet a little early.

So, GLADLY; issues on Elizabeth line had been resolved, so getting back to my friends were easy. And seeing these two people, some of my best friends ever, again, was so emotional and we were all just… kind of freaking out. Despite being in our 30’s, we most likely looked like unattended kids. Especially, considering we headed into the first Tesco we found to buy as much snacks as we could muster for our planned movie night in.

We went back to the hotel, went out to get Sophie’s beloved Shake Shack. I am not gonna lie, she threatened us that if we did not enjoy it she would cancel her friendship with us. Gladly, we did enjoy it quite a lot! After this, we went for a little stroll – ended up in Chinatown by chance, walked by Shaftesbury Avenue which for us Potterheads felt special and saw all the theaters. We also came upon an IKEA that was designed as an IKEA bag. Lovely.

When we got back we simply crashed and watched a Harry Potter movie. I gave Nathan the deodorant he left at my place this summer, he got me hot sauce, Sophie had brought a Rémy shoulder plush and he handed her Lordiary. As we watched The Deathly Hallows, we fantisized and talked about what was to come the coming days.

And oh boy. We were in for a treat.

// Sara

Oh my Lord as I would be saying to my friends. It has been a hot minute since I last wrote – but all that is about to change, I will have you know. I just came home from the trip of a life time, at least as far as it feels right now, and to be honest, a trip you get to spend with the best of your friends, is it not?

What started off as attending a streamer meet together with Maria, ended up being one of the most magical trips of my life. So, I’ll take it from the start. It all started with our dear friend Treecle, in fact. Just as us, she’s a fellow streamer and for the first time ever, together with streamer Matt Orloff, she was planning and going through with Treecle-Meet 2023! Being a long time supporter and friend of Treecle it was a no brainer for me to attend, and at first Maria had the idea of coming too. The next plan was to attend Comic-Con together with Tree over the weekend – however, changes in Maria’s personal life made things difficult to go through as originally planned – but as so did, a different plan started to bloom.

My Disney Besties – commonly known as Lordi besties – that are no strangers to this blog – Nathan and Sophie started speaking in our little groupchat about how they wanted to visit a Disney exhibition, and why not the Harry Potter studios? And so, our first non-Lordi, non-concert vacation plans were born.

After planning and stressing, freaking out and sweat and tears – the time was finally here. But, I will make a little halt right here. We’ll be getting to this part of the trip eventually, but first I must speak of the first parts. My meetings with my wonderful Twitch colleagues and friends.

As Treecle-Meet was happing rather early on Friday and I happen to live where no airplanes fly, I decided to travel out a day before my dear Disney Besties, and so I did. I arrived in London around 15 on the Thursday afternoon, and after making my way to the hotel (located relatively near Paddington Station) I got refreshed and headed out to meet up with my friends.

This was going to be the second time I met Corin, but it was the first time meeting Georgina, Divya and Pen! And it was so incredible. We went to a mexican place to eat where we had a wonderful time, eating and catching up and talking about everything and nothing. Sleepie and Pen had to leave a little earlier, so the remaining three of us went to Hard Rock Café for some drinks where we took some lovely pictures and had some lovely drinks.

But alas, all good things must come to an end so did this evening. I hope it won’t take too long before I see these amazing people again, because I absolutely adore them.

// Sara