“To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer.”  --Everyone

My Travel Crew—daughter Liz, son-in-law Peter, granddaughter Adeline et moi—took it easy on our first full morning in London.  We had plans to meet our friend Mark in the early afternoon, but the morning was spent sleeping in and relaxing.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it was nearly 60 degrees when I ventured downstairs to sit on the veranda of the Hotel Kensington.  I was scrolling on my phone amid the pots of narcissus and tulips and decided to check on our West End tickets for Romeo and Juliet that evening. We had chosen that show because it starred Sadie Sink of “Stranger Things” as Juliet.  Imagine my chagrin when I opened my ATG app on my phone to discover that our tickets were for June 17, not March 18!  What the what??

I fell into a full-blown panic. How could I have screwed this up?  I mean, I have messed up dates and times in the past—who hasn’t?  But this was opening night of the show and Adeline was looking forward to seeing Sadie Sink. I had gotten the tickets in January and was sure I had checked the date over and over. I dashed to the concierge’s desk, but it was hopeless. Opening night of a big show—there was no way to find tickets.

I broke the news to the kids as soon they came down and they were wonderful about it, assuring me that we would find another show to see that night.

In the meantime, we were off to meet our friend, who walked us all around Lincoln Fields, the center of the legal community in London.  Mark is a solicitor and we met him near Lincoln’s Inn Fields.  We had a great walk around the area, and Mark treated us to a Middle Eastern lunch at Honey & Co in Bloomsbury on Lamb’s Conduit Street (seriously, how did they come up with these street names?).

We took a bus back to our hotel and discovered that Liz had saved the day. She found tickets for the highly rated Bridge Theatre production of Into the Woods, a family favorite. 

We took the Tube and walked through some moderately scary London neighborhoods (even saw a fox!) and found the theater, which is in sight of the Tower Bridge on the other side of the Thames.

The play was hilarious, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Imagine my surprise when I entered my room and discovered the tickets for Romeo & Juliet for March 18 that I had already printed out before we left home.  Yet somehow, the dates of our tickets were changed?

I spent the next morning on the phone to the ticket agent—forty-minute wait to speak to a human, of course—who was as confused as I was. Same order number, but completely different dates.  Leon (the aforementioned human) was very kind and understanding and directed me to their website, advising me to take photos of the tickets I had printed out and send them in.  I did as he suggested and received a refund.  The transformation of our tickets will remain a mystery, but we nonetheless had a great night at the theater.