Little Venice, birthday celebrations, Spy screening and attending the interview with Kenneth Branagh about Cinderella

Hallooooo everyone!

Well this week was a rather 'special' one. I left "hey, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22" behind and started my 24th year in life. That's right, it was my 23th birthday this week.

A little recap for you: Friday my parent arrived in town. Sunday afternoon they left again. On my birthday I had cake at the office, Thursday evening I went to the screening of Spy and Friday evening was another 'Meet the...' at the Apple store on Regent Street! This time it was an interview with Kenneth Branagh, Richard Madden and Holliday Grainger about Cinderella.

Oh yeah, just to warn you: this is a photo heavy blog post :)

So to start of with Friday 13th March 2015
Nothing really exciting happened beside the fact that I had lunch with my parents instead of at the office. They had also provided me with some goods from Belgium and had brought me some birthday presents :)

Because we had quite a big lunch, we weren't hungry at 4:30pm, so we walked from the office to Saville row, because my parents wanted to see the tailor shop that was used in Kingsmen: the Secret Service. From there it is only a short walk to one of my favorite spots in London: St James's Church. A quick stop in Cath Kidston, Waterstones and Lillywhites and we were ready to eat some dinner. Pizza Express was once again a success :)

Weekend with the parents
Saturday morning started bright and early. I arrived at my parent's hotel at 9:30am and after some breakfast we took the metro to Camden Town where our walk to Little Venice would begin :)

We made a little stop at Primrose Hill.

After Primrose Hill we just continued with our walk next to Regent's Canal.

Primrose Hill wasn't our only stop. Because we were 'in the neighbourhood', we walked to the Abbey Road Studios :)

From Abbey Road it was only a 10 min walk to Little Venice where we had lunch on a boat.

 From Little Venice it was another 10min walk to Paddington Station.

And from Paddington Station it was another short walk to Kensington Gardens where we found Peter Pan and some beautiful swans.

 In Hyde Park we went to the Princess Diana Memorial.

By 4:30pm it was time for an afternoon tea. Because I wasn't really hunger, I wasn't really up for a full out afternoon tea. So my parents were OK to settle for some cake and tea instead.

After our tea and cake we walked to V&A but as it was 5:30pm already and they had an event starting at 6pm, the V&A closed at 5:45pm. What a bummer :( But, across the road, Harrods had a Cinderella window display going on, so not all was lost x) I can't express my excitement for this movie enough!!!!!!!!

For dinner we had chinese in China town ^^

Sunday morning started a bit with a bummer. We wanted to visit Spencer's house, but as we arrived we were told they worked with timed tickets and the first group that wasn't fully booked was at 12:30pm. My parents' train left at 3pm so we thought it too risky. I'm mean, it would have been managable, but then we wouldn't have got our lunch at Yo!Sushi and that is a tradition :)

The lady at Spencer's house kindly advised us to visit the War Rooms instead. I've seen some advert about that exhibition and I actually really want to see that one. So I was actually very happy we were to go there :)

On our walk to the War Rooms, passed Buckingham Palace and the Guards museum. As it was 10:30pm, the ceremony of the Change of the Guards was about to start. The musicians had a little warm up session and they played some awesome soundtracks x)

After they left, we proceded our walk to the War Rooms, but when we arrived there was a line to get in! And the tour is about 2hours long and we simply did not have the time. So instead we walked towards Trafalgar Sq. As we past Great Scotland Yard I showed my parents film locations that were used in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. If you're interested in more Harry Potter film locations in London I've written a whole blog post about them :) Just click here.

We ended Sunday afternoon with lunch at Yo!Sushi and a cup of coffee (or tea) at Costa in St Pancras as my parents had a train back to Belgium at 3pm. After we said goodbye, I went straight home, made myself comfortable in bed with a cup of tea and started watching the extras on the DVD's of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 and 2 :)

Birthday cake at the office
I was actually kind of hoping that my colleagues would forget about my birthday. We have this thing in the office that every time it's someone birthday, we all gather in the kitchen and sing Happy Birhtday to the Birthday boy or girl. It's an amazing excuse to eat cake in the office. I was kind of dreading the whole kitchen experience, so I had my fingers crossed they would forget about my birthday. But no, at 4:15pm, I was lead to the kitchen and a chorus of 'Happy Birthday' broke out... I have to admit it wasn't too bad. I survived my first birthday at the office :)

A lot of people might think it's pathetic that I didn't give a major party or celebrated with any other friends for that matter. Most of my friends still live in Belgium anyway. Hell, I was even laught at because I celebrated my 21st birthday by playing with my then 10yr old cousin outside. And I celebrated it the exact same way last year, for my 22nd. I kind of missed it this year to be honest :)

No, after work, I went home, ate some cake, watched Lady and the Tramp and opened the presents my parents gave me and a huge present from my sister. I'd also received a few birthday cards :) It was a very low key birthday and it was perfect. Some people like to go out for their birthday and scream the entire night; "It's my birthday!" Or have their friends scream all night: "It's her/his birthday!" I say: no thanks to that.

My little set up :)

Spy screening and meeting Pieter
Thursday evening was the Cinderella premiere and my original plan was to go watch the event as I usually do when the premiere is on Leicester Square. But since there was a huge white tent on Leicester Sq I doubted that I was able to see anything. So when the opportunity came around to go to a Spy screening I absolutly said YES to that.

I will most likely write a blog post about it when the movie hit theatres in June :) But until that (and I highly recommend it!) enjoy the trailer :)

Afterwards I met up with Pieter. A friend I know from way back in the day when we were 13yr old .
We had a nice catch up :)

'Meet the...' on Friday @ Apple store on Regent Street

Friday was also a very very exciting day: I was to attend an interview with Kenneth Branagh, Richard Madden and Holliday Grainger.

Kenneth Branagh (director of Thor and Jack Ryan: shadow recruit and our beloved professor Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) talked about the film making process of Cinderella, pre production of the dress, favorite locations to shoot, etc. Richard Madden (Robb Stark in Game of Thrones) talked about the challenges he had to face to make prince Charming a worthy partner for Cinderella and his fear of the dancing scene. And Holliday Grainger (Jane Eyre, the Borgias and Anna Karenina) gushed about how beautiful the ballroom scene was and her challenges in finding a synchronism in her double act with Sophie.

We weren't aloud to film, but I expect that the interview will be online soon. In the mean time, here's the trailer for Cinderella:

After the interview I was even more excited then before the interview and that was alot already! x) Can't wait til next week when the movie will finally be released in the UK!!

That's it for this week. My apologies for the very long blog post! x) I applaud you if you made it this far! Thanks!

Movies I've watched:
Pocahontas, Lady and the Tramp and Spy :)

New word: meticulous= exaclty

As always, thanks for reading!
xo - Sara