Friday Night at the Movies

Here's something that's pretty much the same in the UK and the US: it ain't cheap to go to the movies.
We walked up to the local cinema tonight. This is the first Friday night in a while that we haven't had something to do, and it's been a long week. I've been feeling puny with this lingering cough and I had a lot of work to do today. So let's do something fun!
As faithful readers will remember, I've mentioned that we have a "shopping center" in our neighborhood called the N1 Centre. Among the shops and restaurants there is what we thought was a small theater called the Vue. We went there tonight to see "Tropic Thunder." It's been out for a while in the States but just opened here a couple of weeks ago.
The theater is on the second floor of the open-air shopping center. We walked in to the small lobby and bought our tickets (9 pounds, 50 pence per ticket). I kept thinking, "Wow, where can we get a drink" because the lobby was pretty spartan.
Then we hit the escalator and found the concession stand. It contained the usual popcorn, nachos, candy and sodas, plus a wall of bulk candy. You could also buy wine and beer. Lots of different price combos: 2 drinks and a big popcorn, etc..
We chose popcorn and drinks. I was a little taken aback when I was asked if we wanted sweet or salty popcorn. We chose salty - I'm not sure what they would have done to it to make it sweet because they just put it in a box for the "salty" version.
After we got our eats, we lined up to go into the part of the building where the nine screens were located. We estimated that there about 200 seats in the theater; when we bought out tickets, the screen at the ticket window said 56 seats were left.
We sat down about 8:20 for the 8:30 show. There was an usher on duty who announced that every ticket had been sold so the theater would be filled. He suggested that we move to the end of the rows to make it easier for people to be seated.
The theater was indeed full. The movie was funny and after it was over, we walked out and then just kept walking, not to the car, but straight on home, something neither of us had ever done before.
Just like back home, we left the movies with a lot less change in our pockets. But a night out is fun for a change, even even when you're away from home.