The words that I've used to describe the past experiences I've had were things like "phenomenal," "beautiful," "amazing," "breath-taking," "great," "wonderful," "educational," "little-warm-tingly-feeling-on-the-inside," and other things like that.
But yesterday was truly magical. It's the only word to describe it.
I just- *sigh*.
I'll just start out by detailing how much I needed yesterday.
Wednesday night and Thursday were just the so stressful. I've barely slept all week. I had two different projects to turn in for one class and then a paper on the BBC to write for my Second World War class on top of that. So by the time I got to Thursday I was dead. So I decided to take another walk.
I absolutely love my walks. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take another one after I finish this blog post. Because it's sunny here, and when it's a sunny day in England you take advantage of that.
My walk Thursday was great to clear my head and just to let go of some stress. The grounds here are absolutely breath-taking.
Here's a little picture I took while on it:
I know, right?
But anyway, I tried to get to bed at a decent hour so I could get up at 5:15 to get on my train to London by 6:15. So yesterday was quite a long day, but worth it. Oooh, that's a phrase I could also use to describe yesterday: "worth it." I like it.
Anyway, we finally made it to London and had a nice tour of the Tower of London.
If you don't know what that is, it's a really cool place in London that you should visit.
It was used as a prison and a place of execution during medieval times. Now, it's a tourist site and it holds the crown jewels.
My goodness, seeing the crown jewels was so cool. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I don't have anything to show you. You'll just have to see it for yourself.
We also got to experience different parts of England's history that we've covered in class, so that was really cool. And plus, it's a castle, so...
However, after the Tower of London, we made our way to the outskirts of London to see the Warner Brothers Studio where Harry Potter was filmed.
AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
It was slightly stressful getting there. We had to take the tube to the correct train station in central London. Then, we had to take that train to another train station in London. And this train was delayed by about 15 minutes. Which kind of freaked me out since we were on a tight schedule. But we indeed made it, and a shuttle bus took us from Watford Junction station to this place:
As you can see by my facial expression, I wasn't that excited.
I've waited for this day for a while, and I didn't want to leave England without seeing it.
You walk in, and the first thing you see are the hand prints of Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint on slabs of concrete. And then it expands into this huge room with pictures of all the cast everywhere, with the blue Ford Anglia hanging from the ceiling. AHHHH.
We got our tickets, and were so excited.
The first part of your tour is a movie in which they basically give you an introduction to what you're about to see. And the trio is standing in front of the Great Hall doors, giving this all the while. AND THEN THE SCREEN LIFTS UP AND IT SHOWS THE ACTUAL GREAT HALL DOORS. I almost had a conniption.
The Great Hall was just so awesome to walk through. I mean, so much happened there.
Then, you enter this room that is HUGE. It had so much of the sets in it. I saw costumes from the movie, profiles of the directors, make-up, wigs, the Hogwarts front gates, the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, the Gryffindor Common, the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore's Office, the special effects area, the moving staircases, the Ministry of Magic set, Umbridge's Ministry Office, parts of Malfoy Manor, Hagrid's Hut, The Burrow, the Horcruxes, the sword of Gryffindor, the Tri-Wizard Cup, the Goblet of Fire, Hagrid/Sirius' motorcycle, and SO much more. I could've stayed for hours in there.
Then, you go to what is known as the back lot. From this point on was my favorite part of the tour.
We had butterbeer (which was amazing), took a picture in the blue Ford Anglia, saw the Knight bus, Privet Drive, Godric's Hollow, the bridge they destroy, the Wizard's Chess pieces. So much. But maybe one of my favorite parts was seeing this:
This is the gravestone from the graveyard scene in the Goblet of Fire. This scene is one of my favorites in the books and movies because of Harry's bravery.Voldemort challenges Harry to come out and fight him, and this is what he decides in the books:
"And as he heard Voldemort draw
nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He
was not going to die crouching like a child playing hide-and-seek; he
was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet...he
was going to die upright like his father, and he
was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible..."
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter thirty-four "Priori Incantatem"
And in the movie he does what he does at 0:07 through 0:14 in the clip below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIeIkRyGpkE
Ah. Yes. I love it. So powerful.
Now you want to go read Harry Potter, don't you? I do too, so that makes two of us.
After this section was a section that had a bunch of cool goblin masks and wax figures. There was the Hungarian Horntail, Dobby, Fawkes, and Buckbeak.
Then, you turn the corner, AND THERE'S DIAGON ALLEY. That was a moment for me. It honestly felt magical walking through there. There was Ollivander's, Quidditch Supplies, Madame Malkins', Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Gringotts, and more.
After this was a really cool section, known as the concept art section. There were sketches and drawings of how Hogwarts would look, how certain scenes would look, and other things. It was really cool to see how these movies were thought up before they came to fruition. And may I also say that parts of the 4th soundtrack were playing as I walked through here. Which is my favorite.
Let's just say that anything from the 4th book and movie is pretty much my favorite.
And then, you turn the corner, AND THERE'S HOGWARTS.
I'm telling you, they really know how to make a girl cry. There's all these cool sites and they don't tell you when they're coming so it all kind of hits you at once.
So I walk into this huge room and see THIS.
Really, Warner Brothers? Really? Did you have to set up the tour like this? To make me sob and never want to leave?
You can see the scale of this thing by the guy taking the picture. It was huge. As big as a gymnasium, I would say.
And as I was walking through it, my favorite song EVER from the scores was playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozBOHxoD-cs
I'm surprised I made it out of there alive. I felt like God just gave this day to me as a present that I didn't deserve. Perhaps that's a bit weird to say. Especially since a lot of people think that Jesus doesn't like Harry Potter, which is fine to think, I suppose. However, I do encourage you to explore the Christian themes involved in Harry Potter if you so choose. And there are even Bible verses quoted in the books. But anyway, I'm being irrelevant.
After this, you go into this room where there's all these wand boxes with people's names from the movies, and you find different ones.
And then I saw this quote.
She is my queen. She said that at the Part 2 premiere in Trafalgar Square.
Sadly, this was the last part of the tour. And I almost had to be dragged out of the place. We caught our connections back to central London. And then we had the wonderful honor of going to King's Cross for our train back to Grantham.
Ohhh yes. I saw it. And touched it.
And then, I actually had a lovely hour-long conversation with a guy from London named Chris on the train back to Grantham. British people are the most fun. They're just easy to talk to.
But anyways, I'm sorry if I've bored you with my awful fan-girling for the past, well, however long it took you to read this.
But I also hope it made you want to go back to watch and read Harry Potter. Because Harry Potter is awesome.
But what I'll be doing next weekend will be quite exciting: I'm going to the Lake District! It's going to so fun and adventurous. It's a beautiful National Park in Northern England. I'll even be waterfall climbing!
You'll definitely see pictures of how it goes.
Cheers,
Shelley
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