Windsor Castle

     Today's frozen adventure was to Windsor Castle. It was about a 40 minute train ride from where we were in London. There was like 20 minutes left of the ride and I had my eyes closed. You know when you're half conscious half not? Well, I was in that stage. I could hear what song was playing. Next thing I know one of the ISA directors is tapping my should saying we were there. Awkward. The walk from the train station to the castle was like 5 minutes so it was really close.

     We head up to the castle and get our audio guides and of course, had to stop for an ISA moment. I'm not a big fan of these moments. Everyone clumps together, in an attempt to make it look like we're all one happy group, to take a picture. It wouldn't be that bad if we were all actually friends. But seeing as I basically only know the names of my roommates, these moments are dreaded. Since I was the only one out of my roommates that went, I stuck my head in just to get my little mug in the shot and the off to the state rooms I went.

     The state rooms were really cool. There was a dining room, an artillery room, knighting room and a whole bunch more. Some of the rooms had a Christmas tree and some ornaments. I was wandering around the inside for about 2 hours then I went outside to the frozen tundra.

     Outside there was a guard that you could go up to and he was on duty (hehehhe), but you could take pictures with him, so of course, I needed a picture with him, but since I was alone, I had to ask some random person. (If that wasn't a perfect example of a run on sentence, I don't know what is). Luckily enough, someone asked me to take their picture first and since we had the same camera I put my east coast guard down assuming they wouldn't try to steal my camera.

     After I was done at the castle I was starting to get hungry so while attempting to find a place to eat, i noticed there were throngs of people lined on the streets. Obviously, I had to see what everyone was looking at, so I weaseled my way through and there was a band, with little kids dressed up as elves and wait for it... SANTAAAAAAA!! While all of this was going on I was on the phone with my parents. I had my headphones in and I didn't realize how loudly I yelled Santa. Yeah, that happened. But, pulling the front of the sleigh there were two reindeer! And there were another two on the back. Real live reindeer. So cute! I wish it was snowing. It was cold enough to snow. But there was no snow.

     Now I'm back home, sitting by the fire, trying to warm up my toes. You know when you're frozen down to the bone and it takes a while to warm back up? Well, that's going on right now. I guess instead of procrastinating on here, I should go studying for my final on Monday now. 

windsor castle

windsor castle

windsor castle

windsor castle

windsor castle

guard at windsor castle

windsor castle

windsor castle

guard at windsor castle

winsdor castle

crooked house windsor

windsor castle

reindeer

SANTAAAAA

painted telephone booth

Harry Potter Studio Tour

     Talk about an amazing behind the scenes experience of one of the greatest stories of all time! The amazing Warner Brothers London backlot is only a 15 minute train ride from the center of London. So we get to the train station and a big Harry Potter bus was waiting to whisk us away to the studio. I think it was like a 10 minute bus ride or whatever. So we get there and everyone is like squealing because everyone was so excited. 

     We walk into the big main room and all around the ceiling there was big blown up pictures of the cast when they were little and when they were older. They looked like babies! They were all so cute! So we walk to the other side and right there was the cupboard under the stairs. After we saw that, there was a big room that they herded us all into where a guy talked to us about how popular the series was. Then after that room we went into another room with a big screen and we watched a little promo video with Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint welcoming us to the set and the backlot. When the video was done the screen went up and the entrance to the Great Hall was right there! IT WAS SO COOL. They had two of the big long tables. The Great Hall was a hot set, which means that the set was fully dressed with all the props. Along the sides of the hall were the robes from all of the houses and Quidditch uniforms. The floors of the hall is made of the same stone that a lot of the castles are made of because they needed to stay strong because of all the movement of people and heavy equipment.

     The next room was huge and had so many sets and props from all of the movies that I don't even know where to begin. They had the Gryffindor common room, the mirror of erised, the burrow, the moving staircases, costumes, and Dumbledore's office just to name a few. I think the coolest part was the Burrow because the way they have it set up, is there were 4 screens to touch: the iron, the knitting needles, the pan, and the knife. When you would touch the knife, the carrots would start to be chopped, then when you touch the knitting needs, the scarf would start to knit. It was unbelievable to see what technology could do.

     After walking through that set, you go outside into the back lot. Out on the backlot was a place to get butter beer, Hagrid's motorcycle, the Knight bus, the Weasley's flying car, Privet Drive, and the chess pieces. Butter beer is sooooo good! It tastes like cream soda, but its really thick and dense. Of course, I had to sit on the motorcycle and get in the car. After wandering through, you go into the next building. At first, you see all the creatures and dummies used. I think Dobby was my favorite. There was also Aragog, Buckbeak, and a whole slew of other creatures used in the movies. What I didn't know was that for Hagrid's character, in order to make him really large, the body double would wear an animatronic head that sits on top of his shoulders.

     After the creature's room was Diagon Alley. It was really fun to wander the street. It wasn't that big, but it had a lot of the shops, including Gringott's and Ollivanders. Once you walk through the alley, there is a small room filled with sketches of set design and characters. Then you walk through and in a glass case are all the buildings used in the series. They are detailed on a small scale, but show the full building. The best room in the lot was next.

     The whole room was Hogwarts. The model was huge and showed every detail of the castle. The lights would get brighter and darker in the room to show how the lights inside the castle would turn on. It was just amazing to watch the expressions of the people as they were coming into the room. Everyone just stared in amazement. The castle was actually used to do the pan around shots in the movie. 

     The last room was the inside of the wand shop. There were thousands of wand boxes. Each of the boxes were hand drawn on and there was a box with every person that worked on the movies. Then it was off to the gift shop that had every Harry Potter thing you could think of. Of course, we all had to take a picture wearing the house robes. I learned so many things about Harry Potter that I never knew before. So I obviously had to find out what house I would be sorted into so I took the test and at first I was sorted into Hufflepuff, which clearly is not a good house, so I took it again and got into Slytherin. I suppose that will do!

cupboard under the stairs

great hall

great hall

gryffindor bedroom

dumbledore's office

chamber of secrets

quidditch visual effects

the burrow

death eaters

knight bus

flying car

4 privet drive

butter beer

chess pieces

dobby

hagrid head

diagon alley

ollivander's

quidditch supplies

behind the scenes planning

behind the scenes planning

hogwarts castle

hogwarts castle

hogwarts castle

hogwarts castle

wand shop

robes

Stonehenge and Bath

     Well, this day did not start off as planned. We had to be at the Baker Street Tube Station, which is a straight shot from our flat. It's about a 10 minute tube ride so we were excited since we had to be there at 8am. So we leave our flat around 7:45am thinking we would get there right away. Well, we were mistaken. Of course, the one weekend that we actually need to use our line, it's closed because of "scheduled maintenance work". So we had no way to get there. Then, we needed to figure out how to take a bus to get to the tube station. We got on the bus, but there was a diversion in the road, so we went off course. So we got off and then just hailed a cab. Finally we get there only about 10 minutes late. We wanted to stop and get a bit to eat and one of the ISA directors said we had 20 minutes before we left. So we went to a place inside the tube station and about 3 minutes later he came galavanting over to where we were saying that we had to go... now! So my roommates had to leave their bacon sandwiches and we went off to the bus. 

     Our first stop was to Stonehenge. We got lucky because it was an absolutely gorgeous day out. The stones are from around 2000 BC and were put up even before the pyramids in Egypt. It amazes me how no one really knows how they got there. We only stayed for about 45 minutes before we headed off to Bath.

     Once in Bath, we got off the bus and saw mummers, which are people that dress up very...oddly. We walked around the town a bit and then had some free time to have lunch and explore a bit. After that we went to the Roman Bath House which was really cool! We got to walk around and see the baths. At the end of the museum,we got to taste the water. It was absolutely disgusting. It tasted like blood. Ew, so gross. 

     It was the same ordeal once we got back to London. We had to figure out a way home. We waited for what seemed like forever for the bus. Then the bus never announced our stop so we missed it and got off 2 stops later. Then we walked back to the tube where the tube was running to be able to get home. Well since all the tubes were diverted we waited forever but finally got home. A very long day, but totally worth it.

stonehenge

stonehenge

stonehenge

stonehenge - sun rock

roman baths

mummers

royal crescent

roman baths

roman baths

bath abbey

part of the christmas tree from bath abbey!