My So Called Parisian Life: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

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

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

hogwarts castle

wand shop

robes

Sunday, November 18, 2012

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 - sun rock

roman baths

mummers

royal crescent

roman baths

bath abbey

part of the christmas tree from bath abbey!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Scotland

Friday

We took a train to Edinburgh which actually only took about 4 hours. I tried to stay up to watch the countryside go by but that just made my eyes really tired and I wound up falling asleep anyway. We got to Edinburgh around 2pm and went straight to the hostel to drop our stuff off. We were running a little late because the train was delayed but we quickly hiked up the Royal Mile up to Edinburgh Castle. The Royal Mile is the main street that runs through the city. The castle was so cool! It had amazing views of the city. It was absolutely freezing though, but totally worth it. We were there until it closed so we also got to watch the sunset over the city. That was just spectacular. After we turned in to popsicles we went to the Elephant House Cafe which is the birthplace of Harry Potter. We actually got to sit where J.K. Rowling sat. The inspiration for Hogwarts was actually Edinburgh Castle.

After dinner at the cafe we did a walking ghost tour of the underground vaults. I hate anything scary and haunted. Our guide was definitely a theater student and was way overacting but I can't tell if I was just telling myself that so it was less scary, or it she really was. So we're walking around above ground still and she's telling us all different stories and some drunk guy comes up behind our group and tries to join and our tour guide was like um you need to leave and he wouldn't leave so we just moved on. Then it was time to go underground. It was pitch black and small and it had a weird smell and was just so creepy. I kept my hood on and my hands in my pockets the whole time because our guide was like you might feel someone grabbing your hand. From that moment on I only half paid attention and sung Taylor Swift in my head...it made it way less scary. After the tour was over everyone was really freaked out and I was just minding my own business and singing TayTay. Our ISA group leader, now picture a Bulgarian woman with fiery red hair, dressed in all black, with some serious rings on, with a heavy accent telling everyone, "No, no the vaults are really haunted. People come from all over the world to test out the paranormal activity." I almost passed out I got so scared when she said that. It was only about 8:30pm at that time but we were freezing and tired and scared so we went back to the hostel and fell asleep really early because we had a long day ahead of us!

Saturday

The bus picked us all up from the hostel at 8am to head out to Fort Augustus which is were Loch Ness is. The difference between a loch and a lake is that a loch is all sea water. We drove for about 45 minutes to an hour and then would stop for either 30 minutes or 5 minutes depending where we were. Our bus driver talked the entire way there, without stopping. We were booking it down all the windy roads through the mountains. It was weird because it would be torrential downpour and then it would be sunny and it just continued on like that the whole time. We stopped in Glencoe for lunch which was really pretty. There were snowcapped mountains and a bagpipe player. After 4 hours of driving on the bus we got to Fort Augustus which is where Loch Ness is. We did a boat tour of the loch which was just incredible. The water is pitch black because it's so deep but it never gets cold enough to freeze. The first sighting of the legendary Loch Ness monster, Nessie, was spotted by the Vikings in 565 AD and there have been over 1,000 sightings since then. A couple years ago a bunch of submarines went on a mission with advanced sonar technology to try and find the monster. It wasn't made public at the time but there were 18 unidentified swimming objects, or USO's, that were found. After that we got back on the bus and made the long trek back to Edinburgh. We were on the bus for a total of 8 hours. It was annoying at the time but looking back on it, it was cool because we literally drove across the country of Scotland in 4 hours. Not bad at all. We got back to Edinburgh around 8pm. It's amazing how exhausted we got from sitting on a bus all day!

Sunday

We walked down the other end of the Royal Mile past Parliament and over to Arthur's Seat which is a big volcano. We hiked up about half way and stopped to take pictures. It was a hard hike just because it was all uphill and the path was volcanic rock. Plus it had rained the night before so everything was super slippery. It was an incredible view though. So worth the burning leg muscles. After the hike we stopped and had lunch at a little cafe before heading back to the hostel. We back home to London at about 6:45pm and then back to our flat around 7:15ish. I had a great weekend and got some amazing shots. I can't wait to go back through and really look at all of them!