Harry Potter and the Arrival of Jace

     Today we had a completely free day because months ago a majority of the students in the program signed up to go to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter set tour!  If we knew that all it took to get what we wanted was have a majority pay for tickets, we would be doing this more often!  But I am getting ahead of myself because we didn't go to Hogwarts until the evening.  In the morning we went to a museum to look at the insides of dead things!  

      A bunch of us went to London's museum of Natural History.  We looked around and learned about how stars are formed, and how the world is going to explode someday and it is very sad.  We then met to go to see an exhibit called Animals Inside Out.  The whole exhibit had various different animals that had been plastic-i-fied so that we could see their insides.  I saw octopi, sharks, giraffes, elephants and all sorts of mysterious things.  Some they had their muscles, others blood vessels and some bones.  It was all very fascinating, though I glad that we didn't spend too long there because I was getting a little sick by the time that we left.  Animals are much more friendly looking when they have skin and fur.  They didn't allow photography inside the exhibit, though we did manage to get a photo with a camel outside of the exhibit.  That is all.

     After seeing guts and stuff we went back to the center to have lunch, and then began our journey to Hogwarts!  The studio was a little outside of London, so we took a train out to get to new reaches of the world!  The train ride went by very quickly and we were all so stoked to be going!  There were lots of us going, but I was the only guy.  Apparently the other boys don't think Harry Potter is cool enough for their time.  Losers.  At the train station we got picked up by the Harry Potter shuttle that made me think of the Knight Bus.  It played music from the films and was awesome.

     The tour was AMAZING!  We went through the shop right when we got there and it seriously had anything a Harry Potter fan could want.  We decided not to buy anything until after the tour so that we could think about what we wanted.  When the tour began we watched a movie about how the rights to the books were first picked up and other inside things.  There was then an introduction by the actors that portrayed Harry, Ron and Hermione.  They told us to follow them into the gates of Hogwarts, and then the screen lifted and the GATE WAS RIGHT THERE!  We walked through and it took us to the actual set for the Great Hall. It was brilliant! The rest of the tour was self guided and we got to see so many amazing things.  They had many of the costumes, sets, props and paintings.  I got to see Dumbledore's office, the Philosophers stone, Horcruxes, The Mirror of Erised, enter the Ministry of Magic, sit in the flying car, drink butter beer walk down Diagon Alley and lots of other things! It was all so wonderful!  It was the coolest feeling to walk on the very sets where they filmed all of those movies!  I must confess that I squealed several times!  Like a child.  Fortunately I was not the only one (which I suppose wasn't saying too much because everyone else was a girl).  At the very end of the tour they had a gigantic model of Hogwarts that we stared at and drooled over.  When we finally mopped our spit off the floor and left, I returned to the shop to buy myself a chocolate frog, Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans, a wand (the wand of Sirius Black) and some wizard playing cards!  Unfortunately the pictures on the cards don't move.

     We made our way back home, all of us on such a Harry Potter high.  It's taking all of my strength not to run to the bookstore down the street and buy the British versions of the books right now.  Maybe later.....

     And now to do some homework.  Curse responsibilities.  

     I took about 80 photos at Harry Potter, but can't load them all.  If you wanna see, continue being my friend when I get home and I may show off.  :)

 Inside of a camel.  It was......gross.

 Outside the studio tour!

 "You're not a broom!?"

 In the Great Hall.  No big deal.

 In the Gryffindor common room!

 Dumbledore!

 Drinking butter beer.  DELICIOUS!

 #4 Privet Drive.  The Dursleys were not home.  And that's fine.  

 Flying car!  (With Knight bus in the background)

Hogwarts castle!