Weekend 21!
London, England
Friday,
January 9th
We
got into London late after our flight was delayed and late, so nothing of
excitement happened Friday night (besides walking into the wrong room at the
hostel in the middle of the night).
Saturday, January
10th
It was an early morning and
a long day so we quickly got ready and took the ‘tube’ over near the Globe
Theater. We got off on the other side of the river and walked across the
Millennium Bridge (the one in Harry Potter 6 that the dementors destroyed).
We
made it in time for the first tour of the Globe Theater and had a quaint little
group of 5 to tour the Globe. The Globe Theater was Shakespeare’s theater where
he owned a seventh of it. The Globe we saw was actually the work of a 30 year
project as the original Globe burned down in Shakespeare’s time. The tour guide
was very charismatic (an actor of course) and spoke about the yard where the
‘groundlings’ stayed, the acoustics, the decorations, the framework of the building,
etc. The Globe was a long project because it was built off of donations and
hard to find research. It was pretty neat to see the theater built as it would
have been (or very close to what it would have been) in the late 1500s/early
1600s.
After
the tour we got a quick breakfast then walked across the Tower Bridge (not to
be confused with the simple London Bridge). We also saw the Tower of London but
did not have time to go into it. The Tower of London is where the royal jewels
and crown is kept.
After
the Tower we tried to walk into Soho or the West End to get cheap day-of
theater tickets, but we were running out of time. We hopped into a taxi (whose
driver called Stuart ‘govna’ or governor) near Covent Garden then headed over to
the tour office for our HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR!!
The
bus ride was about an hour and the bus driver was pretty fun to listen to giving
us random facts as we passed different landmarks. Do you know that people of
London who drive have to pay about 11 pounds a day for a ‘congestion fee’!?
We
got to the Warner Brother’s Studios and walked right into the tour. We saw a
little introductory movie with the three main stars of Harry Potter then were
free to roam the studios. The first room was of course the Great Hall decorated
for Christmas with a giant feast of resin made food. The next room we went into
was a big warehouse of props. In the big warehouse room of props was all the
Horcruxes, the sorcerer’s stone, the door to the chamber of secrets,
EVERYTHING! In this warehouse was also the magic of flying a broom interactive
activity, spell casting, and dark arts props. The next room was the cafeteria
with BUTTERBEER! It was pretty good with a thick marshmallow cream like
topping. Outside of the cafeteria was the Knight bus, Harry’s Privet drive home,
and the bridge to Hogwarts, as well as a replica of Hagrid’s bike, some giant
wizard chess pieces, and the flying Ford Anglia.
After
that was the special effects room with makeup, masks, and animatronics. The
most impressive thing to see was how they made Hagrid look so big (spoiler
alert, stilts and animatronic head). After that room was Diagon Alley complete with
Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes magic/candy shop. At the end of Diagon Alley was a
drafting room with a bunch of designs and art work. The set models followed the
drafting complete with the actual Hogwarts castle model that was used. It was
very cool!
After
walking through the models we entered into Ollivander’s wand shop and saw that
some popular celebrity names (those who had visited) were written on the wand
boxes instead of the type of wood and core in the wand. Then of course was the overpriced
gift shop with scarves, candy, books, and clothing.
We
got back to London at Marble Arch tube stop and walked down Oxford Street (the
main shopping street) towards Soho. It was crazy! Finally we found the theater
we were going to and enjoyed a nice dramatic thriller, The Woman in Black. We’ve
never seen a scary, live performance so seeing this play was really fun. It is
also an English play set in the UK, so that makes it all the more authentic
too. There were only two men in the cast and the play had a very minimalistic
set, but man was it a great thriller of a play. The audience was gasping,
screaming, and shaking at times.
After
that it was pretty late so we made our way to the tube (three stops away from
Soho since it was so crowded- but we got to see Trafalgar Square all lit up)
back to the hostel after grabbing a quick snack at the grocery store.
Sunday, January 11th
We got up and checked out of
the hostel (no one was there…) then made our way two metro stops away from the
city center to go to mass. We met up with Kaitlyn (the little sister of a good
friend of Stevie’s) and her boyfriend John for a quick breakfast after mass. It
was nice to see them and it was their first weekend in London before their
semester of studies there.
After
breakfast we dropped our backpacks off at the hostel and made our way across
town to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone. We just walked right in as
the British Museum (and most museums in London) are free. We were able to
actually touch some of the artifacts in the museum, one of which was a 4000
year old ax head! We saw the top ten things in the museum then walked up to
King’s Cross Station only to find a huge line and a professional photographer
at the trolley cart for the entry to Platform 9¾.
After
just getting a picture of the trolley, we took the tube to Green Park and
walked across it to see Buckingham Palace. It looked like her Majesty, the
Queen, was in since the flag was flying over the palace.
After
the palace we walked down to the Westminster area to catch a glimpse of the
Abbey, House of Parliament, and Big Ben’s clock tower (Big Ben is actually the
name of the bell inside the tower). We also got a nice view of the London Eye
giant ferris wheel. We weren’t able to go on it since it was closed for maintenance
(the only two weeks of the year for maintenance and we chose that weekend to
visit London, oh well).
Then
it was time to go so we picked up our stuff at the hostel and headed to the
airport. We got there in time to actually have a nice sit down English meal;
fish and chips with some London brewed beer for Stevie and some chicken wings
and English cider for Stuart.
Next weekend’s agenda:
Edinburgh, Scotland with Katie!!
à tout à l'heure (see ya later),
Stevie and Stuart
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