Trip to London: Harry Potter Studio Tour

Getting to Warner Bros. Studios was a bit difficult as it is not in the city of London. We had to go to a train station, take the train to a suburb and then get on the shuttle that goes to the studio. At the beginning there is a short video, a guide explains features of the Great Hall and after that you are free to wander at your own pace. They said the record amount of time someone spent there was 9 hours!

The Great Hall

Harry's school uniforms throughout the years

Gryffindor Boys' Room

All the different wands

Dumbledore's office

Potion's classroom

Moody's trunk 

Weasley clock

Lots of random newspapers, advertisements, etc.
How cool would be to get to design that stuff! 

The Black Family tree

We also tried some Butterbeer!

The Knight Bus

Number 4 Privet Drive

Buckbeak

Diagon Alley - This was my favorite!

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes

Architectural drawings for everything 

Model of Hogwarts

These were 'wand boxes' with the names of everyone involved in creating the movies.

They were just finishing celebrating the one year anniversary for the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studio Tour while we were there, so that was really cool. Unfortunately, we missed seeing Prince William and Kate there by just two weeks!

Trip to London: Part 2

Sunday we bought all-day metro passes and decided to put them to good use. First up was finding the TARDIS. Then, Harrod’s (unfortunately it was too early and they weren’t open yet), Convent Garden, King’s Cross to see Platform 9 ¾, the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and stolen parts of the Parthenon. 

The TARDIS!

Harrod's

Covent Gardens 

King's Cross Station

Platform 9 3/4

Rosetta Stone

Part of the frieze of the Parthenon

Part of the pediment of the Parthenon

Then it was time for the Harry Potter tour!

Trip to London: Part 1

Buckingham Palace

The weekend after Semana Santa, Christi, Tucker and I traveled to London. Seeing how all three of us had been there before, the main attraction was going to be the tour of the sets of Harry Potter at Warner Bros. Studios, but that’s for an upcoming post.

Red telephone booth with Big Ben in the background.

We flew out on Friday afternoon and basically just took Friday evening to get settled into out hostel and buy groceries for lunches for the upcoming days.

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

Saturday we walked around all the typical tourist sights: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and in the afternoon took a ride in the London Eye. The London Eye is basically just a huge Ferris wheel with enclosed pods. I have always wanted to do this, so I was really excited. It was cloudy and a bit rainy that day, but it was still really cool to see the skyline of London from high up.

Parliament building

Trafalgar Square

There was also this random group of people riding bikes while wearing period clothing.

The London Eye!

On the London Eye

View from the Eye of The Shard, a building recently featured in an episode of Doctor Who.

 Then we popped into Tate Modern for a little bit, went across Millennium Bridge, and saw St. Paul’s Cathedral before eating Chinese buffet for supper, which, seriously, tasted like heaven. I miss Chinese food so much!

On the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's in the background.

Semana Santa: El Escorial and Madrid: Part 3

Friday of Spring Break, Christi and I took a bus out of Madrid to El Escorial. King Felipe II built it as a palace, convent, and a burial place for his father, Carlos V. It is now the burial place for all the Spanish royalty. It's a very big building and we were able to see the living quarters, the crypt and the church. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed inside, so all I have is this picture of the outside.

Saturday was our final day in Madrid. It was a beautiful day and we started out going to Buen Retiro Park. Along the way we passed this book market.

In the park we saw Fountain of the Fallen Angel which reminded us a bit of the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, Velázquez Palace that hosts a rotating art exhibit some of which we weren't sure whether it was art or a place to sit, and the Crystal Palace.

Fountain of the Fallen Angel

Velázquez Palace

Crystal Palace

The dots were art and you were supposed to imagine columns
connecting the dots on the floor with the dots on the ceiling.

Pond in the park where you could rent boats.

And thus concludes our Spring Break. It was a nice, relaxing week of travel and I enjoyed the opportunity to see more of Spain.

Semana Santa: Toledo

One day while we were staying in Madrid, we took a day trip to Toledo. Toledo is a very pretty city with lots of cute narrow streets….that were also very windy and there were a lot of hills.

Luckily, we actually guessed a pretty good route towards the tourism office and once we had a map, we generally didn’t have any problems. The only hard part was when the map didn’t show changes in altitude…

While in Toledo we visited La Casa del Greco, el Museo Sefardi, la Mezquita and la Alcázar.

La Casa del Greco

El Greco is an artist originally from Greece, hence the name, who eventually moved to Toledo. I did a project on him for Spanish class in high school, so I was really excited to see some of his works. Pictures weren’t technically allowed, but I did sneak this one.

View and Plan of Toledo

View of Toledo is my favorite work by El Greco, but it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, so we weren’t able to see it.

View of Toledo

Sefardi Museum is a former synagogue that is now a museum to the Jewish people and in all of Spain. We learned a lot of things, but also left with a lot of questions. There were menorahs both with 7 branches and 9 branches. Anyone know anything about menorahs and why they might have a different number of branches?

Used to hold the Torah scroll

Chair used when circumcising babies

The mosque in Toledo was actually quite small. When the Christians took over, they turned it into a church and added an addition, which basically doubled the size.

Original mosque

Christian addition

You can see where the addition is.

Finally, the Alcazar, which means fortress. I expected it to be more of what a fortress was like, but it’s actually a museum for the Spanish army. Which isn’t really my thing. But, it was free for students, so it was okay. We didn’t spend too much time there. We went through the section of history that we had just learned about in our Spanish history class and that was about it.

Overall, I really enjoyed Toledo. It's a very beautiful city with a lot of cool history.

Semana Santa: Madrid: Part 2

At the Royal Palace in Madrid there is changing of the guard on the first Wednesday of every month, which compared to Buckingham Palace in London that has it everyday, is not very much. But we were lucky and just happened to be in Madrid on the first Wednesday of the month.

First we killed a bit of time in the park by the palace and visiting a temple that had been moved there from Egypt.

Then it was time. But, as usual, it started late. Because this is Spain.

First, the guard rode/walked around from the back of the palace.

Then, then went into the plaza in the palace grounds.

We’re not really sure all that was going on. They were announcing it over loudspeaker, but it was in Spanish and we couldn’t see very well anyway.

After the changing of the guard, there was a little concert.

It was very interesting to be able to see the changing of the guard in Madrid, I just wish we knew more of what exactly was going on.