Tuesday (9/14/15), our first official day to spend in the United Kingdom! I named the blog Two Fangirls and the men who love them, and this day was the absolute definition of that statement. First official stop of our international trip…Starbucks silly! After caffeination and a disappointing [for Matt} Bacon Buddie, we head for Euston train station.
We check the boards for departure to Watford Junction, and decide to go with Platform 9. The train that shows up however does not have the Green London Midland logo on it, but the blue and orange Overground logo. Do we take it? Let me tell you, trains in England are confusing. Well, it’s got to be the right one, we are going to Watford Junction. For the next 15 minutes or so, we go between being completely satisfied we are on the right train to complete doubt this will get us to where we need to go by the time we need to get there. We are again deciding weather or not to be concerned with the fact that the digital overhead readings keep displaying that if you don’t have a valid ticket, you’ll be charged a penalty fine. Matt mentions a sign saying penalties are £80. Hmmm. Matt had a saying while we were on vacation, he’d say “This is America, we can do what we want!” Mostly just shortening it to “This is America!”. Which at first I didn’t fully appreciate the humor in it, but by the end of the trip I came to love it. We recalled a modified version of this saying almost every day. It was just our way of saying, yeah, this isn’t america, and we’re clueless, but dang it, we’re gonna power through anyway. Just do it with confidence and know one will know the difference, a truly american attribute. This confidence booster came in handy many times. We invoked "This is America!" on this train ride.
The moment of truth comes and the ticket takers come through the cabin, our tickets pass! We do get to Watford Junction…however by this time we’ve discovered that the Overground is definitely one way of getting to Watford Junction. A 40 minute way. According to my London Midland train time table (you know, the train line we weren’t on) at most the trip should have taken between 15-20 minutes. No worries, we got there. We pick up the pace and see the Harry Potter Tour double decker right across the road and book it over. We make it onto the bus just in time, we didn’t have much time to afford to wait for the next one.
We arrive at Warner Brothers Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter. We opted for the audio guide and get in line to be let in, we’re already snapping dozens of pictures just in the main atrium, which houses portraits of all the characters that are at least 10 feet high, and beautiful! After a brief intro video montage of all eight films, we were lead into a small movie theater for a longer video hosted by Dan, Emma and Rupert of course, which featured their ten years growing up on this very set. The film ended with a scene of them standing in front of the doors to the Great Hall, telling us how when they first stepped through those doors, it felt like they were going to Hogwarts for the first time. The lights then came up and the movie screen rolled up into the ceiling revealing the REAL entrance doors to the Great Hall! When I say real, I mean the actual doors used on the movie set, everything on this tour is what the crew and filmmakers used to film the movies. We then all lead up towards the doors, which have beautiful amazing sculptures of suits of armor all around…….and then the doors opened.
They explained that the tiling on the floor is real floor tile, to withstand the 400+ feet that sometimes would tramp across it during shooting. Everything was there just as we’ve seen it on film. The great fireplace with the Hogwarts crest, the gargoyles holding the fire lit sconces. The house tables with plates and goblets. Costumes worn by the students. At the head table, costumes of the teachers and Headmaster. A few steps in, Kelly and I pose for a photo, and honest to goodness [but not a surprise for either of us] we are holding back the tears. This is just too cool.
There are displays of everything: Gryffindor common room (did you know the portrait of the witch hanging next to the stairwell is a young McGonagall?), Gryffindor boys dormitory, Dumbledore’s office, Malfoy Manor, ministry of magic atrium, Umbridge’s office, Hagrid’s hut, on and on…..and then there’s the new Platform 9 3/4 exhibit with the steam engine and carriages. Then even more outside! The triple decker Knight bus, the Ford Anglia, and the Potter’s destroyed cottage in Godric’s Hollow. Then on to the creature shop for special effects and models….and the last stop, as I rounded the corner and had NO idea what was coming, was the stunning 50 foot wide, 1:24 scale of the ENTIRE castle, complete. Maybe 1:24 sounds small, but think about 1:24th of a real life castle. It was huge! Again, brought tears to my eyes (It didn’t help they were playing beautiful instrumental Harry Potter music in this room, gah!) Really amazing. Look for me in one of the pictures off to the right and you can get a clue as to the scale of this thing. The room’s lights would dim and you’d see flickers of “candlelight” inside the castle. Wow. I’ve seen a lot of Harry Potter things, so it takes a lot to wow me, and this did it.
The boys teased us a little for spending nearly 5 and 1/2 hours there! (That’s where the part of “and the men who love them” in our blog title comes from….they really do love us) I guess we’re super fans?
We headed back to London, this time taking the proper train which only takes 20 minutes! Next order of business in London? Find a pub! Now happy with a proper pint of ale and some fish and chips, we decide to go into central London. It’s now time to finally ride the London Underground, and these silly Americans are really excited about this. The locals probably think we’re nuts. It’s a dead give away who we are, the only ones joking and giggling too much, probably too loudly! We don’t care, we love this. We navigated the tube like pros and were right proud of ourselves for getting where we needed to be and not wandering around like clueless idiots!
We decide it’s a lovely night to ride the London Eye, but as usual we are nearly too late. Let me emphasize nearly though, because like everything else….we’ve taken too long to get there…but somehow manage to seize the exact last moment that’s allowed to do or see that thing…so on par we are quite literally the last people ushered onto the Eye!
We wandered around the city some more and then headed back to our apartments, exhausted! First day, nailed it.
Enjoy a few hundred photos or so at your leisure by clicking the link below (make sure to pronounce that in your head with a British accent please):
This is England!
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