London Day 14

Today we visited the Making of Harry Potter Experience at Warner Brother's Studio London. It was located about twenty miles north of London so we had to take a train and not the Tube. We got a little confused about which train to take out of Euston Station and ended up taking the long route (fifty minutes vs. fifteen). Our ticket's entrance time was for 9:30 and we did not end up getting to the studio until after 10:00. We were a little nervous about not getting in, but it all worked out OK. Luke, Ellie (who is a big Potter fan and has been looking forward to this the whole trip), and I have read all the books and seen all of the movies. Amy (muggle!) has not read or seen any of it. It was all quite impressive. We started the tour in the actual set of the Hogwart's great hall. They had sets of the Gryffendor boys dormitory and common room, Dumbledore's office, the Hogwart's Express, and even Diagon Alley. We ate lunch at the cafe on the lot and they served Butterbeer. It was very good! It was a butterscotch, frothy, fizzy drink that I would buy if it was sold it in stores. The tour ended with a huge 1/24 scale model of Hogwart's that the filmmakers used for all the aerial scenes in the films. Ellie was buzzing and spent some money in the huge gift shop. If none of this made any sense to you, you are a muggle and need to read the Harry Potter books, see the films, or ask someone who has. We did not repeat the same mistake as this morning and caught the quick train back to London. We still had some time before dinner so we made a short visit to the Natural History Museum. The museum building itself was my favorite part. It is a big multi-colored neo-Romanesque building built in the the late Nineteenth century. It has a huge main hall with cement monkeys climbing and birds nesting on its column's and arches. The museum was busy and hot so we decided to head back to the flat. We stopped at a grocery store for another cheap dinner and stayed in for the night.