Magic

Best day of my life. Am I being superfluous? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Harry Potter. For my generation, it was more than a book about a boy with a wand and a scar. Harry represented the triumph of good over evil, a renaissance of reading in the era of video games, and the pressing need for a little more magic in our lives. Harry Potter, for me and millions of others my age, has thrilled and inspired us for the last fifteen years.  

As many of you know, my obsession with the boy wizard has known very few bounds. My book collection lies in my room detached from its spines, the DVDs are scratched from wear,  I've competed in hardcore trivia nights with Maggie and Lisa, and even had my own Harry Potter fansite when I was ten (no shame; I accrued some ten thousand visitors, thank you very much).  When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hit theaters it was the end an era—no more premieres or shirt decorating, no more a scowering the Internet and mugglecast for book predictions; a certain joy in my life was gone forever.

Visiting the Warner Brother's Harry Potter studio tour was a return to that era; a return I've been waiting years to make. 

Do you think it's going to be like real wizard chess, Ron?

Our day began somewhat hectically; the journey involved a bus to the tube to a train to a shuttle bus. And, as always when traveling on a tight schedule, things began to go wrong. Our metropolitan line tube stopped after the Baker Street stop for nearly ten minutes and then inched its way to London Euston. From there, the normal pedestrian pathway was closed which led us to book it to the train station (and me getting hit—yes hit, in the arm—by an angry old woman). Upon arriving, the credit card machines to buy tickets were broken and we almost got on the slow train to Watford Junction which would have meant we would have definitely missed our shuttle. Luckily, we made it on the right train with minutes to spare and easily caught our shuttle. The magic was saved.

Badgers, lions, ravens, and snakes line the Great Hall.

As we approached Leavesden, we were greeted with giant chess pieces from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (can you believe I was only nine when that movie came out?!) and the sheer excitement kicked in. Upon entering the lobby, we were greeted with pictures of the cast looking down at us and Hedwig's theme seemingly coming from nowhere. It was one of those Harry-just-got-his-wand-at-Ollivanders-and-everything-is-mindblowingly-beautiful-with-light-while-choirs-sing-in-the-background kind of moments. Waiting in line we even got to see the set of Harry's cupboard under the stairs. Surreal.

FLYING OVER HOGWARTS

From there, we were ushered into a room with international movie posters and then a theater with a short introduction video. As the video centered on the doors to Hogwart's the screen lofted and alas! We entered the doors Hogwarts ourselves. The Great Hall awaited us behind the doors—unbelievable. Lining the walls were costumes from characters of each house—all real, nothing on the tour was a replica or duplicate. 

From there, we entered a huge soundstage area and encountered sets from each of the potter movies; everything from the Gryffindor's boys dormitory to Dumbledore's office to the Potion Classroom. It was the most  incredible feeling to be on the actual sets that were used for a decade to shoot the Potter films. We also saw many of the special effects used to shoot the films and even got to ride a broom through a virtual London and got our pictures taken! Can you say dream come true?!

Hangin' out on the Knight Bus.

After passing through the Ministry of Magic set and Umbridge's office, we stopped halfway trough the tour for some well deserved butter beer (it tasted like daisies and unicorns and rainbows and everything delicious by the way). Outside, we saw and took pictures with the Knight Bus, the flying Ford Anglia, Tom Riddle's grave, #4 Privet Drive, the Potters' Cottage, and Hogwarts bridge. Unbelievable. How many times can I say that in one blog post?! Let me count the ways...

Diagon Alley!

After our jaunt outside, we headed inside to the Creature shop, observing the making of Prisoner of Azkaban's werewolf Lupin, the Gringott's goblins,the merpeople from Goblet of Fire, and everything from grindylows to Kreacher and Dobby. We headed from there into a room with dozens of paper models of sets from the Lovegood's house to Knockturn Alley. We also got to walk down the REAL Diagon Alley which was pretty surreal—one of the only sets fully intact, so you could actually walk down the alley and observe all the shops with painstaking detail. Even the Firebolt in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies moved.

For an idea of the size of this thing, look at the people at the right.

Turning the corner outside of Diagon Alley was a room-sized model of Hogwarts with every tower, step, and spire. Bria even hid behind the corner turning into the room to see my reaction. If I learned one thing at the studio tour, it was a huge appreciation of the crazy amount of detail that went into the making of these eight movies. Did you know in Ollivander's wand shop alone, there were 17,000 hand-designed wand boxes? Or that the potions class room included thousands of potion ingredients? Or that there were only 22 costume designers for dozens of Goblins, and hundreds of extras? The fact that these films won no academy awards is pretty shocking. Everyone who worked on these sets obviously put their hearts into this monumental project for over a decade.

That'll do, Hedwig. That'll do.

As the tour wound down, we entered the gift shop (amazing stuff, but even a single chocolate frog was £8—ridiculous). I couldn't resist buying myself a stuffed Hedwig, though. She was adorable, her head moves around 360 degrees, and she makes real life owl sounds. Life complete.

Oh, also, the girls we were with saw Stanly Tucci (from the the Devil Wears Prada and other less girly movies) in the gift shop. Super random. But cool?

                                 

           

Fizzing whisbee, anyone?

Right now I'm rolling along the English countryside on a train to Oxford (in fact the snack trolley just passed by—can you say Hogwarts express?). All the while listening to the very American Friday Night Lights soundtrack—the best. I'm all about merging cultures. Tomorrow I head to Paris. This week has just been insane. So many adventures. 

That's all for now, I probably won't have time to blog tonight. So look forward to some really exciting blog posts next week about our day trip in Oxford and my weekend in Paris! Until then, I'll leave you this lovely video (because this blog is clearly for revealing my embarrassing childhood obsessions and notions of everything European):