London Bridge Is Falling Down

15 March, 2014

When you have an awesome, generous and well-travelled cousin who just happens to be in the country and offers to take you travelling, what do you do? Go to London, of course!

Good old London town didn’t disappoint the second time around. We enjoyed a full day of sight-seeing, accidental nap-taking, and general touristing (if that’s even a word… nope, it’s totally not. Oh well!).

I had arrived on Friday night, so was well rested and ready to go on Saturday morning. The festivities began at the Tower of London which not only provided some great history, but housed the crown jewels… which we got to see! Granted, we basically took a tour through a giant vault – but we saw them! As if that weren’t cool enough, we then proceeded to another section of the tower and got to see some armour… of actual kings of England! Unfortunately, all of this awesome-ness was strictly anti-camera… so if your eyes long for more than my words of description, you’ll just have to come visit me and see for yourself!

After some afternoon tea, our journey proceeded to an overpriced but thoroughly enjoyable bus tour from which we got a passing glance at some more of London, enjoyed the cheesy commentary that is just obligatory on this type of thing, but most importantly, were able to get some rest for my poor cousin who was in desperate need of a kip after the many hour-ed fun fest that was the Tower of London. Unfortunately, what started off as a carefree cruise on an uncharacteristically sunny London day, soon turned into a traffic-y nightmare. We therefore tipped our hats to the sanctuary for our aching feet, but opted to abandon the wretched, street-bound thing in favour of the tube.

With the help of our much speedier, underground mode of transportation, we had arrived at the British Museum in no time. In keeping with the day’s theme of crazy, hidden (or not so hidden… advertised, actually) treasures, we were soon standing in front of the Rosetta Stone! After a few minutes, I decided to pick my jaw up off the floor in an attempt to appease the amused looks of passers-by and we shuffled along to make a dent in the no less amazing collection of ancient artefacts this museum had to offer.

After the museum, we enjoyed a great Italian dinner and headed off to the West End in search of a show. Upon finding that our last minute planning technique wasn’t exactly a winner, we decided it was actually for the best and instead headed back to the hotel where I got to meet my cousin’s co-workers, who turned out to be pretty great!

16 March, 2014

Surprised though I’m sure you all will be, one of the things I was most looking forward to when coming to England was a visit to the Leavesden Harry Potter Studio Tour. I had thought I wouldn’t be going until June when my mum visited, but fate – or an incredibly generous cousin – had different plans for me. At approximately 10 am on Sunday morning, we were rested, fed and on our way to Warner Brothers with our 11 am tickets!

Even just the entrance to that building was amazing to me.

I couldn’t believe the Weasleys’ car was just in the entry room. If nothing else, that was ample proof that whatever lay inside the actual tour was amazing enough for this artefact to not even be included. As if that weren’t enough, the Dursleys' stairs (aka Harry’s living quarters during the first book/movie) were just casually placed along the line to get in… like, seriously! What hidden treasures must lie behind those mysterious entrance doors?!

Finally, the clock hit 11 o’clock and we were through the queue. At this point, I was struggling pretty hard to contain my excitement., but deciding that the world just wasn't prepared for the true Potterhead monster that I truly am, I did my best to observe the rules of society and not go running rampant about the whole place. We were shepherded into a dark entry room that displayed the international movie posters on monitors all around the walls. When our entire group was gathered in the room, our guide greeted us and showed a brief film about the widespread impact and basic awesomeness of Harry Potter. Honestly, as much as I was soaking it all in, I just couldn’t wait for those doors to open so I could run free in my own personal heaven. Truly, I doubted that this poor building was prepared for me. Regardless, the guide continued on with her speech about what to expect. She shared that the tour took three hours on average, though guests have stayed for as little as 45 minutes to as long as 13 hours. She suggested that we find a happy medium. Though I was by no means about to drag my poor cousin around for 13 hours, I now send out an official warning to my mother for when we come back (: Perhaps my favourite bit of our greeter’s speech was when she emphasised that rabid picture taking was highly encouraged in all but a few places, one of which being in the green screen room. This was because, as she said, ‘here, we will be taking the pictures for you. You will be able to fly your own broomstick and even take home a DVD. I mean, what more could you want from your life?!’ What more, indeed.

At this point, we were lead into the next room that much resembled a theatre. When we were seated, our friendly and enthusiastic new guides expressed the enormity of we were about to experience on our tour and promptly exclaimed, ‘so what better way to prepare than by watching all eight Harry Potter movies back to back?’ As much as I was totally up for that, as the lights dimmed, we actually found ourselves watching a clip of Dan, Rupert and Emma (Harry, Ron and Hermione) introducing the set as their home and expressing their excitement to share it with the world etc. Cheesy though the video was in places, it ended up making for a rather epic lead in as the curtain raised and the doors to the Great Hall were revealed.

Because pictures are worth a thousand words, and because a thousand words probably wouldn’t even begin to cover my feelings about this day, I will now resign my typing and let you see the magic for yourself, though, of course, there are always more pictures of facebook (:

Right, so that video I mentioned previously… the one of me riding a broomstick. It is a true treasure, but probably to nobody apart from me. I am honestly hesitant to share it because – as much as I hold it dear – I can see how it could appear quite a bit more than a little cheesy. However, I will post it for the public with the simple preface that all the awkward poses/interactions were 100% prompted by the staff and were not of my own invention. With that being said, I hope you enjoy!!

Along with the video, I am also in the possession of four equally treasured pictures of me flying my broom/the Weasley car. As much as I would love to also share those, I am but a poor college student with a lack of access to such luxurious things as a scanner. Therefore, at least for now, those beauties will have to stay exclusively on my shrine. (Oops, did I really just write that? I promise I don’t actually have a shrine, people!)

Because what more could a girl want from life
than a trip to/picture with Hogwarts?

When the magic had ended - because it had to eventually - we were off to the train station!... via an actually rather lovely three mile walk. Remember that thing called the sun we had discovered on Saturday? It was back for the second day in a row! I know, crazy. Honestly, this never happens. I actually had to take my coat off at one point. Like I said, crazy.

When we had reached the train station, there was nothing left but to enjoy the brief train ride, grab some dinner at the Feathers pub, gather up my stuff at the hotel, and make our way to the Victoria Coach Station in London. 

Proof that I'm Actually Studying Abroad at Hogwarts. Volume II: Lacock Edition.

8 March, 2014

I’m not sure I could possibly describe how great this day was. I also don’t think I could possibly describe how nerdy this day was. But seeing as that both suit me just fine, I’m fairly convinced I would be happy retiring to the little village of Lacock.

I woke up at 6:30 so I would have plenty of time to get ready and be at the station for my 10:00 train. Unfortunately, the ticket machine and I apparently didn’t get along very well. I had purchased my tickets online so I was really only using the machine to collect them. Little did I know that, in my hurry, the two pieces of paper I collected were one ticket for the trip back and one receipt. (This bit still irks me a little. Anna - another of the friends I was travelling with - told me later that she waited a whole minute for her tickets to be finished dispensing but apparently still didn't get all of hers because another of our friends – Christine – used the machine after her, and received one of Anna’s tickets mixed in with her own. High five if you followed along to any of that! Basically, the whole system was just messed up.) I didn’t realise I was missing a ticket until I was at the barrier, unable to get through. I tried to sort it out with the ticketing people but there was apparently nothing to be done. They did what they could but eventually said they were sorry, sold me another ticket, and gave me a complaint form to mail in. At this point, I had already missed my train and had to wait for the next one which was due in a half hour.

My amazing friends were super understanding (especially since I was the one organising the trip and therefore should have my stuff together) and just got tea at the Chippenham station café while they waited for me to arrive. In the end, it was decided that you weren’t on an adventure if there weren't any travelling mishaps.

After some more minor setbacks – this time taking the form of incorrect online bus information – we followed (poorly) the information desk worker’s directions to the bus stop. Before long, we were finally on our way to Lacock!

Because I know that there will be no way to conceal the true motives of this trip through the entire blog, and because I know it will simply be easier if I can explain why we kept wandering around this town, I think now is the best time to come clean. The village of Lacock and its abbey were used as filming locations for several of the Harry Potter movies. (I know, I’m sure you’re all shocked. There’s no reoccurring theme to these trips at all, is there?) Regardless, I was ridiculously excited at this point and we were all nearly skipping as we got off the bus.

First impression on the bus ride and upon first arrival: this place is just beautiful.

First look at the village off the bus.
Honestly, this picture does not do it justice at all.

It’s not beautiful in the traditional grand building sort of way, but in the charming old countryside village sort of way. Even if the style of the buildings wasn’t proof enough, the fact that I would literally have had to bend down to fit through the doors was ample testament of how old this village truly was.

The bus dropped us out of George’s Inn and, immediately struck by the subtle beauty of this town but eager to find our destinations, we headed off down the street towards the Red Lion. We wandered along as I tried to identify streets for the central point, and finally stumbled upon Lacock Abbey. Although this was our main destination for the day, we decided that for maximum efficiency, we would explore the village then come back.

We headed down one of the side roads and came across the Lacock Cathedral.

 

We ventured towards the countryside houses where we passed a creek with children playing, a tiny dirt/mud footpath along people’s front gardens, and eventually reached a huge green countryside field.

Yupp, so this happened... We were keeping with the theme of the day...

As beautiful as it was and though we wished we could stay there forever, we realised that following our little path had not lead us to the Potters' house as we had hoped and there were far more important things to find, so we grudgingly ventured on.

Eventually, we reached our starting point and realising we had found neither the central location, nor the Potters’ house in the countryside area, we decided to head in the opposite direction towards the nicer looking houses that seemed a similar style to Slughorn’s. Though we didn’t find it there, we did finally recognise the central apparition location, from which I knew the directions to everywhere else :D 

Standing in the middle of the street for this picture proved to be quite the challenge,
but there was simply no way I was taking this picture half-way.

To explain some of our misguided wanderings and failed locative attempts previously; apparently there's this thing called privacy that means people don't want their address on the internet! I know, right?! I was shocked too. After all, how are us Potterheads supposed to stalk your house and take pictures in front of it?! (This is sarcasm, of course :) I completely understand why such measures are in place, little though I like them :P) Long story short, though I did countless hours of research before making this trip, the exact locations of many places were simply nowhere to be found. Hence our wanderings around random neighborhoods and countrysides as seen above. Luckily however, I was able to piece together enough information from different sources to determine the general location of the rest of our sites from this central spot. So, once I had found this street, the rest came with fairly little difficulty. 

In the movie, they make it seem as though Slughorn is residing down the street above, when in reality the house is actually a little to the left. In fact, the Potters' house was down the previous street. This lead me to wonder what would have happened if the actual locations concurred with the movie locations. Would Dumbledore have just casually mentioned, "Oh and Harry, just so you know, that's Godric's Hollow back there. You know, where your parents were murdered. Okay, so let's go see my old colleague now, come along!"

Anyways... we did actually go visit the Potters' house next :D 

When we did find the house, I felt pretty dumb to say the least. It was quite literally right next to the cathedral I mentioned earlier. See that little house in the corner of the picture below? Yupp, that was it. We saw that before wandering into the middle of nowhere. I blame the pottery class sign that was in front of it for distracting me. I definitely saw that sign, meaning I was looking right at the house. But honestly, pottery is the wrong kind of 'potter' people!!!

Regardless, we did eventually find it. Notice the 'private' sign on the gate? It seems likely they had issues with that previously... can't imagine why...

Honestly though, if I lived in that house, I would play it up so much. I would definitely put up a memorial similar to the one that is supposed to be outside this house. Heck, I would probably start selling tickets to a nightly show where a mysterious hooded figure approaches the house and laughs diabolically as green lights flash from the windows... how long before that house will be up for sale, do you think?

But I digress :) Since we had finally found everything we wanted to in the village, we headed over to the abbey where the real fun was sure to be had!

At that point, there was nothing left but to take a nice walk through the Abbey grounds.

That's totally the Potters' backyard.

I don't think there's any other way to sum this up other than to say; if you didn't think I was completely obsessed before, I'm sure you have been thoroughly convinced now :D 

Also, sorry for the increasingly ramble-y, list-y, documentative and boring type blogs. I try to throw in as much fun stuff as possible but hey, my life ain't all that exciting to anyone but me :/ and I really am trying to just capture my life in England. It's purpose is for my own reminiscence later in life more than anything else. I'm basically just keeping a virtual journal. I know it can be boring so, if you are still reading at this point, I solemnly salute you; you must be a true friend :)

P.S. Because she's awesome and because this awesome-ness is just too great not to share... here's Rachel's video for the day!

If she seems as great as I think she is, and you simply must see/read more of here, here's the link to her blog of the day :D

Adventures in Bristoland

1 March, 2014

What do you do when you’re in England, have an unquenchable thirst for sightseeing, and a travel budget that’s stretched to the breaking point? A staycation!!! (Get it? Like vacation… but… staycation :D)

I am so incredibly blessed to be living in Bristol, a city rich not only with its fair share of grand architecture, but also with a unique English atmosphere that I truly believe can only be found here. (Do I sound like a travel advert yet?) But really, it’s pretty great.

However – as I am sure many of you can relate – the hometown is always the one least travelled. Whether it’s because we feel there will always be time to go visit those hidden beauties later, or because we feel dignified that we – as residents –are above following the camera-clad, Hawaiian shirt wearing, fanny pack armed, crowd of tourists into the overpriced but equally beautiful parts of our respective cities, those stones remain unturned by us.

In spite of – or perhaps because of – this, I decided it was time to cast aside my pride (and also salvage my poor wallet) and march happily along the path of tourists, camera and all. I am now happy to report that it was totally worth it. Who needs their pride, anyway? I have pictures. Totally better.

When aiming for the touristy-est of touristy, where better than the zoo? Especially the Bristol Zoo, which is known to be the second best in Britain, following London.

Driving on the right side like a pro.

Master of Yoga

Where to next on this thrilling quest? Where else but the Clifton Suspension Bridge, queen of the Bristol tourist locations.

*In the voice of a game show host announcing prizes*

This beautiful, architectural ground-breaker is a must-see for any Bristolian traveller. Complete with historical significance, a beautiful view, a background of rolling countryside hills, and its very own suicide helpline, this beauty is the Golden Gate Bridge of England and isn’t to be missed!

*Throws cheesy voice into the corner with every intention of leaving it there to rot… or maybe to make a reappearance in a later blog.* Guess you’ll just have to wait and see! Muhahaha!

*Cough*

After the suspension bridge, we made what I thought would be a casual trip back to the university side of town. How wrong I was.

We stopped at Anna’s hall so she could change into a new jacket and soon came to realise that we had all been jipped on the whole housing situation.

Anna just casually lives where a scene from Sherlock was filmed... nbd.

After that, we got some dinner before meeting up with more people for the Apple and a great ending to a great day.

5 March, 2014

Needless to say, we didn’t come close to seeing all there is to see in Bristol. Therefore, here comes Installation II: A return to Bristoland!!

This time, our adventures were had in the form of a hike. Trust me when I say, just the walk to the bridge was a hike in and of itself! We headed across the Suspension Bridge, through the other side of Bristol (or was it even Bristol) I didn’t even know existed, and eventually to the trails where our journey was to begin.

After carefully and strategically mapping out our journey (aka pointing at a black line through the forest and declaring it to be the bridge, realising bridges go over water, really finding the bridge, then choosing a trail at random) we set off! If our expert trail-finding skills weren’t omen enough, as we began the descent on our chosen path, a man with his two dogs passed us in the opposite direction. He kindly offered a, “Careful, it’s quite muddy along here”. As was wise – I am sure – we shrugged it off and thanked him before blindly skipping along our merry way. At some point, three things became very clear to us:

1. The explanation for that jogger we had seen on our way over here with mud up to his knees.
2.  That nice man could be the last person on earth to ever see us and we probably should have given him a message for our families.
3. When you live in a country that rains quite literally every day, walking trails are muddy. (How we didn’t anticipate this one, I don’t know.)

We were told this path would take us under the bridge. At this point, we were a little disappointed :P

Though eventually we found the real bridge!

Yeah... nice try, Bristol! Us Californians have seen the real thing...

Overall, it was just another in a series of great days.