Off to Hogwarts I Go

Getting up at 5:30am on a Saturday to go to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour of Harry Potter...well worth it. I went to the studio with two other au pair friends of mine and instead of all trying to figure out the difference transfers to get to the studio we decided to take the "Harry Potter" bus, meaning I had to be in London by 8:45am at the latest so that I wouldn't miss it.

Of course this weekend the Uxbridge tube station has to be shut down so they can do repairs on the station so I had to get up extra early to get ready and take a bus to a different tube station that would take me into town. It was an early start but I'm glad I made it safely into London and with more than enough time to meet the bus.

          We made it to the studios at 10am (our entrance time for the studio was between 11:00-11:30am). We had a quick look around the entrance part of the studio and then joined the queue (line). We were then taken into a cinema and watched a quick video of the tour with introductions by Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.  Finally at 11am we entered the studio tour and our first stop was The Great Hall. It was amazing to see in person! It actually felt like being in the real Hogwarts (not that I know what it's like, I'm just a muggle) but the feeling that I got when I walked through those doors was a great and amazing feeling. Throughout the tour we got to see the actual sets used during the movies and props/wigs/costumes that were created for each character. One of the coolest things I learned was how they made Robbie Coltrane into Hagrid, height wise. If you do want to know hightlight the text below between the quotation marks and copy and paste it into a word document and make the font bigger :) I know some people might not want to know the magic behind it or discover it for themselves so I will respect that.

          "   For distance shots they used a body double as well as stilts and even a robot head that looked exactly like Coltrane to fit the double that was controlled off screen to move. For closer up shots Coltrane used stilts to appear taller.    "

          I did get to have some butterbeer while I was there and for those who haven't tried making their own I suggest doing so, you can find recipes on pinterest, it is very sweet but also very delicious :) For any Harry Potter fan I highly suggest going here at some point, to see all the detail and hard work that was put into making these books come to life through movie is just breath taking! So many people worked very hard to make it all come true and it's great to see that they are getting the respect they deserve. 

This weekend coming up I will be going on a tour to Oxford, Cotswolds, Bath, Lacock and Stonehenge. It's a full weekend tour so it will be keeping me very busy. As well next week the family is going on a mini holiday because the girls have their half term which means I have the whole next week off :) I have something, or many things, planned everyday. There may even be a couple of posts just for next weeks events so stay tuned. 

Don't forget to make a comment if you want to know more about something or have questions or comments about anything :)