London - Day 3 & The Harry Potter Studio Tour

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 4

Day 3 of our trip was spent doing the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden, England. We were SO excited for this tour! It was the one activity we did that was somewhat spendy. But it was SO much fun!

 Inside the entrance to the studio. The lobby was filled with photos of the main characters, as well as a couple of the large props, like Hagrid's motorcycle.

Family selfie before the tour! In this room there were screens all around the room showing the movie posters from around the world. There was a short video about how the books became movies, and then we were brought into another room to see another short video about how the movies were made as well as some clips from the movies.

 While waiting in line we got to see Harry's cupboard under the stairs. It looked even smaller and sadder than it does in the movie! At the entrance to the Great Hall. The tour guide had asked if it was anyone's birthday and the guy in the picture raised his hand. They then let him open the door to the Great Hall. So if you can, go on your birthday!

 The Great Hall!

 The house point hourglasses. I thought these were neat to see since they are always talked about in the books but never actually seen in the movies.

Yule ball costumes and props.

 Shrieking Shack hallway | Mirror of Erised        

 Gryffindor boys' dormitory.

Wands used by the main characters.

Potions classroom.

Hagrid's hut.

 Part of the Gryffindor common room.

Dumbledore's office | Horcruxes          

The Burrow.

Delores Umbridge's Ministry of Magic office.

Educational decrees.

 They had a cafe where they sold butterbeer, so we had to try some! It pretty much just tasted like cream soda.

James and Lily's house in Godric's Hollow.

Diagon Alley.

Weasleys’ Wizards Wheezes.

 Model of Hogsmeade.

Concept art. I thought the concept art was all pretty cool! I wish they would have had some copies for sale as pictures or posters!

This is the model of Hogwarts they used for all of the exterior shots. It was pretty cool! 

The model of Hogwarts was the last part of the tour. Then there was the gift shop. They had a ton of things for sale! Everything was kinda expensive, and I ended up buying a couple of postcards, a pack of notebooks, and a coffee mug with the Hogwarts crest on it. 

I would definitely recommend going on the tour if you are a big Harry Potter fan. There was SO much to see, and while I posted a lot of pictures, there was still a lot more!

After the tour we took the tube to the Kings Cross/St. Pancras station. I had wanted to get some pictures of St. Pancras. We did go inside of Kings Cross station, where they have a platform 9 3/4 set up exactly like the pictures I took at the studio tour. There was a huge line and they charged you for a picture, which seemed kind of crazy! 

St. Pancras station.

We then walked over to 187 Gower street, or 221b, the apartment Sherlock and Watson live at in the BBC series of Sherlock.

Unfortunately there was a car in the way, otherwise this would be much cooler!

We then decided to go eat. I had done a bit of research online looking for a great (affordable) place to get fish and chips. I mean, it's a must when in London, right? I came across this place named Fish Bone online, and we were not disappointed!

(Left is the calamari and chips my dad ordered, top right is the cod and chips, which my mom, sister, and I all ordered, and the bottom right is the meat pie my brother ordered since he doesn't like fish.)

It's kind of a hole-in-the-wall type of place, we almost walked right by it (there was scaffolding in the way so we didn't see it at first.) and it's a small restaurant. But so so good! I definitely recommend it if you're in London! All of the fish was really fresh and the chips were excellent and none of the food was greasy at all, unlike most American fish and chips.

So, our day 3 in London was a lot of fun! Check back on Wednesday for our last day in London!

Five for Friday

Hello! I am linking up with Della Devoted, Cup of Tea and Bright on a Budget for another edition of Five for Friday! It's been super hot around here this past week! It was 108 on Sunday (that's 42.2 for those of you not in the US!) and over 100 all week long. I am definitely hoping the hot weather ends soon! Anyways, here's my Five for Friday...

1. My brother got back from France on Monday! It has been really great having him home. It's nice having him around when I want to ask him a question instead of having to text him and wait for a reply! 

2. I started sharing our trip to Europe this past week. I posted about our day 1 and day 2 adventures in London! I'll be posting much more in the weeks to come!

3. I bought some hydrangeas from Trader Joe's late Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday morning they were almost dead :( I needed them for a photography project and I was thankfully able to get what I needed, but I was disappointed they didn't last. 

4. We've been watching a lot of Shark Tank lately. I don't know why we never started watching it sooner (it's been on since 2009!) but it's pretty good! It's about entrepreneurs who are looking for investments into products they've invented. The 'sharks' have to decide if they want to invest or not. It's pretty interesting and I have actually learned a lot about business by watching it! Which might come in handy considering my brother is studying international business! Definitely worth watching if you have never seen it before.

(source)

5. I bought a couple over-the-door shoe organizers this week. They work great for organizing so much more than shoes! Our bathroom has almost no storage, so this is really handy for keeping the stuff we use the most out and within reach. Same goes for the one I bought for my bedroom, it's so nice to have stuff easily accessible instead of shoved into a drawer. I bought the one on the left at Target, and the one on the right from Walmart. I couldn't find either of them online, but they were less than $20 each.

Have a great holiday weekend! Anyone doing anything fun for the Fourth of July?

London - Day 2

Day 1 - Day 3 - Day 4

After breakfast, we made our way to Waterloo Station where we started our sightseeing at the London Eye. We skipped going on it, mostly because of the time it took and the line was quite long!

We then walked across Westminster bridge to see Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster. 

Westminster Abbey.

 Buckingham Palace.

 We weren't there during the "official" changing of the guard, but the queen did come in while we were there. 

 The flag on the left is the flag that is raised signaling that the queen is in.

 Looking down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace.

 Regent Street.

 Covent Garden.

 We had dinner at Shake Shack. It was SO good! Definitely recommend it!

Shakespeare's Globe theater.

 The Millennium bridge.

 On the Millennium bridge looking toward Tower Bridge (L) and the Shard (R).

 St. Paul's cathedral.

We stopped by St. Dunstan In The East, but unfortunately it was closed. But we did stop by another time!

By the time we took the tube back to the station we were staying by, stopped by the store and got to the apartment, it was pretty late. It was quite cold outside and the heaters didn't work in our apartment. To make a long store short, our apartment was a dump, among the fact that the lady who owned the place would not return calls and the heaters didn't work, there was a multitude of other problems with the place (mold and unsafe wiring being a few of the problems.) We were so fed up with the place that my mom ended up calling Airbnb.  

Fortunately for us Airbnb has excellent customer service! The lady from Airbnb ended up telling us it would probably be a good idea to leave the apartment (Which we were happy to do despite it being around 11:30pm.) She reimbursed us for our stay in the apartment, plus gave us money to cover a night in a hotel room. We were very thankful to have such helpful customer service! 

So we found a hotel a little ways away, packed up our stuff and headed out to the hotel. Unfortunately for the trip budget, the hotel was a pretty big extra expense. Even with the credit from Airbnb, it was way more than we would ever spend on a hotel in the US! But, it was very clean, the beds were pretty comfortable, the heaters worked, and they had a continental breakfast; so we were happy!

Check back next week for day 3 of our trip! 
Day 3 was spent exploring a very magical place ;)