A Very Potter Adventure

Where do I even begin?? Today was by far one of the most crazy, stressful, action-packed days so far in London. But it was also one of the best!!!! Today was the day that I, Kathryn Walters, traveled on a train to a magical place. A place full of wonder, mystery, and adventure. That's right, today I went to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter studio tour!!!!! Where they filmed much of the beloved film series. Just a heads up, this blog posting is going to be insanely long, so you might want to grab a butterbeer and make yourself comfortable.

Today started off very early, as Ellen and I had to take the train (literally a 20 minute ride, but whatevs) from the center of London to the studio, which is somewhere outside London. After a bit of confusion, we found our train, and were soon off! However, there was an, ahem, slight hiccup in our journey. About halfway there, our train actually broke down!! We sat there for about 15 to 20 minutes while they tried to figure out what was wrong with the train and fix it. That was an extremely anxiety-filled 15 minutes for me. I was absolutely terrified we were going to be late arriving, and would consequently miss our shuttle to the studio and therefore miss our tour time. Thankfully, when I was contemplating how exactly I was going to get the train company to reimburse me for my wasted Harry Potter ticket, we finally moved!! Words cannot express my relief. And we arrived in plenty of time to meet up with one of our friends, catch the shuttle, and drive on over to the studio!*

An awesome double decker bus was our ride to the studio, all decked out in Harry Potter awesomeness. And I'm not gonna lie, when we approached the studio, my heart started to seriously skip with excitement. I felt like I was actually going to the real Hogwarts for the first time!! Once there, we met up with some other girls, and got proceeded to the studio tour!

It all began when a large group of us were ushered into a holding room where we watched a brief film about how Harry Potter first came to be adapted for the big screen. Honestly, it felt like I was getting on a ride at Disneyland or something. Next, we moved into a large movie-theater type room, where we sat on dangerously comfy chairs, and watched another longer movie featuring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, where they introduced us to what kinds of things we could expect from our impending tour.

Now, this is where it gets REALLY exciting, and quite theatrical. At the end of the film, Dan, Rupert and Emma exited through the doors of the Great Hall. Once the film was done, the screen raised up into the ceiling, and right behind it was the DOORS TO THE GREAT HALL. At this point, tears actually sprang to my eyes. I was just so overcome with excitement and nostalgia for this beloved, incomparable book and film series. I just couldn't grasp the fact that these were THE doors to THE Great Hall, where all these wonderful actors and people met everyday to create a magical world for us to enjoy. A tour guide ushered us through the doors and into the Great Hall, where it was set up exactly as if it was the opening feast at Hogwarts! There were many costumes set out from each House, and the teachers' table at the far end of the Hall had displayed many of their costumes, from Dumbledore and McGonagall to Flitwick and Trelawney! In actuality, the Great Hall was a lot smaller than it seems on the screen, but I think part of it has to do that the ceiling is bewitched to look like the sky in the movies, and that unfortunately was not the case in real life.

From this point on, our tour was entirely self-guided. There were many interesting video displays to look at, where the directors and producers gave their thoughts on what it was like to work on the series. There were many different props and costumes to look at, all set up so nicely. It was great to see the costumes up close and personal. I particularly enjoyed the rack that showed four identical costumes for Harry Potter, each in increasing states of wear and tear. Honestly, I didn't even know where to look half the time, there were so many wonderful things to see. There were many great sets, like the Gryffindor Common Room, Dumbledore's office, Hagrid's hut, the Burrow, Umbridges outrageous pink office and the Potions classroom. There were also lots of amazing props on display, like the Horcruxes, different newspapers and Quibblers, broomsticks, Triwizard Cup, and Goblet of Fire. Basically, if it was in the movie, it was on display. It's so hard to do everything I saw justice. It was just an amazing feeling to be so close to all these different sets, costumes, props and different memorabilia, that have all had a great influence on my life.

The next area of the tour was outside, where you could see the purple triple-decker Knight Bus, knock on the door of Number Four, Privet Drive, walk across the Hogwarts bridge, and have a taste of butterbeer! Since I already have had butterbeer at the Harry Potter theme park in Florida, I didn't spring for it this time. But plenty of people did. Out of curiosity, I asked a lady how much her butterbeer was (it was around 2 pounds for the regular cup and 4 pounds for the collectable cup) and she remarked on how absolutely sickly sweet and dreadful it was. From what I can remember from two years ago, it was certainly sweet, but I didn't think it was that bad :) At this point, my stupid camera started to crap out on me, so pictures from this point on became a bit scarce.

The next part of the tour was much more technical, delving into how exactly the crew brought the magic of Harry Potter to life. There was a whole room full of animatronics and puppets and models of many of the creatures of the Harry Potter world. There were mandrakes, dementors, the basilisk, a were-wolf, Buckbeak the hippogriff (my fave), a robo-Hedwig, a moving Monster Book of Monsters, and even a creepy looking pre-resurrection ceremony Voldemort. Right around the corner was DIAGON ALLEY!!!! It is quite small, and unfortunately it was only a set so you couldn't go into any of the shops, but the awesome Weasley Wizard Wheezes store, Ollivanders, and Flourish and Blotts were all there!! I felt just like a young Harry, walking down the street of Diagon Alley for the first time. So much excitement and wonder and general happiness. The next part was a lot of art-based things, where they displayed all the really tiny scale models of Hogwarts castle and a lot of other things. There were also many concept artworks for the movies on display. All of these artists are crazy talented. I don't know how all of those paintings and drawings aren't on display in the National Portrait Gallery right this minute.

I know this is dragging on, but bear with me. I now am nearing the end of my tale of A Very Potter Adventure. The next part of the tour was honestly my favorite. We rounded a corner after all the concept art section, and lo and behold, there was a beautiful, gorgeous, perfectly built to scale model of Hogwarts castle. It was absolutely breath-taking. In the first movie, they used this model for wide-shots on Hogwarts. There is no other way to describe it but practically perfect in every way. It was meticulously built from the ground up, and looked exactly how Hogwarts should look. The lighting in the room occasionally dimmed from a daytime lighting to nighttime, and as it got darker, the windows of Hogwarts lit up so that it was a truly magical, ethereal sight. It was truly beautiful to behold, and I'm afraid my pictures don't do it justice at all. It was a perfect ending to the studio tour, because the final room before the gift shop was a model of the interior of Ollivander's wand shop, the walls stacked to the ceiling with wand boxes. Each of these boxes had the name of a person who had worked on the Harry Potter films during the last 10 or more years (about 4,000 people!). In my opinion it was a really graceful ending to the tour, because it sort of acted as the credits of this entire semi-theatrical experience, and reminded you of the thousands of people who work behind the scenes, who don't get the glory that actors, directors and producers receive, but simply do what they do because they love movies and Harry Potter. On another wall was one of my favorite quotes from JK Rowling: "The stories we love the best do live with us forever, so whether you come back by page or the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." Indeed, going on this Harry Potter experience was truly like going home.

To put it simply, the gift shop was quintessential Harry Potter madness. There were so many wonderful and exciting things to buy, but all so expensive! I did buy a few things, not for myself though. My pictures and ticket are my souveniers from this experience :) The rest of the day was spent booking our tickets for Amsterdam and Paris and Italy (so excited!) and we went shopping at a really large Sainsbury's for groceries for ourselves. By the time we got back, we had been gone over twelve hours. Overall a really long and tiring, but completely magical day :)

*In retrospect, the fact that we sat on a delayed train is actually incredibly serendipitous, as JK Rowling first conceived the idea of Harry Potter on a delayed train. Coincidence? I think not ;)