Friday, February 5, 2016

Holiday Photo Diary: England

My actual first stop on my whirlwind trip was England, i.e. the place Laura lives. I did a whole bunch over this week, a trip up to Bristol to visit one of my oldest friends, visits to the Science Museum, Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden etc etc but really this week can be summed up by two thing: LAURA and HARRY POTTER!

Laura and I caught up over three days, first we went to Covent Garden for Shake Shack and a trip to the Science Museum for the Cosmonauts exhibit, which was basically us walking around the exhibits and Laura reporting on how attractive she found various Russian astronauts and communists :P
Day 2 we played ultimate tourist. We met at Green Park and walked and walked and walked, occassionally stopping to snap photos of Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare's Globe (which was the first time Laura had visited it!), The Tower of London, The National Gallery, and all of the many other attractions dotted along the walk. We ended up at the British Library which was around the corner from where I was staying. It was such a perfect place to end the day and honestly we spent as much time in the gift shop as we did in the treasure collection. If I had all the money I would buy all the store. All of it.

And then it was time for Harry Potter. So a little background. For my birthday Tom bought me a gift ticket to cover my entry to the HP exhibit and issue number 1 was that these gift tickets don't have a serial number that you can simply enter online to redeem. No, you have to call and book your entry time or wing it and hope that you can get it. So thank god I had Laura to act as my secretary/booking agent and settle this all on her end. Problem 2, when we went to book the damn place was going to be closed for the ENTIRE TIME I WAS IN ENGLAND. They were literally like the only 4 days they close, which they use to switch over to Christmas. A frantic rearrangement occurred and I stayed on in London an extra day simply to see Harry Potter. CHRISTMASSY Harry Potter. Worth it.

The place is phenomenal. Not only was I completely surrounded by Harry Potter paraphernalia but it was such a cool little blast of information about all the behind the scenes aspects of the films. The blueprints for all of the buildings and small-scale models were definitely my favourite part. What I would have given to work on those films! We also had the obligatory butterbeer at the food court and I almost ordered the butterbeer ice cream as well, but even mid-Harry-Potter-happiness-coma I could recognise how terrible an idea that would be. And then we spent a lot of time in the gift shop where I contemplated buying a whole lot of stuff I really didn't need and didn't particularly want to cart around with me for another three weeks in Europe. Tempting though.

Bristol Waterway
Banksy in Bristol

There was something going on when Laura and I were playing tourist. I don't think we ever worked out what exactly it was though?





Two babes meeting in the flesh!

She made it to the Globe. Finally!



Dumbles!


Such amazing detail!

Snowy Hogwarts

















LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...