BC's Trip to London

BC's Trip to London

I know I have been back forever, but things have been crazy for me

I figured people might want to know about my trip, but first off, I finally got my pics uploaded to Photobucket http://s719.photobucket.com/user/jarrod ... don%202014

I copy and pasted this off of my blog site:
if you would like to see it on the site, with the pictures that accompanied the passages as you read along, the part of my site for this trip is: http://jarrodrossi.weebly.com/london-june-2014.html

(note: I've been contemplated whether or not to share my blog on here, because my blog is used for things other than sword collecting, and my real name is part of the URL, but I figure, the people here or have been members here that don't like me and have problems with me, already know my real name and can google me all they want to)

Wednesday - Thursday June 4-5, 2014

Seems appropriate to throw Wednesday and Thursday together, since they were all "one day" for me. I think the thing I was most worried about leading up to the trip, was driving all the way to the airport and forgetting my passport, pretty much nothing you can do about that if you forget it! I started my day normally, went to the gym in the morning, came home, showered, finished packing, that kind of thing. First thing I did after getting dressed was put my passport in my luggage. My dad drove me to the airport and we stopped at Cracker Barrel in Baytown to get something to eat. (Odd, last summer I flew to San Diego, and I stopped at Cracker Barrel before the flight, maybe this will have to be a tradition).
Anyway, got to the airport in plenty of time and checked in, went through security and was at the terminal with quite a lot of time to spare. The flight there was pretty good, other than for the lady in the row in front of me with the 4 children, 2 in little baby carriers and 2 toddlers that kept looking back at us... I don't generally have a thing against kids on planes, but I do when they cry and cry and cry some more. Luckily the flight was equipped with little personal TV screens and headphones and on Demand movies, so to pass the time, I watched a few movies and a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory. The food on the plane was fairly decent, didn't encounter really any turbulence and landed safely in London, I'd call that a pretty successful flight!

After arriving in London 7:30 AM London Time, Thursday June 5, we met the Drs. Mann and our tour guide Joanne for a private tour on a coach throughout London, visiting some of the big touristy sites and kind of getting the lay of the land so to speak of London. We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, drove past Trafalgar Square and many many more things it would take forever to list.

Only appropriate that the first meal in London on the night we arrived was the classic "Fish and Chips." I also had asparagus soup and a warm gooey brownie over icecream, mmmm good stuff!

Friday June 6, 2014

Study abroad starts with a trip to New Scotland Yard, our first e xp erience talking with law enforcement from England. Our main presenter was Superintendent Alan Horton They sure do have a different system of there than we do here in America. Probably the most well known thing English police are known for, well what Americans know them for, is the vast majority of English police officers are unarmed. Only 10% of their police force carries guns. Very different from here in America, but it is a system that works for them. We learned, in London alone, there are 8.5 million people living there and there were only about 108 murders in 2013... their system seems to be working for them.

After leaving New Scotland Scotland Yard, we went to 2 different courts in London, Southwark Crown Court and the Royal Courts of Justice. At the Southwark Crown Court, we were able to sit in on some trials taking place for a while. We didn't get there at the beginning so, from what I could tell, the trial had something to do with some sort of sexual assault by an owner of a cafe against an employee. We watched the testimony of 2 witnesses. The first witness was a tech person who installed the cafe's CCTV system. Apparently the CCTV was turned off for 45 minutes on the night in question, and they were asking him questions about it. The other witness was a casual acquaintance of the defendant, I think. He didn't speak English and the translator sounded kind of shady. The witness apparently never answered any questions and the judge and both lawyers were getting irritated. We watched about 45 minutes or so of the testimony and then left to have lunch and then head to the Royal Courts of Justice

We had lunch near the courts, the Hay's Galleria which overlooked the River Thames and after lunch we headed off to the Royal Courts of Justice. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside this building, but the building itself was designed like a Gothic style Cathedral... simply gorgeous. As opposed to the other court building we had just been to, which was like a standard office building. Unfortunately, being a Friday afternoon, by the time we arrived around 2:00PM, most of the court sessions were over for the day. But we got to walk around the MASSIVE building, it was almost like a museum in and of itself.

After leaving the Royal Courts of Justice, we headed over to the Inns of Court. All located around really nice gardens, all barristers in London belong to one of four of these professional associations. Very peaceful around here, kind of makes you forget you are still in a city with 8.5 million people.

Not far from the Royal Courts of Justice, actually right across the street, was Twinings Tea, the longest running rate-payer in London and the World's oldest continually used logo, it has been in business since 1706, they were in business during the time of the Boston Tea Party!!!

We had dinner at a pub not too terribly far from our hotel near Greenwich Park, where I had some traditional bangers and mash and a nice ale.

Saturday June 7, 2014

Whew... Saturday was a day for walking indeed. I think we walked across the entire city of London, or so it seemed (Also maybe had something to do with the fact that I decided to wake up early and go for a 2.5-3 mile jog that morning as well). Saturday was also pretty notable, as being the only day it rained the entire time we were in London... I was under the impression that it always rained in London!
Anyway, our first stop of the day was the Clink Prison Museum, so after a little bit of an adventure of walking the wrong direction a couple of times in the rain, we finally made it to the museum, a bit late. The museum was a bit small but pretty cool, had a lot of original artifacts and replicas from the notorious heyday of the Clink (operated from the 1150s to the 1700s). It had a spooky vibe to it, actually it would have made for an EXCELLENT haunted house. The conditions in this place were awful, the methods of torture performed on the prisoners were excruciatingly horrid, one could only hope they died from disease shortly after arriving and not having to go through the torture!

After leaving the Clink Prison Museum, the group wandered around the nearby Borough Market, a wonderful market selling all types local and exotic foods, fruits and veggies, drinks, pastries, desserts and chocolates! This place was HUGE, really no time to see it all, but I did sample camel and kangaroo burgers with some apple cider. If you know me, you know I love chocolate, so I bought some really great chocolate truffles in various flavors. Also bought some really terrific apple balsamic vinegar as well.

After grabbing lunch at the Borough Market, the group trekked along the River Thames over towards the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridge is, I think, the bridge most people think of when they think of the many numerous London Bridges, looks like a princess castle

After posing for a few photo ops of the bridge and on the bridge and around the bridge, the group headed over the bridge and across the the river over the the famous Tower of London

After browsing around and taking pictures all over the Tower of London, it was getting to be about dinner time. This was my first try at Indian food, which I heard London had the best in the world. I must say it did not disappoint at all!! I can't really remember what I got, but it was quite delicious nonetheless.

I thought the Tower of London was REALLY cool, all the history that has happened here, the execution of Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Katherine Howard, among others. Another reason the tower is famous is because it is home of the Crown Jewels of the English Monarchy.

After dinner, the group was supposed to have a Jack the Ripper tour, but due to some things that came up, like meeting places being confused, we missed our tour (which was rescheduled), so instead of wasting the evening. The group decided to take a non-study abroad detour to a little place called King's Cross Station! Its a major tube station in London, and for all of you Harry Potter fans, you will know that King's Cross Station is where Harry boards the Hogwarts E xp ress at Platform 9 3/4! They had an area set up for pictures.

After playing around in at Platform 9 3/4, it was getting rather late, it was already dark, and in London in the summer time, that pretty much means about 10:00 PM, and we still had to make it out all the way to our hotel, and everyone was pretty much dead tired, so that was the end of our Saturday in London.

Sunday June 8, 2014

Today, we had more of a Psychology day instead of a "Criminal Justice" day. We headed off to the Sigmund Freud House/Museum. It was in a really nice neighborhood, for some reason, reminded me of where the Cosbys lived on the Cosby Show. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, which is never fun to hear when you are on vacation and all you want to do is take a picture of THE couch Freud used!

Being a psych person, seeing all of the Freud related items was a really cool e xp erience, the pictures above were taken from the Freud museum website, as pictures, again, weren't allowed. The also had everything roped off; it did take a lot of self control not to jump the little rope and actually sit on the couch myself... self control and the cameras in every corner of the room. Lots of really cool Freud items were in the museum, even his classes and signature jacket. Freud also had an affinity for collecting things, and in his office and study, there were many antiques and artifacts he had collected.

After leaving the Freud museum, we stopped a near bye pub for lunch and I had one of the dishes I was told I needed to try, which was Sunday Roast. I thought it was pretty good. After lunch, it was time to head off to the next adventure.

It was still relatively early in the day, and we didn't have any study abroad related activities for that afternoon, so we decided to go to the one and only British Museum. By the time we got there, we only had a couple of hours or so to e xp lore on our own before it was time for the museum to close. One could literally spend DAYS in that place and still not see everything. I had 3 main areas I wanted to see, Ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, and although I kind of walked passed some of the exhibits rather quickly, I was satisfied with my e xp erience there. I got to see the Rosetta Stone (no, its not just a language program, but an actual famous archeological item), statues of King Rameses II, and numerous Greek and Roman statues. Just to be in the presence of things thousands of years old is just surreal.

I took a lot of pictures in this place! I think I just was constantly holding the button down on my camera as I walked passed, I didn't want to miss anything. After soaking in a couple hours of the British Museum, we took a little time for some Starbucks and a little souvenir shopping and headed back to the hotel to recoup before dinner. I was so impressed with the Indian food I had near the tower of London the night before, I decided to try the Indian place next door to the hotel, was just as good, if not better than the first night i tried it.

Monday June 9, 2014

Back to the study abroad grind today, have a couple of places planned for today. The first stop was to HMS Wandsworth Prison. Really cool to visit the largest prison in the country. A really cool looking building actually, but again, no pictures, grrr. So I will include a stock photo from Google. Wandsworth is a Category B prison, which is one step down from, you guessed it, Category A, which would be, equivalent to maximum security in the US. Category of prison someone is sent to has to do with not only the crime but how likely an escape attempt would be and how dangerous a prisoner would be if they did, in fact escape.

Two prison guards, Alan and Paul, gave us a presentation and took us to a training type facility with mockups of typical cells found in the prison. They talked about the day to day aspect of how the prisons run, the movements of prisoners throughout the facility, how inmates and associates from the outside try to smuggle in drugs, weapons, cell phones, among other things. The cells, as you could imagine, are really tiny, 2 people to a cell. I couldn't even imagine sharing that small of a room with someone, with basically no privacy. I definitely would not want to spend any time in this place. Unfortunately when we had our visit, the prison was understaffed and the prisoners were out of their cells moving around, so it was not safe for us to tour the actual prison.

Our next stop was Lewisham Police Station, a HUGE police station actually. We had a presentation by 2 homicide detectives here at Lewisham about a double murder of two French students studying in London. I won't go into the gory details of the case they presented us with, but they told us all about the investigation, showed us the crime scene videos, autopsy photographs and all of those kinds of things. Here is a Wikipedia article of the murders, if you would like to get more info, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Cross_double_murder. One of the MAJOR differences you could tell between the England and the U.S., well here in Texas, was the sentencing. There were 2 murderers, one got life with a tariff of 40 years and the other life with a tariff of 35 years, if my memory is serving me.

The tariff is the minimum sentence that has to be served and then they could come up for parole. Knowing Texas and knowing the facts of the case, the one murderer would have gotten death row, no doubt, and the other probably, since he turned himself in and may have been able to show he was forcefully coerced into helping in these crimes, may have been able to plead down to life in prison. There are no plea bargains in England.

After leaving Lewisham police station, we headed back to the hotel and wondered around the area until some of the group decided to try on London's idea of "Mexican and Texan cuisine, at Cafe Sol! Probably the single most e xp ensive Tex-Mex place I have ever been too! The food was pretty good and the decor inside really reminded me of a tacky Tex-Mex place back home. I always think it is fun to see what other people think of food we eat all the time. You know, I am sure what we eat at a Chinese buffet doesn't resemble anything anyone eats in China!

Tuesday June 10, 2014

I think this is the day I had been most looking forward too actually, the day had finally come for our trip to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, one of three maximum security psychiatric hospitals in England. It was a ways outside of London, so we had a couple hour bus ride to look forward to after breakfast that morning. Again, no pictures were allowed, understandably, but these "no pictures" places are starting to kill me!!!
After arriving at Broadmoor we had a presentation about the history of the hospital as well as current types of patients and a brief overview of the treatments they are providing for their patients. After this presentation, we headed over to the actual hospital itself. This place had the highest level of security screening I have ever gone through. First, we had our pictures taken, then our fingerprints taken. After that and making sure our pockets were empty, we went through an airport style metal detector AND THEN someone used a handheld metal detector on us... AND THEN we got the full on tickle me everywhere pat down! The weren't messing around at all.
The group divided in half and some got another presentation by a couple of patients while the rest of us took our tour of the facility. We didn't actually go into the patient wards, as the people that worked there said it looked just like any typical hospital, and they were more interested in showing us their recreation facilities and other things.
We toured their printing facility and their woodshop, which patients can be trained in woodworking and apparently some of their woodworking crafts are highly sought after and have a waiting list on things such as rocking chairs, benches and rocking horses. They also have a music area and arts and crafts area, and also sell their arts and craft projects. We then went outside to their gardens, some of the patients were outside riding bicycles, while we walked down to their gardens. The patients here have self-sustaining plant and vegetable gardens, which teaches them skills on how to take care of things and they also sell produce in the community, it helps them raise money and keep the garden going. Also out past the gardens is a gorgeous view of the surrounding countryside.
After the tour, it was my groups turn for the presentation. The two patients gave us their own personal stories of being at Broadmoor and how they feel Broadmoor has helped them and what types of treatments they are getting and things like that.
It was really an awesome e xp erience, and to know that hardly anyone gets to step foot inside Broadmoor other than staff and employees makes it that much more awesome. Apparently only one tour group gets to tour the facility every 3 months or so, so not many people can say they have been there. As you all reading can tell, this was probably, the best thing I have seen since getting to London (just by the sheer amount that I have typed about it, and I am trying to be as brief as possible!)

After leaving Broadmoor, our coach dropped us off in London, so we could get to our rescheduled Jack The Ripper Tour! This was another one I was looking forward too, heck, the class was even assigned a Jack The Ripper book to read before we even got to London! I must admit, I was a bit nervous, kind of, about the quality of tour we were going to get. There are some tours that take a very serious detective approach, there are some that are really dramatic and want to scare you or you can tell that the person just memorized a script. Then there are some that do the tour in a non-chronological order, and then you have the tours that do not do the pre-booked method and stand on the street corners hawking "Jack the Ripper tour, Jack the Ripper tour here!" Those tours can get 100-200 people.

Our tour guide, Mick, was a mix between theatrics and facts. He really knew what he was talking about, but he played up the drama a bit with his mannerisms and the way he spoke. He also did do the tour in chronological order, so that was nice. But just walking around the area, trying to imagine what was going on in those days, the poverty, the filth and uncleanliness, was almost unimaginable, and along with this, there was someone mutilating women, well prostitutes, but still women. The Jack the Ripper murders happened in 1888, which when you put it in perspective, the London Underground started in the 1860s! The Ripper could have committed a murder and then hopped on the tube and rode off somewhere!

Wednesday June 11, 2014

Our official last day for study abroad

, kind of sad, the trip is going really really fast!. Today we were scheduled to go to the British Transport Police Station. This place IS HUGE! We started off the visit here with a presentation on counter terrorism by CTSU officer Alan Muggleton. After the 30-45 minute presentation we went over to the equipment room and he showed us various types of equipment he and the other officers would wear. Next, we headed over to the armory and we got to see and handle different types of weapons. They passed around a Glock 9MM and an LMT rifle, which was pretty cool. I had to point out that their Glocks were nice, but my personal Glock at home was a .40 caliber

. They then passed around some weapons they had confiscated through various means, such as Uzis and a Tommy Gun, those were pretty neat. Just because I am from Texas doesn't mean I get to hold an old-fashioned Tommy Gun or AK everyday.
After seeing the guns, we headed outside to meet with one of the bomb disposal unit officers. He showed us various types of e xp losives, what they looked like and what they smelled like, and e xp lained the damage they caused, etc. We also got to meet a couple of the bomb sniffing dogs they had. They demonstrated different methods they used, either passive or active dogs. The active dogs are they ones you see sniffing around areas actively looking for drugs or bombs while the passive dogs interact with people in train stations and will sniff out illegal substances while mingling with the crowds.
Once our bomb dog interaction was over the BTP provided us with a lunch of sandwiches and crisps (chips for all you Americans) and some fruit and pastries, which was very nice. By this time, free food was welcome! (London is quite e xp ensive.)
After lunch we met with one more officer that showed us around their specialty SUVs that are equipped with all types of gear and gadgets to check for chemical or radiological agents, gases, powders, liquids, acids... different equipment tests for different things, pretty detailed stuff.
The last thing we did was meet back in the room we had lunch and the presentation in and had a chance to kind of visit with the officers one on one, which was neat. They also gave us a BTP CTSU coffee mug, the ones they served us coffee in in the morning (I had planned on kind of taking one

, but didn't have to.)

It was still early in the day, so we had time to do some "touristy" stuff. Some of the group wanted to go shopping while some of us wanted to go to "221B Baker Street." For those that don't know, that is the fictional address of one Sherlock Holmes, which is now a Sherlock Holmes Museum and Gift Shop! Sooo many things in the gift shop I wanted to buy, but most of the stuff was REALLLY e xp ensive, they had Sherlock Holmes pipes and magnifying glasses and Sherlock Holmes hats, as well as your normal gift shoppy type items.

The museum was next door to the gift shop, thru the doors next to the guy dressed as the policeman. The museum itself was about 4 stories, but tiny rooms, as is typical of this period in London. The first area was Sherlock's study/office and had his and Watson's chairs near a fireplace, with The deerstalker hat and Waton's derby, and in the corner was Sherlock's violin. It was like being in the "real" Sherlock Holmes' office. A lot of the other floors had wax figures of various Sherlock disguises and scenes from the stories.

The Baker street gang met up with our "let's go shopping" other half to go to the London Eye, the giant 400+ foot Ferris wheel that gives some great views of the city. I am not too terribly thrilled about heights, so I wasn't looking forward to getting on it, I'd much rather my feet firmly on the ground then be 450 feet in the air! Luckily it is in enclosed pod that holds about 30 people. If this would have been a regular 2 seater Ferris wheel at a carnival this high, I wouldn't have even considered getting on! Anyway, the London Eye gives you GREAT views of the city, you can see 360 degrees around you and can spot lots of places, Big Ben and Parliament are right across the river, you can spot Buckingham Palace and in the Distance, Hyde Park, etc. You can't see the Tower Bridge or Tower of London from the Eye. You get a little 360 degree map pointing out various buildings so you can spot things, Like the Ministry of Defense, MI6 and MI5, etc.
It is kind of costly, but worth doing once. There are 3 ticket prices, the general admission, which is you show up, get in line and wait in line, then the next step up, the one where you have a time window to show up, kind of like a Disney Fast Pass and the most e xp ensive is you just show up whenever you want and get right on. We opted for the middle price, too much to do in London than wait in line. Luckily we didnt do the most e xp ensive ticket, because we basically just walked right on without much wait.
It takes about 30 minutes for the wheel to go all the way around, it never stops, just goes slow enough you dont feel yourself moving, but it is going slow enough you just step off of it to get off, then the next group gets on.

After leaving the London Eye, we walked over to Trafalgar Square, but it was closed, they were setting up some sort of Fifa World Cup Party, oh well. We had some dinner around the Trafalgar Square area and then went back to the hotel to start packing up... some of the group were headed home the next day, while some of us where packing up and moving to a new hotel for a couple of extra days.

Thursday June 12, 2014

Well, this is the morning that the study abroad part of the trip has come to an end and half of the group is going back to the US today, while some of us or staying a little while longer. After breakfast, we all split up and headed to a new hotel or the airport. Whitney and myself plotted our route on the Tube from our hotel in Greenwich to our new hotel in Kensington. I must say, it was nice being picked up by coach from the airport, traveling through the Tube with 2 rolling suitcases and a backpack, well, its an e xp erience I care to never do again! Elevators aren't as prevalent in London as they are in the US, well at least not in the Tube stations at least. Their escalators are a lot faster and seem to be A LOT steeper. Anyway, we showed up to our hotel in the Kensington area, the Hilton London Olympia. After dropping our bags off in the room, we caught the bus to head over to the ritzy shopping district to do some window shopping. LOTS and LOTS of REALLY e xp ensive stores around this area, heck, even saw a indoor Ferrari dealership.

We went into Harrods, which has to be one of the largest single department stores in the world, its a city block by city block and about 5 stories tall, but its not a mall, its one store. Its as e xp ensive as it is large. I was in awe at how much things cost in there... they had everything from a meat market, to gourmet chocolates, teas and coffees, to designer clothes and luggage to kitchenware and bedding, even had a dog section. Couldn't justify paying $100 for a dog collar, even if it was from Harrods or for Abby.

We left Harrods and had lunch at a National Geographic Cafe across the street, which was pretty cool, had a lot of cool stuff inside for sale, but I didn't buy anything. After a quick browse around the National Geographic Store, Whitney decided it had been long enough, so it was time to go the the Burberry store, so she could try on $2,000 trench coats

Once Whitney had her feel of being pampered by the trench coat man from Burberry, we hopped on the bus and headed to Hyde Park and took a stroll around the park and Kensington Gardens for a while, lots of people out riding bikes or jogging, playing frisbee, walking their dogs or just laying around on the grass. London is soooooo crowded, this is everyone in the area's "backyard" I guess. Even with all the people, the park is so big, it didn't really seem that crowded. It was already closed to the public, but we walked over to Kensington Palace, a little ol' place where William and Kate live and took a few pictures. We strolled along, minding our business through the walkway, and somehow we ended up on a street that had a bunch of signs saying "No Pictures," which seemed odd, but after walking for a while and looking at all these old homes and reading a couple of the plaques and then noticing all the flags, I realized, we are on a private street and all of these "houses" are actually Embassies! Whoopsies! So we nonchalantly, as best as 2 Texans can do in London, made our way out of the area and caught the bus back to the hotel had a sandwich and went to bed... tomorrow is going to be an exciting day!!

Friday June 13, 2014

Today is THE day... other than some of the study abroad activities, THIS what we were about to do was THE THING we had been waiting for... it was the day of the Warner Brothers Studio- London, Harry Potter E xp erience! YAY! Our tickets for the e xp erience were for 1:30, but Whitney and I got up and got ready, had a little breakfast in the coffee shop down stairs and headed to the train station to meet up with the other three, Rachel, Alex, and Hannah, 3 fellow study abroaders and Harry Potter fans. Rode the pretty long train ride up to our stop and finally got to the station. We started to ask "Which way to the Harry Potter bus?" I think we got out "Which wa...." and the guy pointed to the bus stop with the Harry Potter theme painted on it.

The bus ride was about 20 minutes and we finally got to the studios and got our tickets from the kiosk and we were ready to get in. I could probably type for days about all the stuff we saw, but this place is so great, if you are ever in London, THIS right here NEEDS to be on the "MUST SEE" list! There were actual original costumes, props, special effects rigs, AND ACTUAL SETS! Most things, understandably were hands off, as could you imagine, if everyone touched things and set on things, they'd end up being ruined.

But you start the tour out in the Great Hall with all the tables set up, and behind each House's table are costumes from the main cast, and up in the front where the teachers set, are the costumes from the various teachers from the movies, Snape, Hagrid, Dumbledore, etc etc... The next "room" is full of props and other sets like the Potions room, the Gryffendor bedroom and commons room, Hagrid's hut, some of the Ministry of Magic... props included the brooms, the Horcruxes, the TriWizard cup, time turner, Death Eaters's masks.... the list goes on and on. Also in this area, you could don a robe and sit on a broom and have your picture taken in front of a green screen... which means I couldn't wear Slytherin Green robes

. Following all of this was the set of Diagon alley, with all of the facades and buildings, just like in the movie, it was fantastic! The next part was outside, where they had the Potter Cottage, where Lily and James were killed, and Harry's house, the Hogwarts Bridge, Tom Riddle's Gravestone... you could also get you a nice refreshing glass of Butterbeer, which tasted an awful lot like butterscotch and cream soda.

The next area was dedicated to special effects, there were some masks and prosthetics used for the Goblins and other creatures, the werewolves, Dobby, "baby" Voldemort, the animatronic animals, robot Hedwig, the Mandrake roots, the Basilisk, etc. Next was a room with wall to wall, floor to ceiling hand drawn concept design, followed by a hallway with concept art, and a display case of white miniature sets, showing camera position, scale ratio numbers, all kinds of cool technical stuff. After going around these, you finally turn the corner and see, probably what EVERYONE is waiting to see... THE "BIG"ature of HOGWARTS CASTLE! Describing this thing does not do it justice, pictures does not do this thing justice, it is MASSIVE and sooo detailed! All the fiber optics making it look like candles are lit, and if you watch long enough, the lights fade slower window to window so it looks like someone is walking past the windows with a candle, its just truly spectacular!
The tour ends with all the individual wand boxes you see in the movies at Olivander's Wand Shop, and each and everyone one of those wand boxes has unique information written on them. Its those painstaking details that you won't even see in the movies, but knowing they are there makes it that much more special. After leaving the wand shop area, you enter in the gift shop... the gift shop could have taken as much time as the exhibit itself, from tshirts to coffee mugs to Quidditch jerseys, stuffed animals and keychains. There was also another side of the gift shop that catered to the authentic/replica crowd with licensed robes and sweaters, wands and other prop replicas from the movies, this really was worth every penny to go to! I think all Harry Potter fans need to go here, so fly to London!

After we were finished with the Harry Potter excitement, we made our way back to the Kensington area and had dinner at a chicken place called Nando's, which one noteworthy thing about this place... it was the only place I personally went to the entire time I was in London, that had self-serve FREE fountain drink refills! Even tho I was only drinking water, still nice to have refills!!!

After dinner, I stopped by a local store and bought a bunch of Galaxy and Cadbury chocolates to bring home. Then I made it back to the hotel room to figure out how to pack all of my crap.

Saturday June 14, 2014

Well the day has finally arrived, time to make the long trek back to the US! Woke up, had breakfast at the coffee shop downstairs, grabbed the luggage, checked out and made our way to Heathrow. It is such a weird e xp erience to know that when I go to bed tonight, it will be in my own house, in my own bed. Made it to Heathrow and thru security in plenty of time, about 2 hours before our flight. Learned a valuable lesson... never trust the gate printed on your boarding pass! You must always check the screen!! Needless to say, we were sitting in the terminal that our ticket said to be at, and we heard on the speaker, "British Airlines flight 197 to Bush Intercontinental Airport Houston, gates closing at terminal whatever!" Holy crap, we weren't even near that terminal, so we find an information desk and the girl calls over to that terminal to tell them we are on our way. So after having the pleasure of running through the airport, like one of "those people" (but we weren't late!!! no fair!!!!), we made it to the correct terminal, all sweaty and out of breath, only to be told "we weren't going to leave you." It was all made better when we got on the plane and not only did I have an aisle seat(!) we had the front row of the section, so no seats in front of us and extra leg room(!!) Its like the best seats on the airplane!!

The flight home was nice, no turbulence really. I had time to watch the 3 episodes of Sherlock season 3 from the BBC, the new Robocop and 2 episodes of the Big Bang Theory (it was a long flight!)

And, as you may realize, since I am typing this after the fact... I made it home safe and sound!

Until the next adventure....

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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