Hey everyone. sorry I forgot to post yesterday. You didn't miss anything, I promise. Today, however, I have a lot to share. Come with me, on a magical tour of the one and only Harry Potter Studios!
Entrance and the Great Hall
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| Katie and I took a train from London Euston Station (right by our dorms) to Watford Junction, and then took this lovely Harry Potter Studio Tours shuttlebus to the studio site. It was a pretty easy trip! |
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| Looks somewhat boring on the outside. Just wait... |
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| This is a window in the gift shop of Hogwarts gear: clothes, robes, wands, etc. The gift shop was pretty cool. The funniest thing to me was that they had gear for each house - who in their right mind buys a Hufflepuff hat or scarf? I would like to see a percentage breakdown of purchases by house. It has to be something like 85% Gryffindor, 10% Syltherin, 4% Ravenclaw, and 1% Hufflepuff. (If you didn't get that joke, now might be a good time to stop reading this and go read all 7 books and watch all 8 movies). |
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Harry's famed room under the stairs. It actually looks more livable than I thought! but then again, none of this is real. |
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| Katie - who may love Harry Potter more than I do - is getting excited to enter the Great Hall. |
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| Look how big this place is! |
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| The latest in Syltherin House fashion! |
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| Gryffindor Casual! |
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| Nothing like some faceless headmasters and professors to spruce the place up a little bit! Alan Rickman and his Snape body double might have the same pulse... |
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| That's one long table. |
Studio J
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| This fake chocolate feast actually looks pretty awesome. |
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| Costumes and Make-Up are interesting, but definitely disturbing. |
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| A wide shot of studio J, which doesn't even really do it justice since it wraps around much farther to the right past that big clock. This is an awesome tour. |
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| Hogwarts Gate. |
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| This is Gryffindor Boy's dorms. Harry's bed is in the back on the left, and Ron's is the one on the right with the goofy blanket. |
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| Dragon Bones. Cool. |
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| This picture of the wands cracked me up because it reminded me of the weapons in Windsor Castle and Palazzo Ducale (Venice) are presented. Nice touch there. |
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| Just hanging in Gryffindor House Common room. Check out my headless classmates in the background! |
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| The Invisibility Cloak. I think it ran out of batteries. |
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| Tri-Wizard Cup! |
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| The Goblet of Fire! |
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| The Horcruxes, which housed pieces Voldemort's soul. |
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| The animal participants of the Harry Potter films. |
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| All those talking paintings from Hogwarts |
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| I thought these things could fly by themselves.... |
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| The moving staircase! |
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| Hagrid's Bike! |
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| You could actually ride the broomstick and pay a lot of money for the picture. I did try it out and it was fun. They take you all kinds of places with a green-screen. Didn't get the picture though...not worth it in my opinion |
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| Quidditch is cool, but I've never really understood what the point of the scoring is - it always seems like whoever gets the snitch wins. Why bother with all the other stuff? |
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| The humble abode of the Weasley family. |
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| The Ministry of Magic! |
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| Voldemort and the Death Eaters. If you think I didn't do this, then you don't know me. |
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Between Studio J and Studio K - Outside
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| The famed Butterbeer of Hogsmeade! There was quite a line for it... |
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| ...but it was definitely worth it! Butterbeer was a lot like cream soda, but with this awesome whipped (butter?)cream froth. I can see why it was so fictionally popular! |
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| The "Knight" Bus. There are real night buses that drive around in London that are only slightly less insane. |
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| The Riddle Family grave. |
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| Harry Potter's house on Privet Drive! |
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| The old Potter household in Godric's Hollow, complete with damaged roof! |
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| A segment of Hogwart's bridge! |
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| These were my favorite pieces. |
Studio K and Tour's End
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| Costumes and creatures room. Get ready for some strange sights. |
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| Woah its Harry Potter! No, just a weird, creepy prop body double. |
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| Check out these monsters! |
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| Some goofy model of Hagrid in what is the cheapest of all suits. Thos are gameshow host pajamas. |
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| Hedwig! |
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| Yup that's Hagrid's face. Enjoy not sleeping tonight. |
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| I would pay any amount of money for that Shark-Man at the top. A shame it wasn't in the gift shop. |
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| Ollivander's Wand Shop! |
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| Gringott's Bank! |
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| Owls for sale! |
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| Moving to the graphic art part of the tour, this is a model of Diagon Alley. |
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| This dragon looks awesome. |
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| Check out this creepy aquatic creature. |
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| A dragon breaking out of Gringotts. |
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| A small model of Hogwarts. I love these models, so get ready for a rapid fire. |
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| The Whomping Willow |
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| Dumbledore's Office |
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| Gryffindor Common Room |
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| More Diagon Alley |
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| The Three Broomsticks |
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| The Weasley's Burrow |
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| The Lovegood Household |
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| Ollivander's Wand Shop |
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| The Prefect's Bathroom (access point to the Chamber of Secrets) |
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| The Owlery |
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| Hagrid's Hut |
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| Quidditch Tower |
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| An above view of the Hogwart's model. I thought it was impressive.... |
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| ...until I saw this! Look at this awesome big model! 1/24th scale! |
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| The absolute grand finale of the tour - phenomenal. |
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| Hogwarts is awesome, wow. |
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| Katie and I at Hogwarts - this was an incredible end to an incredible tour. |
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| Wands on Wands on Wands |
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| The first part of this quote - "The stories we love best do live in us forever" - is something I definitely believe. We all have our favorite books, movies, tv shows, and video games. It's cool to see a near universal favorite in Harry Potter. |
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| Godric Gryffindor's sword. I almost bought it for my sister, Bridget, but it was priced a little out of my range... |
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| I got myself this cool glass for a surprisingly low price. |
Today was an incredible day. I loved the Hogwarts tour and I was glad that I could share it with my favorite fellow fan, Katie. We aren't sure what will do tomorrow, but it will probably involve downtown London. I'm pretty tired from today's events, so I will be getting to bed soon. I hope you enjoyed my slildeshow tour of Harry Potter Studios!
Til then - Cheers!
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