Road Trip Part 1--Ping Pong, Stalling, and Castles

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine



One of my best friends, Sarah, had decided to visit me from the States. We courageously planned to teach ourselves how to drive a manual and rented a car to take us on an epic journey up the East Coast of England to Scotland and back down the West Coast. My parents and friends tried to talk me out of it.  Knowing me, it was a losing battle. Sarah and I have a knack for having hilarious and completely random adventures together and this one was by no means an exception, but the icing on the cake.

Sarah flew from the States and landed at 7am and drove from London to Leicester for the first time driving on the left hand side of the road... Did I mention it was in LONDON?? This girls has some cajones. If you don't know what that means...look it up but don't use google image unless you want a vulgar surprise ;-)

Back to the trip. Sarah and I spent the two days exploring Leicester. We went everywhere that anyone could possibly go in Leicester like the Newarke Museum, Cathedrals, Leicester Uni, New Walk Museum, parks, Guildhall, etc. We then discovered Leicester had assembled ping pong tables everywhere and we quickly took over a table for 2 hours. That may seem like a long time to bounce a small ball across a net with wooden paddles, but I'm guessing you have never played ultimate ping pong with no paddles. Sarah and I became bored with the normal version and decided to ditch the paddles and whack the ball as hard as we could without paddles and even if it went off the table we still  smacked it around. This led to the ball being lost several times and us playing in the bushes at one point. Everyone else got some entertainment too, so it was a win win situation.


Here's a demonstration of the shenanigans and the extent to what we had to do to retrieve the ball.

Sarah and I know how to have fun doing just about anything. One of the many things I love about her.

The next morning we had a lovely 5am wake up call and hit the road to Edinburgh. Poor Sarah had to drive the entire 6 hours because I hadn't learned how to drive manual yet. When we arrived at the parking lot after getting lost we decided to go to Edinburgh Castle first. On the way we saw a bagpipe parade that started the second we crossed the street in front of them. Thanks Edinburgh for welcoming us like that. No where else gave us a parade :-p

It was a hike and a half up the hill where they used to torture people. Great thoughts to get you encouraged enough to keep going... Once we got there it starting raining... SHOCK. We toured every single room you could possibly go into including the: dungeons, royal jewels, war memorial, canon area, and one of the halls. 

The pictures do it so much more justice than words. Next on our list was to just walk around outside and enjoy the view and we did just that. We could literally see ALL of Edinburgh from up there. How in the world people would decided it was a good idea to storm that castle is beyond me. I think they were a little wr

ong in the head. If you didn't have a stroke running up the steep incline and somehow managed to miss the arrows and flaming pots of poo being rained down on you then you had to get over the walls or through the gate. If I happened to be a male warrior attempting to besiege the castle in the past I would've just laughed at my commanding officer and patted him on the back and said good luck and then mutter "..idiot".

Next on our tourist to do list we went to the National Museum of Scotland. For those of you who read my previous blog about the trip to the Irish National Museum you will be pleased to know Scotland knows how to build a fantastic museum. There was only one flaw to this plan. Sarah decided we should start at the top of the museum and work our way down. Folks, never do this. They put the boring stuff on top and the ridiculously fun and interactive things on the bottom to rope people in. We discovered that sad fact 10 minutes before it was closing. We walked downstairs expecting to find more boring things only to find we could've spent our time looking at cloned sheep, mega sloths, rockets, and racing formula 1 cars. It was a sad and slightly embarrassing moment in the lives of Sarah and Emma as we realized our stupidity. Oops. BUT never fear we came back 2 days later, which you'll hear about later.

We did get to see these things on our journeys at the top of the building:

In case you're wondering the top left picture is a bear claw necklace. The bee picture is a creepy but fascinating perpetual motion clock. The bottom left picture is a really complicated locking trunk that I'm convinced was the inspiration of Mad Eye Moody's trunk. Last but not least is the bottom right picture of an Anglo-Saxon Brooch.
 YAY history! At this point Sarah and I were TIRED from walking over the entire castle and all over Edinburgh after getting no sleep and driving for what felt like decades. We decided to get one last picture and the Olympics statue and then make the 30 minute drive to our hotel. For those of you who think all hotels in Britain are typical... think again.

As we drove to our hotel up the driveway we had to compose ourselves before going inside. It was a flipping CASTLE. The reception area had an enormous fireplace with suits of armor flanking it with a gigantic moose looking skull mounted above it. If that doesn't scream castle then the stuff boar in the living room does. 

We were in love. We had dinner inside before heading to our rooms in another building. We met the owner and were given permission to explore the whole castle. He obviously didn't know what he had just set loose in his beloved castle. We sang songs in the music room as I accompanied myself on the piano in a very unprofessional sounding way since I'm awful at playing piano. Then we pretended to be philosophical in the library and climbed the ladders to look for more books, but we were really just taking pictures. We also walked around with ridiculously stereotypical British butler accents. It just felt so right, but seeing as we were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts it probably looked like a bunch of nutters were meandering around the castle. 

Then we let ourselves into the garden and discovered.. SLUGS. Slugs were EVERYWHERE. We went for a walk and I'm pretty sure I accidentally killed about 50 just by walking. They are surprisingly camouflaged. 

In case there are slug lovers reading this blog, I really did try to avoid them but it just wouldn't work. I like to think I helped the human race by protecting them from slug invasion, which was obviously being plotted.

Look out for next week's blog for part 2 of the trip!

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” – John Hope Franklin

Harry Potter Studios

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live"--Albus Dumbledore

Yes ladies and gentlemen my fastastical nerdy dream came true! I went to the HP Studios in London. Needless to say I was in my own blissful little bubble of a world of nothing but Harry Potter and the making of the film. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I first arrived at the studios, but the entire experience, and believe me it was an unforgettable experience, blew me out of the water.

The line leading up to the beginning of the self guided tour had pictures of the actors on the walls, the ford anglia hanging from the ceiling, and quotes and information from J.K Rowling. We were guided into a room and shown a video and the screen then gave way to a door. Little did we know we would walk through those doors just the like actors did for years into the Great Hall. The first thing that caught my eye was the attention to detail. Details the cameras wouldn't always pick up and that most people wouldn't notice were literally everywhere. The objects on the tables and murals on wall were absolutely amazing.


I won't give a play by play of the entire experience, but I will highlight some of my favorite parts. My all time favorite parts were the ones where we got to see how the behind the scenes affects, such as costuming, makeup, wigs, animatronics, and character prosthetics. While there we learned that the actress who played Luna had made all of her jewelry for the film and we saw all of her costumes. It's great to see how the actors contributed and what other talents they have. Most actors are only known for one thing and by displaying these items it gives them more dimensionality.

The experience had every single prop you remembered and never even noticed from the films. The left absolutely nothing out. It is overwhelming to see just how many objects a film can accumulate. You thought hoarders were bad. Goooooooood grief. At least is was organized and they had really cool facts about everything you were looking at. The Gryffindor beds never changed size as the actors grew and the cameramen had to choose certain angles because everyone's feet were dangling off the end.


Whole sets were kept such as the potions classroom and Dumbledore's office.





















Another one of my favorite things was the overall lack of laziness. There were TONS of things that could have been easily done with CGI, but were made by hand. Moody's trunk with all the layers inside, the Magic is Might statue from the Ministry of Magic, Harry's house in Godric's Hollow. And these super cool working doors.

Can I just say that butterbeer is delicious? Look how happy we are drinking it. YUM

The surprises just kept on coming. The chess pieces from the Sorcerer's Stone were actually made and were enormous!

The next room after this consisted of all the animatronics and prosthetics. It really made me realize that there's so much I could do in film and I have only scratched the surface. I can't even wait to see where I end up in the film industry after seeing all of this. Yes, it's slightly cheesy, but I felt extremely inspired after seeing everything.





At first I was a little creeped out by seeing all of the goblin masks just sitting on a shelf staring at me with those lifelike faces, but then I just didn't want to stop staring at them. After taking stage makeup and have to make prosthetic noses and cuts for myself and failing miserably quite a few times I have major respect for those people who make them look flawless and easy to make.

Before touring the studios I always thought the dementors and werewolves were entirely the product of CGI. However, I was yet again wrong. Actors were put in harnesses with the torso of the creature they were playing on top of them. It seems weird until you see the picture. Then it all makes sense.











They also had a basilisk head that moved, Aragog and Buckbeak! Another one of my favorite parts was touring the actual Diagon Alley. I wish we could've gone inside the stores, but it was so cool to walk by the windows of the shops I imagined from reading and saw in the movies. There was so much in the windows to look at I probably could've spent all day in there.

I never thought I would think architecture and engineering plans were interesting, but holy crap. The next room was amazing. It was essentially wall papered with plans for anything you can possibly think of. Pictures do it so much more justice than my ravings can.

The next room had small models of things like the Beauzbatons carriage, Luna's house and the Durmstrang ship. What was more impressive were the paintings lining the walls. They were al of scenes from the film or inspired by certain aspects and exhibited artistic license.
I wish there had been pictures of them for sale in the gift shop because I would've bought every single one. It was great to see a different take on certain things or a static perspective of scenes.

 The last room was the most impressive and we spent the most time in there. There have been very few things I have seen that have stopped me in my tracks and made me just stare with a loss for words. The ENORMOUS, but not full scale,  replica of the castle was phenomenal. This model was the epitome of attention to detail. It was by far my favorite part of the tour. They definitely saved the best for last. You got to walk around the entire model and listened to the theme music. To sum it up it just made me extremely happy and in awe.

The only part of the studios that was not extraorinary was the gift shop. It was geared towards children, but did not have anything affordable for anyone my age and above. I ended up with peppermint toads and Hermione's wand, which is now on display in my room :) Laura and I did manage to have some fun in the gift shop as we always seem to do.

Reality needs to get on this level of awesome

As sappy as this is I really took this whole experience to heart. It goes to show that a movie and more importantly a series of books and move an entire generation. We grew up with these books and will always want to pick them up to read them and never be able to put them back down. The studios are an amazing contribution to the books and movies. It lets the readers who enjoy them both so much to actually experience them in person and more importantly to be a part of it and see just how much work went into the making of the films. I have never seen any movie set and everyone involved create something so imaginative. They have set the bar extremely high for those in the future.

"It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."--Albus Dumbledore

Part Deux-- Attack of the Killer Fart, Cows, and Nerdiness

Day 2: An Experiment With Barriers, Cows, and Flatulence

Some of you may be wondering about my sanity with that title. You'll understand why it's called that if you keep reading. 

When your day starts out like this:

You know you're in for a weird one.

We made a spontaneous decision to scrap our previously made plans to go to the Cliffs of Moher for the same trip for less money and also included more sites to see! The bus ride took us through Galway all the way to the mini cliffs before the actual stunning ones. The mini ones were just as terrifying and beautiful. 

 

As we traveled on the bus to the Cliffs I realized that bus drivers in Ireland are slightly insane. I also had no idea a HUGE bus could take sharp turns and corners that quickly without tumbling over the edge to our deaths. Props to them.

The first thing we saw as we climbed to the top of the hill was a castle just sitting on the edge of the cliffs and then we turned in the other direction and saw the famous cliffs. It was SO NICE that we actually had sunny weather. It was absolutely stunning.

For those of you unfamiliar with weather in the UK and Ireland.. this was a miracle.

There were signs all over the place to not climb over the stones blocking the people from the edges of the cliffs. Laura and I being rebels decided we would be safe and wanted to be different. So naturally we climbed over and overheard other tourists grumbling about our "idiocy". However we weren't in danger so personally I think they were jealous.

We also had great fun at the castle. We decided not to go up the castle because paying 2 euros to climb some stairs was not worth it. We already had a great video. Me being a parkour fanatic I decided to climb part of the wall. As I blissfully bounded to the doorway where I wanted to do this and old man set in his ways came out of the doorway and as he walked by me he let out the mother of all farts RIGHT ON ME. Needless to say I was not happy. Laura captured the moment perfectly...

But in the end I achieved the parkour stunt once the noxious gases subsided...

We decided to go off the beaten path and go along the cliffs where a few other people were headed. The views were amazing and completely worth the off road walking. We got views such as these:

 

Derek for some reason decided he had a new found love for cows. This is also calf season and mother cows are not the most welcoming during this time... He went into the field and harassed them all as a mother cow stared him down like he was about to take her calf to the butcher. He survived and felt the wrath of his fiance for almost getting trampled.

Moving on, our next stop on the way back to Galway was Poulnabrone Dolmen. It is a 5000 year old tomb. I was the only person on the bus excited about it. I was sitting at the very back of the bus and beat 3/4 of the people off the bus and literally ran to see it. Yes I am a HUGE nerd. But hey, it was COOL. 

I jumped around on the rocks after that and managed to twist my ankle. I also found a hole that "was made for my butt" according to Derek. After this I calmed down a little since my daily dose of nerd was satiated. We did stop at a scenic castle on the way back!

Stay tuned for part 3 the grand finale!