End of the road

Overall the rest of the trip was fun, mainly just working on the project and doing final touches, packing, and a bit of freaking out because of how much stuff I had and that it may or may not fit...it did. London was a  lot of fun overall, it's a truly amazing place because of how spontaneous it is. You can walk around and see random things, like a purple upside-down cow (seen when going to the London Eye), Face Britain (when taking a walk at St. James's Park, and just the craziness associated with London. Some of the things I did, such as Paris and the weekend trip to Oxford, Bath, The Cotswolds, and Stonehenge were really fun. The museums were really cool, I saw paintings from tons of famous people including Picasso (at the Tate Modern) and Monet, Claude, Rembrandt, Van Gough, Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci and even more. I saw the inside of Westminster Palace, went to an Anglican church, explored the streets of London, went to markets, went on the London Eye, saw a Pelican in St. James's Park (though they were quite elusive and weren't out until near the end), saw the changing of the guards, and so much more.

The flight back was a bit sad, just cause I was leaving London, though I was so excited to go home (and was very happy when I got there). I did well again (no freaking out) though while still gaining altitude we hit a bit of turbulence which was not very fun and was a bit scary, and I still really hate when the landing gear drops, but the flight went well and I watched 3 movies during it.

To see some of the pictures I took while in London, look at my Picasa albums!

April 24, 2012

Today was a treat. I slept until 8 and didn't get to work until 10. We stayed at Nido since there was no reason to go in. After starting to work we practiced our final presentation and read through our final report and made edits. At 12 we took lunch until 1:30 which was good. After eating I went to Tesco to get a few things to get me through the week. After lunch we met and worked from one of the top floors, and practiced our final presentation a bit more, until about 3:15/30 when we got ready to head to the church for a run through of our final presentation. It went well and we got good feedback on the content, we just need to work on delivery. I need to slow down, no surprises there.

April 23, 2012

I got up today a little later than normal since I showered last night and we weren't leaving until 9. One thing I did before work today was look at the date for my half marathon, making sure it didn't conflict with anything like JDRF walk. It is the week after that and at the end of A/B term break! I'm happy about the timing since i'll be home the week before and until that Monday. So I won't have to head home right after running. One downside is that it's a break and I am disaffiliated which means that I can't just have a bunch of sisters come, but I still can invite them and remind them not to post pictures for a few weeks. I may also use the half marathon to fundraise, maybe for JDRF since I'll be walking for it the week before.

Anyways, after work we went tot the church to had a spoken through final presentation. We were pleased to have positive feedback. After that I had dinner and relaxed at Nido all evening.

April 22, 2012

Today was okay overall. I just relaxed in my room until 7 when we had a group meeting. While relaxing I cleaned up and organized so it will be easier to pack later in the week. I really just relaxed all day though. One thing I did was watch Harry Potter, and I saw the house in Lacock I saw! It was cool watching it since I've seen a lot of the sets and everything. That's pretty much all for the day, not too much.

April 21, 2012

I got up at about 8:20 today, ate, then highly contemplated going for a run. As I was planning a route, I got a text from Erin saying she's getting ready to go out now. So my run was put on hold and we head out. We went to Covent Garden, which has a lot of shopping. We started out looking for a store that sells maps, because she wanted to get her grandftaher a specific decorative map. After getting the map we went to Marks and Spencers. They had some Great Britain Olympic gear, which was cute, so I tried some on (it was running clothes) and they fit so well and were awesome. So I decided to get a tank top and 3/4 length pants for me. They are souvenirs and more running clothes.

After Covent Garden we grabbed lunch at a Pret A Manger, then went to Piccadilly Circus and ate while sitting on the steps of the fountain, than went in a touristy shop to look around. We were at the lower end of Regent Street, with Ben's Cookies near it and Erin said she wanted to get a Ben's Cookie, so we did. We then walked to the Tube station and head to St. James's Park. From there we walked to the park and saw a pelican! It was huge, like the size of a small child (there were some near it, so it was very easy to compare).  After that we walked to Victoria station and head back to Nido.

April 20, 2012

I was up at 7 today and ate breakfast, then got ready for work. At 8:30 we met and left for work, arriving at the very full platform, but luckily getting on the first train that arrived. Once at work we got to work finishing up the final presentation, staff materials, and all the writing...so fun! (just kidding) For lunch the cafe was really busy so we decided going out would be easier. We did and went to a place around the corner that was really inexpensive. I got chips and chicken wings, and it was not so great, but it worked. At about 3 we were at a good stopping point so decided to catch the 3:19 train.

Once back, I stopped at Tesco and then ate and got ready to go out with Erin. We went to the British Museum (my 3rd time, haha) and I was happy cause I did see stuff that I hadn't seen. There was a display case I believe called "Cradle to Grave" and it showed a how many pills people take in their life time basically, and showed it through a married couple. It was really cool. I also saw several other things I hadn't seen before.

Vases in the British Museum

A necklace of flowers...from nearly a couple thousand years ago

After the British Museum we planned to go to St. James's Park to look for Pelican's. We ended up heading a different way cause we thought we could get there. We ended up right next to Buckingham rather than farther away from it. We were going to just pass it by but I noticed it had colors on it, and asked Erin if she had noticed it from the last time we saw it at night. She said no so we ran across the street to see what was up. There was a thing going on called "Face Britain" which projected the queen's portrait as well as kid's self-portraits and it's planning on breaking a world record of some sort. It's only going on April 19,20,21 from 8:30-11:15 PM So we really lucked out just happening to stumble on it. I was really happy we saw it. After seeing that we walked to Westminster Station and head back to Nido for the night.

Face Britain

April 19th - Harry Potter!

This morning I woke up at 6:45 AM! Why and exclamation point? It's Harry Potter day! Kate and I head to Liverpool Street Station at about 8:10., got to Euston Station, and bought our train tickets for our journey.  Once tickets were bought Kate needed to exchange money, so we did that (we still had about 25 minutes until our train left). We then got on the train and waited until it left, and headed to Watford Junction.

Once at Watford we waited at the station and figured out where the bus would pick us up. We eventually found it and waited about 15 minutes with everyone else waiting to go also. The bus was cool, all decked out in Harry Potter (One of the few pictures I have right now)

Bus to bring people from Watford Juction to the Studio Tour!

Once at the studio tour we picked up tickets without a problem and then went inside. The first room has an entrance to the tour, a cafe area, and a gift shop. We waited for out tour in the gift shop. It was incredible! There was so much Harry Potter everywhere. They had really cute house sweaters, but they were over 50 pounds, so I decided not to. I pretty much chose what I wanted to get people, though there was so much stuff I really wish I had more money.

The front entrance to the building

About 10:25 we queued up and looked at Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs as we waited to go in.  Once through the first set of doors to begin the tour. We entered the first room which was a small hall with electronic posters on the wall with the movie posters from different movies from all over the world which was pretty cool. We then watched a short film about how the movie came about from the books. After that we went into a theatre looking room with lots of comfy chairs. So we took a seat and watched another short film about all the work that goes into the film, such as the costume designers, makeup artists, etc. And how the movie really cam into being. At the end of the short film the doors of the Great Hall appeared, and the screen rose, revealing... the doors to the Great Hall (unfortunately I have no pictures at the moment for that though I really wish I did). The Great Hall was beautiful, a couple of my favorite parts were the dress of Helena Ravenclaw, and the gargoyles which each houses mascot on the wall. In addition to those there were  several of the Hogwart's Professor's Robes, which were really cool.

Once through the Great Hall I learned about the producers and directors, a small model of the ceiling of the hall, the front gates of Hogwarts, props and costumes from the Yule Ball (including Hermione's Dress) Hagrid's Hut, Gryffindor boys dormitory, the Gryffinder Common Room, a big Pendulum, Dumbledore's Office, Dolores Umbridge's office, the Weasley's Burrow, the Potions room, Ministry of Magic "Magic is Might" statue, and props from different things including the triwizard cup, rememberall, time turner, the golden snitch, Ravenclaw's Diadem, Gaunt's Ring, Salazar Slytherin's locket, Riddle's Diary, the snakes blocking the chamber of secrets, and gringotts vaults door. It was so cool!

After that area, I moved into the outside part, where I got to see Tom Riddle's grave, Privet Drive, the Potter's Cottage, The Knight Bus (3 story bus!), Hogwart's Bridge, and Wizards chess pieces! That part was fun and then I moved into the next part. The next part was all the creatures and makeup artist type stuff, and animatronics department (such as Hagrid's head!). I saw the models of all sorts of characters, including Dobby! I also saw the Monster Book of Monsters, an owl that moves, mandrakes, I think Voldemort's little body which was really really creepy. In the next room there was Buckbeak and a dragon, and a basilisk head! The next room was another one of my favorites: Diagon Alley! It was so cool, the front of Gringotts was there was well as all the shops on a cobblestone type road. There was Ollivander's, an ice cream parlor, the robe making shop, and all sorts of awesome shops.

Once through Diagon Alley I moved into the design department with all the white model things of the castles and all the sets so they could decide on camera angles when they were figuring everything out. After all the little models the next room was possible my favorite: the model of Hogwarts they used for all the sweeping shots and the ones farther away from the castle. It was really awesome to see the entire grounds of Hogwarts with all the buildings and everything. After the model there was the last room with tons of wand boxes everywhere. Each wand box had a different name on it, and they are the 4000 or so people who worked on the film. It was a really cool way to do credits.

The end of the tour

After the studio tour we went through the gift shop again and went shopping, I got a couple keychains for people and a time turner keychain for myself (cause it was really really cute!) Of the day my few favorite things were Ravenclaw's Diadem which had on it inscribed "Wit beyond measure is mans greatest treasure". It was beautiful. Another of my favorites was Diagon Alley, it was so cool to walk down, my other favorite was the model of Hogwarts Castle. It was an absolutely incredible ending to the tour. You know, pretty much everything was really cool, lol.