Long day's journey home

Well, it took 20 hours of travel, but I'm finally back home in Louisville. It involved:

• An epic struggle down the Tube escalators/staircases with my severely overweight suitcase. (Made possible by the extreme kindness of a British man who carried it down the final two for me. Although he did share his opinion that I had over packed for my month-long stay.)
• An hour train ride during rush hour. (Fortunately no need to switch trains.)
• A seven-hour flight to Montreal. (Thanks for the free passport stamp for my two-hour layover.)
• A two-hour flight to Washington-Dulles. (On a plane so tiny that another passenger and I had to move to the back of the plane to "distribute" the weight safely. Needless to say, I didn't sleep on that flight).
• A two-hour flight to Louisville. (Nap time, since it was closing in on 10 p.m. in the U.K., and I had been awake since 4 a.m.).
• A 10-minute car ride with Ryan back to the house, where I was greeted by an excited Sydney dog.

I now have three currencies in my wallet (British pounds, Canadian dollars and U.S. dollars) and am about to go put my road skills to the test after a month without driving. Scary.

Ryan and I will have a wrap-up post about what we learned later this weekend. In the meantime, thanks everyone for reading about our adventures!

Regarding Harry

It's hard to believe that I have been in London for three weeks and have written or edited nearly 40 blog entries without mentioning Harry Potter once.

It's probably because I'm trying not to focus on Harry too much, seeing as I haven't watched the last movie yet. Mostly because I don't think Ryan has forgiven me yet for seeing Order of the Phoenix without him in 2007. So while my fellow classmates managed to sneak in a showing here in London, I've been holding out.

But there are lots of Harry Potter sites here to tide me over. While Ryan was here, we accidentally stumbled on the Deathly Hallows Part 2 premier in Trafalgar Square on July 7.  More accurately, I was seriously irritated by the line of people camped out for the 3,000 tickets to watch the stars and the premier.

The bulk of the crowd can't been seen in this shot, but I think they had already distributed the tickets by this point.

Not really sure why she was there then.

We saw the Great Hall at Christ Church in Oxford that served as the inspiration for Hogwarts' dining hall. The movie scenes weren't actually filmed in the hall because the logistics wouldn't work. So the filmmakers created a set to use instead. You can definitely see similarities though.

The Great Hall at Christ Church.

Hogwarts' Great Hall as seen in The Chamber of Secrets. Photo courtesy of All Movie Photo.com 

The staircase at Christ Church also plays a role in the movies. Or more accurately, the landing you can't really see very well in my picture. Can anybody pinpoint the scene?

Staircase to the Great Hall at Christ Church in Oxford.

Also at Oxford, the Bodleian Library's Divinity School was a setting for two completely different scenes in HP movies. It was fitted as both the infirmary -- which made multiple appearances due to our brave trio's many brushes with death -- and as the location for Ron's dancing lesson in Goblet of Fire.

The Divinity School at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Ron and Professor McGonagall in The Goblet of Fire.
Photo by Murray Close, courtesy of All Movie Photo.com

St. Paul's Cathedral doesn't allow pictures, but this geometric staircase was featured in The Prisoner of Azkaban. What purpose did it serve?

Photo of St. Paul's geometric staircase courtesy of the BBC.

Australia House serves as a stand-in for a very important place in the last film and a couple of others. Amusing anecdote alert: a group of us got lost one day and came across this building and, oddly, we all felt like we recognized it. A tour guide told us why a few days later -- we had all seen its digital duplicate. Do you know what it is?

Australia House. Photo courtesy of Paul in London via Flickr.

On the way to the Globe Theatre, we walked across the Millennium Bridge. You may remember it as the bridge that the Death Eaters snap at the opening of The Half-Blood Prince movie.


 Scene featuring the Millennium Bridge in the Half-Blood Prince. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Millennium Bridge looking much less ominous
after we safely crossed it.

On Thursday, we visited the King's Cross St. Pancras tube station. It houses the "entrance" to Platform 9 3/4,  ready and waiting for tourist photos. Like mine.

The platform was recently moved from its rightful spot between platforms 9 and 10 to outside the tube station. It might be because of construction, or it might be because of the sheer annoyance of dealing with people like me.

People waiting for their turn to take a photo at Platform 9 3/4.

So there's a quick tour of Harry Potter's Britain. The sites are so popular that there are several tours devoted to them exclusively. You can Google "Harry Potter tours" to find out more.

Digital story: The city that reads

You see readers everywhere in London. My digital story looks at how prevalent books are in London culture.

References

Bowker. (2010, April 14). Bowker reports traditional U.S. book production flat in 2009. Bowker.com. Retrieved July 26, 2011, from http://www.bowker.com/index.php/press-releases-2010/616-bowker-reports-traditional-us-book-production-flat-in-2009

Brown, M. (2009, September 19). Charles Dickens bust at Mary Ward House. Flickr. Retrieved July 26, 2011, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonmatt/3934121575/

Central Intelligence Agency. (2011, July 5). United Kingdom. CIA World Factbook. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html

Central Intelligence Agency. (2011, July 12). United States. CIA World Factbook. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Jones, D. (2011, January 28). Site of bookshop where George Orwell used to work, Hampstead. Flickr. Retrieved July 26, 2011, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgjones/376403748/

Nielsen Company. (2010, January 26). Even more books published in 2009. Nielsen Book. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from
http://www.nielsenbook.co.uk/uploads/press/NielsenBook_BookProductionFigures3_Jan2010.pdf

Palisade Dance [Recorded by Sid Phillips & His Orchestra]. (1937). On Palisade dance. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from http://www.archive.org/details/SidPhillipsOrchestra-01-03

Robinson, L. (2007, March 24). Masses of humanity, Embankment. Flickr. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortalcoil/432564517/

Transport facts. (n.d.). London Councils. Retrieved July 26, 2011, from http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/londonfacts/keyfacts/transportfacts.htm

When it rains, it pours ... and then the Tube breaks down

Saturday was rainy here, and five of my classmates entrusted me with their free afternoon and bravely followed me to the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was quite an adventure for Angela Austin, Cassie Hartsfield, Jennifer Kinser, Joey Malefatto, Theresa Wondracek and myself.

The rain was steady but not terrible as we started our journey at Russell Square station.

I confidently led the way to Russell Square station to pick up the Tube, and the group managed to get through the gates and onto a train quite quickly. We made it a single stop before having to disembark. A "signal failure" across town had disrupted our line and we were advised to seek "alternative routes." So we went above ground to start making our way on foot.

The rain became more incessant, and a few members of our group barely missed a surprise shower courtesy of one of the local double-decker buses. Two wrong turns later -- one of them fortunately caught and corrected by Cassie -- we made our way to the Thames and took a few rainy shots of the river before hopping on a working train.

A rainy view of the London Eye, Parliament and the tower housing Big Ben from across the Thames (near the Temple station). 

A short ride later, we crossed the threshold of the Victoria & Albert a little (or a lot) water-logged but in high spirits at our accomplishment. (Or at least I was. I think everyone else was just relieved that we had arrived somewhere at that point.)

That dark shadow about halfway up my leg is the water line. My shoes, jeans, and shirt were soaked through.

The V&A, which touts itself as "the world's greatest museum of art and design," is huge, and we split up to explore on our own. I spent most of my time looking at the stained glass and jewelry displays. In particular, I really enjoyed looking at the micromosaics and boxes in the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection. Micromosaics are made from the smallest glass pieces, and some contain more than 5,000 pieces of glass per square inch. All of the micromosaics would fit in the palm of your hand with room to spare. Most impressive to me were the Plaque with Leopard (early 1800s) and Plaque with Basket of Flowers (1825). You really need to click the links above to appreciate how tiny the pieces are; none of my photos did them justice. 

The museum provides magnifying glasses to help visitors see the tiny details of the micromosaics.

We emerged almost two hours later to almost sunny skies, and most importantly, no rain!



Literary London

London is clearly a city that reads. I don't know if it's because so many publishing houses are based here or the reliance on public transportation, but every Tube stop seems to have multiple books advertised in a fashion usually reserved for movies back in the States (and London does do some pretty big movie ads, too). But the promotion of the books was so impressive that I decided to start snapping photos: