Well, we have officially been back in Utah for 2 weeks now! We definitely miss London, but we're also happy to be back. I guess that's probably how missionaries feel. You love the place you lived and the culture there, but it also feels good to be home. I tell people it feels like London was just a long vacation and coming home is back to normal. Spencer has started work, I've started job searching and started my last semester of school, we're living with Spencer's parents until I find a job, we bought a new car, and got new cell phones. Life has already started to get back to normal.
But since real life isn't quite as fun to blog about, I thought I'd take the next couple weeks to share some of our experiences from our 3 week trip around Europe. I've found that we saw and did so much, I haven't been able to share much of it with people, because there's just too much to tell! So, here's my best attempt...
In our minds, our trip officially began on Monday, December 16th which was before we even left London... As we had been prepping to leave, there was one thing left on my London bucket list - Warner Brother Studios: The Making of Harry Potter. So, on our very last day when we should have been packing and cleaning, we went to the Harry Potter studio.
For those that don't know, the WB studios is a total tourist attraction with a display of many of the sets built during the filming of the Harry Potter films. The tour is set on the actual lot where the majority of filming occurred. Some of the highlights included the Great Hall, Gryffindor Common Room, Hagrids Hut, The Burrow, Number 4 Privet Drive, Diagon Alley, a huge model of Hogwarts, and my first glass of Butterbeer (the same stuff they serve in Florida).
I think my favorite part was seeing the insane amount of detail that goes into EVERYthing. The Gryffindor common room has a notice board with changing notices never seen in the films. Many of the portraits on the walls were handpainted with real people. The potion bottles were filled with real bits from butcher shops. The list goes on and on. Even Spencer who isn't much of a Harry Potter fan could appreciate the intricate details that went into filming the movie.
These pictures are probably worth a thousand words, so we'll just leave it at that. Next time, I'll write about when our trip technically began with our flight to Stuttgart, Germany!
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| The Great Hall at Christmastime |
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| Butterbeer!!! |
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| The Potter's Destroyed Home |
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| Diagon Alley! |
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| I loved seeing the dormitory and common room set up for Christmas |
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| Number 4 Privet Drive! Plus the giant chess set and the Ministry of Magic |
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| Kierstin Hougaard, I took this picture with Severus Snape for you! We found out the entrance to Dumbledore's office and the Chamber of Secrets were mechanically made to work, they weren't computer animated! |
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| "Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” -JK Rowling |
