London: Parliament & Harry Potter

Bright and early Friday morning we raced to our tour of Parliament.

The building is beautiful and rich in history and tradition.

Yet again, some stupid Americans snuck in a very classy event...

We went to DC about 2 years ago so it was interesting to compare governing bodies. Although I have deep American pride I was intrigued by many things British. However, I didn't realize before how useless their royals are. I know sometimes we think the President is useless but he has a lot more power than the Queen. She can't veto a bill and the speech she gives Parliament each year is written by the members of Parliament! I'd love to be royalty but it seems like a name only.

(Am I going to regret writing these words one day when I'm politically famous?)

And we made a quick stop at Trafalgar Square.

In the afternoon we toured the Harry Potter studio.

We did many things in London and I almost hate to admit this was one of my favorites.

Scott has a friend in Scotland who wanted to go so I watched all the Harry Potter movies a few weeks before. Just as I finished watching them it was discovered that tickets were sold out the day we wanted. Since I already invested so much time into the movies I decided we'd go alone.

Scott is Harry Potter clueless (neither of us are huge fans) and even he liked it.

It was amazing to see how much time and talent went in to creating the movies. If I thought my money was going to the people doing the work I'd be willing to pay a lot more for my movie tickets. The amount of work and creativity was amazing!

Harry's room under the stairs.

They actually made a life size banquet hall.

This is Dumbledore's study but was also used for a few other things.

Can you imagine the work to change everything around and then set it up again?!

The Wesley house.

I was really impressed by the sculptures and paintings that were legit. 

We thought a lot more things were CGI but most things were actually real.

4 Privet Drive

Ron's chess player

Diagon Alley was epic.

Butterbeer was horrible.

Not even Scott finished the glass we bought.

Can you see us in there?

This is the 3D model they created of the school. JK Rowlings didn't tell them what was going to happen with each book so they had to wait like everyone else. However, that meant that sometimes what they envisioned the school looked like didn't work with the next book. If you watch the movies in quick succession you'll notice that Hogwarts looks different in each movie. Interesting fact!

And by this time we really missed this cute guy.

He had a great time with cousins and friends but perhaps 11 days was about 5 days too many...