"Wait, what floor are we on?"

On Saturday afternoon I went to the one, the only: Harrod's. I knew I had to go once at just browse, so Kara, Kelsie, Sarah and I decided to see what all the fuss was about. We got there around 5 pm, which was perfect; we got to see the store all lit up outside.

On class outings, we had driven past the store, but up close, you realize that it really does span almost an entire block in both directions. The window decorations felt like the ones in New York City at Christmas time. The Chinese New Year was on Sunday, so a few of the windows were dressed up with Chinese dragons and other related decorations. 

As soon as we walked in, we were immediately overwhelmed by the makeup department. We wandered through a few rooms, following the signs above each doorway which told us what was coming next. Eventually, after picking up a store guide brochure, we made it to the food rooms. Kelsie and Sarah wanted to get chocolates for their boyfriends for Valentine's Day, so Kara and I wandered around looking for something for ourselves. I had told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but I had to get a little something just so I could get a Harrod's bag! I settled on a dark chocolate bar with orange slices in it. Definitely one of the cheapest things there at 5 pounds. As I expected, it was delicious. The store was so crowded and so much like a maze that Kara and I actually lost Sarah and Kelsie at one point! Harrod's feels like its own city, it's so big. 

Without an agenda, we wandered around the store, at least peeking into each room. We spent most of our time on the first two floors, which were womenswear. Each of us just shuffled through, open mouthed. They have EVERYTHING: house goods, kid's designer clothes, and even a Harrod's gift shop. We tried to find the most expensive item in the store. A 217,000 pound bracelet took the cake. That's about $400,000. You could buy a HOUSE with that kind of money. It's ridiculous. A lot of the items didn't even have price tags on them; I was afraid to know how much they would have been.  After about 2 hours, we started to lose momentum and called it a night. I'm definitely glad I went to check it out, but it was definitely a one-time thing for me. I was scared to even touch anything because I didn't want to break it and have to pay for it.

We decided to check out a Thai place near the British Museum that we always pass. Since it was a Saturday night at around 7pm, we were scared it would be really crowded. We walked in and it looks totally empty. The food was pretty good, but not the best Thai food I've ever had. I ordered a curry because it seemed cheap, but then found out that rice was extra. Restaurants are so sneaky about that here! Also the service wasn't great; we had to keep reminding them of what we had ordered. I probably won't go back, but I'm glad I finally tried it. It was a low key night. Most of the group was going to try to the BAFTA red carpet the next day (at 4am), so we all went to bed around 10 pm in preparation.

Oxford!

Our Oxford morning started off a bit stressful. Our entire group made it to Paddington Station on time for our 9:20 train. However, as 9:10 rolled around, our professor was no where to be found. I'm still not sure what happened with him, but we ended up running to get on the train with one minute to spare. The conductors didn't even check our tickets, they just told us to run and jump on the train. Whew! But since it was early and the ride was about an hour long, we were able to sleep a bit on the train. When we arrived at the station, Meagan, Lucy and I headed to the bathroom (where there was, of course, a long line). I told someone in the group that I was going to the bathroom, hoping they would tell everyone to wait. The three of us walked out of the bathroom to find everyone gone. Luckily we got a hold of them and they waited, but we definitely started off on the wrong foot in Oxford.

Oxford was really different than I expected. I think I expected almost a Hogwarts feel: one big building on a big plot of land. Instead, I found it to be a little town containing scattered colleges. Our tour guide informed us that there is Oxford University, but that it is comprised of 38 independent, self-funded colleges. To get in, a tutor must specifically choose you and interview you to be in their college. Oxford is also the first English speaking university in the world. Elizabeth our tour guide took us in to a couple of the colleges and showed us the main historical buildings in Oxford.  All in the biting cold.

The Ashmolean Museum. This is the first university museum in the world!

Elizabeth realized we were all Harry Potter fans, so in pretty much each building she would tell us what scenes had been filmed there. Again, it was so cool to be standing in the places those actors had been too! Not to mention all the famous people who have gone to Oxford...

Broad Street shops

Martyrs memorial

The Oxford coat of arms

The door that inspired Mr. Tumnus!

We got to peak into a building no on else (except Oxford graduates see): commencement ceremonies are held here.

After the tour, we went to a little pub called the White Horse. The customer service was terrible, but the food was pretty good! I had my first language misunderstanding. I realized I hadn't been given a roll up of (what I call) silverware. I went to ask the woman behind the bar for "silverware," pointing to the roll-ups behind her. She gave me a weird look and said "what?" so I said "uuh..utensils?" Again, "huh?" Finally, the other girl behind the counter got my drift and told her "cutlery." It's so strange the different words people use here. We wandered around the shops for a little while, then took a train home. I was able to get a nice little nap in as well!

Since it was our last weekend out in London for a while, a group of us decided to go to a club. We went to a place called the Roxy nearby. I had heard from a friend that if you signed up for the mailing list, you got in for reduced prices. I did so, so I only paid 2 pounds instead of 5 for a cover! I really liked the club, it was pretty small, but they played great music. It was "pop/disco" night, so we all knew every song. It was so much fun to just dance and spend time with the girls from the house. Even though Friday was quite chilly, it was a great day!

Week 3 comes to a close

Wednesday was my history day, with European history in the morning. Our teacher is giving us an assignment to do in conjunction with our Edinburgh trip, so class started at 10:30 instead of 9! We discussed the Russian Revolution and the rise of fascism; obviously a cheerful discussion. It's really interesting that there is no real definition of fascism, or way to distinguish between it and a dictatorship.

I'm starting to realize that my art history professor, Rachel, doesn't really have lecture time in our class, which is really cool. Each week on our outings, we all choose one painting that exemplifies what we've looked at or caught our eye. Then during class before our outing, we come up to the front of the class and share our piece of art. This usually takes an hour, and then we leave for our outing. This class just exemplifies what I imagined my classes in London to be like. While Rachel assigns us reading to do over the week, she doesn't really hold us accountable for the information in class. I can tell that us experiencing the art available to us in London is so much more important than her talking at us in a classroom. She does talk to us and explain the pieces we look at when we get to the galleries; in fact, these talks usually draw an audience. Rachel is very eloquent and the way she explains the art makes sense. Sometimes I can appreciate art, but I don't understand the back story or why it was made. Rachel makes it click. As the weeks progress, I think art history is my favorite class here. Also, we keep going back to the National Gallery, which is a beautiful museum. It's right by Trafalgar Square, so every time we go there, we see the Square and Big Ben in the background. It's beautiful, especially because we see it as the sun is setting!

On Thursday, I had the room to myself in the morning, so I did some laundry and then some food shopping. I went and scoped out the farmer's market at University of London. Unfortunately, most of it was meat-based or didn't have labels of any allergens, so I just got a seafood paella. I love paella almost as much as I love my markets. My friends make fun of me because I'm so obsessed with markets and on each trip we go on I ask where the closest one is. They're just always cheap and usually have gluten/dairy free food! What's not to love?! I also stopped by Planet Organic, but was a little disappointed. While it did have some allergy free foods the other grocery stores have, it was very pricey. I actually found that they sold much of the things I get at Waitrose or Sainsbury's but was more expensive. I'm glad I checked it out though.

For film, we had to prepare little group presentations about our favorite scene in Romeo and Juliet. Lucy and I chose the balcony scene because we're romantics...The film we saw was "Amour." The movie shows an elderly couple deeply in love who have to cope with the wife's dementia. It was incredibly heart-wrenching and felt very real. I don't think there was a dry eye in the cinema. Everyone came home and ate their feelings in the form of chocolate. The film was well-done, but...depressing. We called it a night early, since we had to be up bright and early for Oxford the next morning!

Week 3

On Monday I decided to go to Primark to do some shopping. I decided to scope it out by myself, and walked down to Oxford Street. I was so surprised by how slowly everyone was walking! It was weird, I felt like I had to keep weaving in and out of people, and I wasn't even walking that fast. Also, everyone just stops and stands in the middle of the sidewalk. I know this probably happens in every city, but I just assumed people would be more considerate. I started off at Primark. Oh my gosh, it's overwhelming. It's like a Forever 21 but British style. Definitely cheap prices and cheap material. Interestingly, even though it's 4 stories, it's pretty much all the same things on each floor (as in, the same exact clothes). I  mostly wanted to scope it out, but I'll definitely be back. I wandered around to the rest of the stores, seeing what was on the first stretch. It was nice to actually go out by myself and explore. I prefer to be with a couple other people in the city, but I needed to break the ice in terms of doing things on my own. Don't worry Mom and Dad, I was being very safe and aware of everything! As the constable advised, I always make sure "to keep my wits about me."

On Monday the house received some really sad news: our house manager, Charlotte, will not be available the remainder of the semester because she has to go on medical leave. We don't know exactly what's wrong, but it sounds pretty serious. Charlotte is basically superwoman. She knows everything about everything in London, and was an invaluable resource. And the icing on the cake is she's the sweetest lady. We're all definitely going to miss her the rest of the semester!

We went to some bookshops with Media and Society on Tuesday, after learning about the print media in England. We didn't have time to go into any store except Waterstones, which is awesome. It's like a Barnes and Noble but better. Print is still a widely used medium here, which is really cool. Our teacher encourages us to read the newspaper while we're here. We get the Telegraph and the Guardian here at the house. I like to try and keep up, but the papers are seriously 40 pages long and each page is totally filled with stories. I know the idea is not to read every single story; doing so would take hours! It's pretty much the same kind of stories, though: being obsessed with other peoples' lives.

We went to the V&A Museum for Culture by Design. We compared pre-World War I design and Post War design. It was a lot of Jay referencing movements and types of designs and me having no idea what he was talking about. The class is interesting, but he seems almost to be trying too hard.

After class, a group of us went to Chilango's, a Chipotle-type restaurant. We definitely have to go back, it was delicious! Then we went to a performance at the Peacock Theater called Tango Fire. It was basically just people dancing the Argentine Tango for 2 hours. They were great performers and I can respect their talent, but it went on for way too long. It felt cheesy, especially because they had a Spanish Frank Sinatra who kept coming out and making everything even more campy. The target audience was clearly mid-age women. Not us. I just didn't really get the relevancy of us going to see this performance. Oh well, to each their own; it just definitely wasn't my cup of tea.

Things I miss about America:
1. Tortilla chips and salsa (and Mexican food in general)
2. Martin's. I like the grocery stores  here, but I end up having to go to a couple to get all the gluten free/dairy free things I need
3. One sink faucet. Here there's one for hot and cold, which means I get either scalding or freezing water.
4. Understood walking patterns in the city. Everyone just WALKS, and it's really chaotic
5. Driving (sometimes)
6. Cell phone service
7. Nut butters besides peanut butter (which tastes weird here)
8. Lower prices
9. Knowing where I can and can't eat
10. Knowing how to measure things-I know the metric system is easy, but I'm not used to it!

Things I love about London:
1. Walking everywhere
2. Efficient public transportation
3. THE HISTORY
4. The millions of flavors of crisps (chips to Americans)
5. Awesome food and shopping markets
6. Gluten free sandwiches at Starbucks!
7. How well dressed everyone always is
8. PRIMARK.

A moment with the clotted cream

Sunday was afternoon tea day! Our food guide suggested Bea's of Bloomsbury as a good place for afternoon tea, so I decided to book a reservation there. SUCH a good idea. It was incredible.

Five of us went to the St. Paul's location for our reservation at 4:30. We found the place by following the directions and looking for the teapot lights in the window. It was a really cute place. It felt almost Alice in Wonderland-esque but modernized. Kara and I loved it because even though it was cute and girly, they played R&B songs from like 5 years ago. A strange but awesome contrast.

After seating us, the waitress took our tea orders. Per the suggestion of Kelsey, I got the blackcurrant and hibiscus. Definitely a good choice.

Shortly after our teapots arrived, the main attraction came: the food. Delicious doesn't even cover it. I know I should have looked for a gluten free tea to go to, but I wanted the full experience at least once. 

On the bottom tier were the "savoury" things: baguette sandwiches. I went for the pesto, mozzarella, and tomato sandwich. And ate about 3. The sandwiches were deifnitely my favorite part. Next were the scones and cupcakes. The scones were plain, so we slathered them with clotted cream and jam. For those of you who haven't had clotted cream (and I hadn't until now), it's like really thick whipped cream. So extremely delicious. We had chocolate peanut butter, passion fruit, raspberry, red velvet, chocolate coffee, and double chocolate cupcakes. It worked perfectly, because we each had one cupcake we didn't want to try, so we split each into four pieces. The red velvet was my fave. 

The top tier was the weakest link of the tea. There were these weird apricot puffed pastries, chocolate marshmallows, blondies, and brownies. The only ones I really liked were the brownies, and even then I was a bit underwhelmed. 

Drinking tea this way ^ is actually really bad etiquette. While drinking tea, you're supposed to look down at your tea, not above the rim. Also, putting your pinky out is bad form; it hasn't been done since the Romans in the 11th century. Things I looked up before going to tea!

We DEMOLISHED the food. We had originally planned on 6 of us going, so they prepared food for 6. We ate all of it between the 5 of us...oops. It was our dinner...and breakfast and lunch today. 

While it was delicious, I kind of regret it. I haven't been very good with keeping with my sensitivities diet, and it's catching up to me. When in Rome I suppose...I'm definitely going to try and find a gluten free tea to go to at the end of the semester!

Where the magic happens

But actually. On Friday, I got to see the actual places the Harry Potter films came alive. Be forewarned: my pictures in no way do it justice.

After a slightly stressful journey (we had never been to the particular station we had to take a train from, and it ended up leaving later than we had hoped), we finally made it to the Warner Brothers studio with 20 minutes to spare before our tour was supposed to start. We picked up our tickets and went inside and waited in a queue to get into the actual tour. They took our large group first into a room where we were told the layout of the tour, and then into a theater to watch a short film with Emma, Dan, and Rupert. As the film ends, the three of them walk through the Great Hall doors. The screen rises and reveals those same doors right in front of us!

The tour guide welcomed us and then ushered us into the Great Hall. As I found with most of the sets, it felt much smaller than I had imagined. Also, there was no enchanted ceiling. It's incredible what film editors can do.

The Great Hall was the end of the guided portion of our tour. From there, we could wander through the three sound stages at our leisure. They said the average amount of time spent there was 3 hours, but the longest was 7.5 hours! We ended up being there for 3 hours, for the record.

The first sound stage was maybe not the biggest, but definitely the most full and iconic. It had the sets of the boy's dormitory, the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore's office, the Burrow, Hagrid's hut, the potions classroom, the Ministry of Magic, with other props scattered around the room. I just couldn't believe that THIS was where everything came alive. It didn't feel real.

Dumbledore's Office

Boy's dormitory

Potions

Gryffindor common room

The Burrow

Umbridge's Ministry office

As I wandered through the sets, I loved reading all the background information. So much time and effort was put into making sure that these sets were perfect, down to every last detail. It was incredible to see things on the set that they didn't even show in the movies. They hand printed and painted all of the books and paintings. SO COOL!

After the first sound stage, there was an outside bit, where you could also purchase refreshments (aka BUTTERBEER). Real butterbeer is only sold in two locations: London and Harry Potter world in Florida. Now I've had it both places!!

Yum!

The Knight Bus (All destinations, except underwater!)

Breezeway at Hogwarts

#4 Privet Drive

The final part of the tour included the "creatures": goblins, werewolves, animals, Aragog, Buckbeak, etc. Then you could walk through Diagon Alley, which definitely felt small and cramped (but I suppose it's real!)

The last part of the tour was my favorite. In a large, dimly lit room was the scaled down model of Hogwarts used for sweeping shots of the castle. The castle was lit up and it was just beautiful. 

Before you went out to the gift shop, this was displayed on the wall: 

I'm obsessed with that quote from J.K. Harry Potter was my childhood, and it was so incredible to be able to experience where it came alive. There were so many young kids there, and we couldn't stop talking about how they don't really get it. Most of them probably didn't (or haven't yet!) read the books, they've only seen the movies. They haven't been able to experience the anticipation of another Harry Potter installment. While the movies and the books are done, I know I can always return to them for comfort. 

After we left the studio, we came home and napped. I went out with most of the girls (a lot of the building is out of town) to a really cool bar. It had a pub look, but there was a DJ playing really good music. I had a lot of fun, and it was really close to the house!