Vacation in Great Britain: part 3

 
The third/last full day in London, we started with going to the national portrait museum, to look at paintings and pictures to get inspired for future photographic school assignments that we might get. It was really lovely! Everything from huge paintings of victorian kings and queens in their most bejeweld attire, to the simplest little sketches, and modernistic photography of all the most famous people up through history... Personally, I was really fascianted by all  the details in the art, and wound up looking at the "wrong" things (folds, shadows and such, since I am into drawing myself) instead of the things I could have adapted into a photograph (positioning of the model, light, style of clothing etc.) hehe... all my reference pictures are detail pictures = V="""

Since the gallery was coincidentally situated in Leichester Square, we were quite close to China Town, which was really great, since my group had planned to go there afterwards. The first thing we did after finishing up our tour at the gallery, was to go look for a close-by Ben & Jerrys´ that we had found during some searching on google earlier. We don´t particularily have that kind of thing in my country (or atleast not in the smaller cities and towns) so it was definitely a goal to find one!

... I guess the picture can state our search was successfull x) hehe

I ordered a sundae with three icecream-scoops (cookie-dough, s´mores and baked alaska) and it was topped with whipped cream, white chocolate, milk chocolate and nut bits and a drizzle of chocolate sauce to finish it off ;v; yay <3 de–e–licious!

Later, we looked around china town. We found loads of little cute shops with kawaii things in them. I finally got myself a new wallet! (My melody themed) and resisted buying the totally overpriced arpakassos they had there >v< (I have still got to get my first one ;^;  own none still!)

I tried out bubble-tea for the first time! I tried matcha milk tea with "tapioca" bubbles
(correct me if I misspelled it >.<). It was rather strange, but tasty ^^ I wasn´t able to finish it though...

Later we went back to oxford street, to do some last "cramp" shopping. I got a cute red tartan skirt from H&M (something I have been searching for for ages!), and the others got themselfes some new clothings as well. We wound up at Pizza Hut where we split a pizza between the three of us, and in the end we wound up so late that had to run our feet sore to get to our next appointed meeting place, to meet up with the rest of our class and teacher: the trainstation with the train that was going to take us to the Harry Potter Warner Bros studios tour! We were so afraid we were gonna miss the train, and essentially we were acctually 5 to 10 min too late to go, but we made it just in time anyway!

My, oh my, that was quite an adventure @_@ I was mindblown! It was so amazingly cool!
I don´t consider myself a very, very hardcore fan of the Harry Potter series. Sure I have those periods of time when I have a crazy Harry Potter period of my life, where I just have to read all the books again, watch the movies and play the games (usually during summer vacation it seems XD hehe) but generally it´s more one of those things that I am a fan of, but its not apparant at all times!
But there, and then... I felt like a little kid again x3 yaay <3

Imagine, actual REAL sets, props, outfits and gear worn and used in the movies... for display!??

(we were allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted, but my phone who is stupid and old, died on me,
so I got very few of them >.<)

 It felt really surreal. We saw everything from the great hall, the Gryffindor common-room, Dumbledoors office, Hagrids hut... I rode a broom and the flying car, got to see how they did loads of their special effects and even got to meet loads of the animal actors (several generations down) that was used in the movies! ^^ In the outdoor area they had butterbeer that tasted like soda with caramel and whipped cream on top xDD a classmate bought some, so I got to taste a mouthfull... really weird ( didn´t really like it...). And I got to take a picture of and with Hedwig ;v; <3 the real Hedwig!

 Later we saw the workshops with the different models, special creatures and masks and loads more information. Statues of centaurs, trolls and gnomes, and close up details of mermaids and loads of other things you never get to see in the actual movies! Just before we came out, we got to walk through the Diagon Ally (it was so lovely peeking into all the windows ;v;) and the whole tour ended with a huuuge 10 meter tall model (atleast!) of Hogwarts, with every little detail put in, like the boat-house, the whomping willow, the quidditch fields and everything! *v*

(here is also the ticket I got at the shop at Kings Cross!)

Needless to say, I had to get a couple of chocolate frogs (only one pictured here) and a copy of the Quibbler (with glasses!) from the souvernir shop before we left x3

Just to quickly mention the next day, since nothing special happend...

I felt rather sick this day, so we just took it slow...

 we went and looked at Big Ben and the London eye (though we didn´t take the tour)
and basically we (me, my classmates and teacher) parted around 1 or 2 pm. 

I headed to Heathrow on my own, and the others went to Gatwick (kinda scary, but I met everyone was so helpful and kind, it was no problem really...), and soon enough I found myself on the plane to Edinburgh. Nothing much happend on the first day. I got settled with all my suitcase in my sisters apartment, and otherwise just looked around some shops, if I remember correctly ^^ I was to excited about the following adventures to focus xD

As you might know, I took the opportunity to visit my friend Ruth (Princess-Peachie) while I was in Edinburgh, so the next entry will be about our first (out of three!) meetup! ^0^<3You see, we had planned to meet up the very next day after my arrival! I hope you look forward to it as much as I do writing about it ;V; I promise there will be better pictures >.< ehm...

Do you think its scary to travel alone??

Until next time! ^^