The Amazing World of Harry Potter

WONDERFUL WIZARDRY: In a continuing effort to recount our Epic Adventure to New York and London, let's talk about our first afternoon in the British Empire.

We'd caught a red eye from JFK International to London, hoping to sleep on the plane and be raring to go once we touched down at Heathrow around 9:30 a.m. their time. There was just one problem ... there was a horrific thunderstorm in NY the night we left, and flights got delayed ... and then more delayed. ... We spent eight hours at the airport and didn't leave until about midnight, more than four hours late. NOT good.

We had already purchased our Warner Bros. Studio Tour tickets for Friday afternoon, with plenty (three hours') time to spare. It wasn't enough.

Oh well. I decided not to worry about it a bit, because it was completely out of our control. We'd land when we landed, get our rental car, and strike out for the attraction northwest of London, hoping they would take mercy on our bedraggled group, which had traveled 5,000-ish miles from home to their attraction.

We got our rental car, and proceeded to get pretty damn lost coming out of Heathrow (it's HUGE!!!).  Our phone don't work over there, so we had no GPS, no way to call for directions, and we didn't yet have a map of anything beyond the airport giveaway of touristy spots in central London.

However, eventually we found our way, and the lovely parking attendants laughed good naturedly at us as we drove into their lot on the wrong side of the road. ;)

"Not from around here, are you?" one asked as we rolled down the window. LOL!

I've not read a single Harry Potter book, nor have I watched any of the movies. However, I was entirely blown away by the visual feast we were treated to on the tour.  Here's a link to a set I created on Flickr from our visit. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I did caption them, so if you click through to the Flickr link, and then click on the first photo in the set, you should be able to click through the photos and read the captions. http://www.flickr.com/photos/9430651@N03/sets/72157635768956515/

I had CJ and Annabelle write a brief reviews of the tour today. Here's CJ's. ...

My Harry Potter experience at Warner Bros. Studios London was great! I was amazed at how well the props were preserved and how much work they put into the place! Anyway, The tour featured a theater at the beginning where you would see a short presentation on making some of the films in the series and how it was their "school" while they were filming.
In the studio, you could see many props from the films, such as Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, models of the characters, a giant working clock, and many more. (Plus, there were chess pieces outside!) Not only that, but you got to see some of the costumes the characters were wearing.

Midway through, there was a rest area where you could Literally drink the iconic Butterbeer, and keep the cup it is served in. At one point, there was a video station where you could record videos of yourself riding in a bewitched car of riding on a broomstick from London to Hogwarts.

Probably the most amazing part of the tour was a giant model of Hogwarts near the end of the tour. the model took up almost the entire room and was extremely detailed. Also, near the end was a crafting station where you could make a origami paper house.

All in all, I think the Harry Potter exhibit at Warner Bros. Studios London was a large highlight of our vacation.

And here's Annabelle's ...

In England we went to The Harry Potter tour in the Warner Brothers studios. The stuff we saw there was amazing! We saw an animatronic hippogriff (Buckbeak), a "potent potion" that changed color, The Knight Bus, and much more! My favorite parts were riding on a green-screen broomstick and drinking actual Butterbeer (butterscotch soda)! We also stopped at King's Cross to visit platform 9 3/4! We got to pose as if we were going through the divider (between platforms 9 and 10) or casting a spell! (on a Slytherin, of course).

Overall I think it was an amazing experience!

Part of the tour included some green screen magic.  The kids each posed for photos on a broom ...

And there was also some 'flying' involved. After you wade through the first two minutes of these videos, you'll get to the parts where CJ and Annabelle take to the skies!

Here's Bee's broomstick tour ... 

And CJ's ...

After the Warner Bros. Tour, we made our way to our hotel and slept HARD for about 12 hours!

We were actually in London twice on the trip, and during our second stint in town, we were on the Tube riding the Piccadilly line when CJ rather urgently brought something to our attention. He'd been reading the  route map we were on, and noticed one of the stops was King's Cross. That's where the famed Platform 9 3/4 was located.  In the Harry Potter series, Tube platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross was where students would board the Hogwarts Express, the train to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Of course, we simply had to go. 

We found the platform with little trouble, and the kids waited in line to have their chance to pretend they were heading off to wizard school!  They were allowed to select their preferred house. Annabelle associates with Hufflepuff, and wore the appropriate scarf. 

 CJ was Gryffindor, Harry Potter's house.

And before leaving, they each got a chance to cast a spell on a nasty Slytherin. CJ chose a behind the back shot, because at the Warner Bros. Tour, during wand training, he was taught that was the most deadly. The crowd and staff got a kick out of his technique.

Annabelle went for a more classic attack. ;)

MATH MATTERS: I was up pretty darn early this a.m., and one of the things that propelled me vertical was my desire to finish my class. Happily, I knocked out several lectures and assignments and finished it! Talk about time well spent! Math is so important and, unfortunately, it has such a bad rep with students, mostly because of the way it's taught. It's time for a math revolution! 

I'm definitely going to follow up with a number of the things I learned from the class, including integrating math puzzles into our learning, and less bo-ring textbook/workbook-y stuff. One of the resources Prof. Jo Boaler pointed us to is a new Web site called YouCubed: http://www.youcubed.org/, which declares itself "The new movement to revolutionize math teaching and learning" on its main Web page.  YouCubed is f
"free and affordable K-12 mathematics resources and professional development for educators and parents."
We'll definitely keep it on 'speed dial,' to use an antiquated phrase at this point.

Speaking of math, I stumbled across some NASA math exercises today.  There's even a "Space Math" Web site: http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/. And here's a link to some challenges (a PDF): http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/YOSS/YOSS.pdf

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR: A Soyuz launching tomorrow (Wed., Sept. 25)!

Expedition 37 will be rocketing toward the stars at 1:58 p.m. Pacific Coast time that's 2:58 a.m. time at the liftoff site, the Baikonur Cosomodrome.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi


The trio on board will be Michael Hopkins of NASA, and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). They'll be ISS residents for the next 5.5 months. NASA TV coverage for the launch begins at 1 p.m. Watch it here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html 

Playing Catch Up

HIT THE GROUND RUNNING:  It's going to take me awhile to catch up with words and photos of all of the adventures we had in NY and England, so I'll plug at it bit by bit as the days go by.  In the meantime, the meantime still happens!

We got home to Seattle last Thursday evening. By the time I went to bed at 11 p.m., I had been up over 26 hours straight. The kids made it to about the 24 mark, intrepid travelers that they are.

Friday morning, we were still tired, but had enough oomph to attempt the Washington State Fair, an annual outing for us. We did the fair 'lite' - only hitting the midway and a couple of bird barns. 

The weather was agreeable, and the kids had a blast on (most of) the rides.

They went hang gliding ...

and sliding ...

and swinging ... (CJ's in yellow, Annabelle has a white shirt and a ponytail and Christian is in a print shirt).

 

They did some spinning ...

and there was even some upside down action (I was so glad CJ wore a yellow shirt - it made it easy to pick him/them out).

And, of course, they did some Scrambling ... 

and some 'coasting.

We managed to avoid buying any fair food, though this booth was tempting ... (just kidding!) 

BYE BYE, BIG APPLE: Our last day in New York, we were catching a red eye flight around 9 p.m. from JFK International Airport to Heathrow.   We had to check out of our apartment at 11 a.m., and wanted to be to the airport by 6 p.m., so that left us with several hours to kill - with all of our luggage in tow.

We decided one way to bide the time would be to take a (free!) ferry ride from Manhattan to Staten Island, aboard the Staten Island Ferry. So, we made our way via subway on the Number 1 line down to the South Ferry station, and from there, the ferry terminal was a short, just a block or so.  We caught a 12:30 ferry over to Staten Island.

This was the view from where the ferry was docked, on its south side. 

That's the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.  (One of our wished during the trip was to walk across that bridge, but it just didn't happen. The weather and our time constraints worked against us.)

Not long after leaving port, we noticed a sandstone fort on Governors Island.

Castle Williams, on the left in this photo, is a circular fortification of red sandstone. It's on the northwest point of Governors Island, and was one in a system of forts designed and constructed in the early 19th century to protect New York City from naval attack.

It was built between 1807 and 1811, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Jonathan Williams.  Williams was the Chief Engineer of the Corps of Engineers and first Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Here's William's signature. Pretty fancy. It makes me want to practice our penmanship!

During the Civil War, Castle Williams was used to house new recruits for the Union Army, and it served as a barracks for the garrison's troops, as well as a prison for Confederate enlisted men and Union Army deserters.
This photo of it (by a Matthew Brady), taken during the Civil War, is from the National Park Service Web site. 

Castle Williams is 40 feet high and 210 feet in diameter. It was constructed of sandstone walls which are 7 to 8 feet thick. It has four levels, each with 13 casements that could hold 26 cannons apiece. 

Here's a land side view of the castle a photographer was kind enough to share on Wikipedia. 

Also on the ride, we could see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a double-decked suspension bridge connecting the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn at the Narrows, in the far off distance.

The bridge is named after Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who was the first European to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River, and for the Narrows, the body of water it spans.

It's  central span stretches 4,260 feet (1,298 m), and when it was completed in 1964, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. (That record was broken by the UK's Humber Bridge in 1981). Today, it's the 10th longest main span in the world, but still the longest in the Americas. 

The ferry ride also afforded us one last look at Lady Liberty.  Here she was, in the distance on the way to Staten Island.

And here she is on the way back, on the 1:30 ferry  I purposely did not try to enhance the color or otherwise 'improve' this photo, leaving it so that it reflected the actual smothering gray tones of the day.  The air was so hazy, my auto focus couldn't cut through the fog. 

Here's another shot of Lady Liberty, with another Staten Island Ferry crossing our path.

We also caught a final glimpse of One World Trade Center, doing its best to be gleaming on a gloomy day.

ELECTRA-FYING: On Saturday, we headed down to The Museum of Flight. Before we left, I had noted that the Museum would have its long-awaited fly-in of its newest acquisition, a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, on Sept. 20. 

I was happy were were back in town to see the spectacle. What a beauty she is!



The immaculately restored Electra is the same type of aircraft that Amelia Earhart piloted on her final flight.

This plane, NC-14900, was built for Northwest Airlines and began passenger service in 1935. It served in WWII and then went back to flying passengers for years. In 1996, it was restored to replicate Amelia Earhart's Electra. The plane flew round the world in 1997, with pilot Linda Finch reenacting Earhart's flight. Today there is only one other genuine Lockheed Electra Model 10-E in existence.
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And here's a 360-of the cockpit!
https://s3.amazonaws.com/MOF/Electra10E/Electra10E-Cockpit360-MOF.html

The Long Way Home

WEARY TRAVELERS:  Our morning on Thursday started at 6:30 London time. When I turned in for the night in Seattle later that 'day,' I'd been up for 25.5 hours. 

We got to Heathrow with plenty of time to spare, but first, we had to return the rental car. We were NOT looking forward to going to Enterprise and dealing with the repercussions of the motor home hitting us at Old Sarum. However, checking in was a breeze. A nice Englishman inspected our car, and  - get this - he didn't even notice any damage - until he punched the rental numbers and his eyes widened and he saw the flag on the account and asked if we'd been in an accident. Yeah, getting hit by a motor home definitely counts as an accident. 

Truth be told, it kind of burned our butts, because if we weren't the honest types, we apparently could have turned the car in with nary a catch. Instead, our 'reward' for being honest was that even before seeing the car, Enterprise charged Christian's debit card for 700 pounds (that's $1,100 US). That is just such complete BS, given that we were 110 percent not at fault for the accident. Enterprise has not heard the last of us. ...

I do have to say for the record that the Vauxhall Corsa we were driving was a tough little car.  The driver's side mirror managed to absorb being struck and then dragged by a motorhome without caving in!

Our London outbound plane boarded on time, but as we sat there and waited and waited to take off, finally, a voice came on the intercom and said we were waiting for TWELVE late passengers. 

That did not sit well with us, as we had 50 minutes to make a connection in Amsterdam.  We finally left the gate about 30 minutes late, and were thinking we had the 'luxury' of 20 minutes to make a connecting flight. WRONG.

As we started our descent to Amsterdam, the first officer came onto the PA and informed us that anyone with a connecting flight before 14:55 (2:55 pm for us yanks) would NOT make their connections, as Amsterdam gates close 15 minutes prior to take off time. Our flight was scheduled for departure at 14:55.

As we descended, we readied ourselves to spring to the front of the plane ASAP and hit the ground running, and we did just that.  We had FIVE minutes to run 26 gates and one concourse away.

You know those crazy people you see in the airports, wild eyed, red faced and on a dead run? We were those people in Amsterdam. 

When our gate was finally in sight, we could see it was empty and they were breaking it down. However, huffing and puffing, we made it just in the nick of time. Once we arrived we found out why they shut down gates 15 minutes prior to take off - it's because they have a full fledged TSA-type search right at the gate. So we had to pull out all electronics, get the full body scan, be patted down (I apologized for us all being so sweaty!) and so on. 

Once on the plane, we had the pleasure of sitting on board for the next 11 hours. Good times. 

As we taxied out of Heathrow, we passed this green monster at a Virgin facility.

I had no idea what to make of it, but suspected if I hit 'the Google,' I would be able to find out.  Sure 'nuff it turns out to be an airport firefighter training plane.

Somewhere over the frozen tundra in the Arctic Circle, a woman went down and out at the bathrooms. First time I've been on a flight where the steward staff has taken to the PA to ask for any passengers with medical training to render aid. 

She was down for a loooong time, and they even busted out the defibrillator pack. We were just certain we'd be making an emergency landing in Toronto or somewhere. The land we were over didn't look too hospitable. .. 

However, fortunately the patient must have sufficiently rallied, because we didn't stop early or unexpectedly. We made it all the way to Washington state, where we could see lovely views like this lake in a mountain in the Cascade Range.

I have hundreds of photos to process from our adventure, and will be dribbling them out over the next few days,. so stay tuned!

Jolly Olde England

CHECKING IN: Sorry for the radio silence. Our transition from NY to London was loooong and taxing.  Our flight was delayed by hours and hours, and when we got to England we were dead tired, and have had sketchy, at best, Internet connections.

I have about 500 photos of our British travels so far, I think, but the slow bandwidth here is not letting me post them to the blog. They'll have to wait. In the meantime, here's a quick rundown.

To date we have visited the Warner Brothers' Harry Potter exhibit northwest of London (it was AMAZING, and I've not even read a single book in the series).  I have some great photos of our experience, and even some video of CJ and Annabelle flying on a quidditch broom!

We went to see Roger Waters on Saturday night at Wembley Stadium. So many stories to tell about that day/night, but the short version was the concert was aMaZiNg.

The next day we drove to Salisbury, and visited nearby Stonehenge.  That was fantastic, of course.

We also visited Roman-era Old Sarum - twice. The first time we didn't quite make it in as a motorhome ran into us and us off the road. 

 We went back to the attraction and enjoyed a wind-whipped (as in 50 MPH gusts), quick tour.

The next morning, our first stop was the jaw-dropping Salisbury Cathedral.

I have lots more photos to share; the above and below are just a start.


After that, we drove down to the Isle of Wight, which is off the southern coast (a ferry was involved, of course), and we checked out the absolutely astounding Carisbrooke Castle.

This morning (Tuesday), we left the Isle of Wight, headed back to London. Today, we stopped by Buckingham Palace and its famed guards, saw Big Ben in the distance, and rode the tube for the first time!

Tomorrow, its the science museum and more.