Sunday, November 29, 2009

London Bridge is falling down... but I never saw it.

In 2005, I left a piece of my heart in London, so this past weekend I went to go get it back! =)

Who went? Me, Sam, Mathea, Gabi and Lily. (The 3 girls are our wonderful and adorable french friends)

When did we go? Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, got home Sunday morning.

Where did we stay? Hottananny's Hostel.. haha. This hostel had some crazy Rasta party to welcome us at 12:30AM friday morning and continued to keep up this reputation every night. Louie, our 23 year old French British "man in charge," was legit. We shared a room with a Polish family and their 27 year old son tried so hard to hit on me Mathea and Gabi.. haha eww..

What did our trip consist of? Well, Friday Sam and I went to Oxford because he had an interview with Dr. Parkin aka: really legit "man in charge" who is going ot admit Sam into Oxford for Grad school.. also, I wanted to see the real Hogwarts.. Many of you may be thinking, WHAT?! The Real Hogwarts!?! Yes, its true. Many scenes in Harry Potter were filmed at Oxford.
The dining hall was used in the first film, but due to the director's misunderstanding that students eat 3 times a day in the hall, they had to build their own set, but it was still modeled after this dining hall!! =) Also, Lewis Carrol, writer of Alice in Wonderland, attended this school and some of the scenes he wrote were also indspired by things at Oxford, aka: I saw the gold Queen's heads on top on poles in the fireplace (in the dining room).


Also, this large courtyard was used for some outside scenes on the Hogwarts school campus. Other scenes were filmed here too, but I don't have pictures of them (ie: the wall with writing that the Chamber of Secrets has been open, etc..)

Saturday, Sam and I attempted to go to Stonehenge, =( but it didn't happen. As you all know, my money situation is not the greatest, so a 50 pound train ticket was no agreeable with me. Instead we went to the AWESOME free museums =) The National Gallery and the British Museum.
I saw for the second time =) one of my fav. paintings.

Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait.. also Bronzino's An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. =) At the British Museum we saw the oh-so-controversial and very famous Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, along with the Rosetta Stone which is the only artifact that has ever helped us crack Heiroglyphics.

Apart from our museum trips, we hung out with the other 3 girls and went to Camden Town. Camden Town has this awesome cheap market with so many awesome clothes, shoes, accesories, you name it.. I LOVED it naturally, however, it made me depressed because I couldn't buy anything. boo =(


I think that it is very necessary to add pictures from out TUBE trips. =) Enjoy the following:





AKA: Everything I saw in the TUBE that got me really excited. ;)

I also rode a Double Decker red bus at 5AM... I felt like I was on the Knight Bus in the Prisonser of Azkaban .. ;)

And p.s.. France has style.. classy style.. but LONDON knows where the FASHION is at, let me just tell ya. geesh.

2 comments:

  1. If you're interested, Bronzino's Allegory is the subject of my historical novel "Cupid and the Silent Goddess", which imagines how the painting might have been created in Florence in 1544-5.

    See:
    http://www.twentyfirstcenturypublishers.com/index.asp?PageID=496

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  2. OMG PLATFORM 9 3/4??!!! AWESOME!!!!

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