The Making of Harry Potter

First off: Croatia is amazing. We've been here for 5 days and I can't wait to share pictures.

But first there's a little bit of London business leftover that I want to get on here before too long. We may have left London on July 1, but seeing as we don't have anywhere else to call home just yet, I'm still going to write about London.

One of the last major items on our London List was the Warner Bros studio set tour of the Making of Harry Potter. We dropped several London sights off our priorities in June, but this was non-negotiable. We finally booked our tour on June 16 and we travelled to the studio in Leavesden in this super-touristy converted double-decker:

The studio could have gone only two ways: boring/lame and totally awesome. Unsurprisingly, it was the latter. Now, after ten months of me taking and posting LOTS of pictures of Joe with beers (that all look exactly the same even if they taste totally different), it was Joe's turn to take pictures of me being ridiculously excited about every new set and prop. As we entered the building, I even warned him: I might cry.

The cabinet under the stairs was only in the queue leading into the sets. No, the real tour starts BIG.

The doors to the Great Hall! I don't know what I expected, but I was shocked over and over by how HUGE the sets were and how REAL it all felt. Plus there were all kinds of details that I'd never noticed in the films, like the fact that every one of the torches in the Great Hall is in the form of one of the four house animals and every statue is different.

Two of the house tables were left set for a meal and there were costumes from each house around the room, including Cedric Diggory/Robert Pattinson's Triwizard Tournament uniform, Harry/Daniel Radcliffe's first Gryffindor Robes, and costumes for each of the teachers at the Head Table.

Beyond the Great Hall were several other sets including the boys' dormitory, Gryffindor common room, the kitchen of the Burrow, Hagrid's hut, the Potions dungeon/classroom, and Dumbledore's entire two-story office.

the underside of Harry's invisibility cloak made of green screen
so that it could be graphically enhanced in post production

the entrance to Dumbledore's office; the password is lemon drop

This area also included an abundance of props, including all of the horcruxes, dozens of wands, Molly Weasley's family clock, the doors to the Chamber of Secrets and a few Gringott's vaults, and many paper items. I was struck by the fact that Rita Skeeter's The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore is a real-life paperback book.

Beyond this area is an outdoor space between studios that includes some of the larger sets. The Night Bus, Hogwarts Bridge, and both Privet Drive and the Potter's house from Godric's Hollow are in this area. There is also a stand where you can buy Butter Beer, one of only two locations in the world.

The next section of the tour includes architecture, art, blueprints, and animatronics. The animatronic Buckbeak was moving the entire time.

The last section before the most amazing store I've ever been in was the model of Hogwarts used in wide shots of the school. It was magical.

This year has been fueled by Harry Potter all along. The paper I wrote that gained me entry to UCL was about the series. The Harry Potter conference I attended in Scotland in 2012 made me confident I could handle moving to the UK. Throughout our travels we have collected multi-lingual editions of the series as well as a special British edition. In Edinburgh, we visited the cafe where Rowling wrote much of the first books. It should come as a shock to no one that we were inclined to buy wands or that I proudly sport my Ravenclaw shirt (the House to which I was assigned by the Sorting Hat on Pottermore; Joe is a Gryffindor mostly because I say so).

Charlie and Bert joined the Order of the Phoenix! They also met their idol, Fawkes!

the Elder Wand

The details on the wands were one of our favorite parts of the tour. Every character's wand is totally different - unique in color, shape, design, and even weight. Even Fred and George Weasley, whose wands are sold as a set, have completely different designs. Molly Weasley's is very practical. Narcissa Malfoy's is highly decorative. Sometimes the design is reflective of the character, but sometimes it isn't. For someone like me who loves personalization and detail, this was just one more feature of the films for me to love.

I love this series and the movies that helped bring it to life, so being on the sets was somewhat surreal and overwhelming. Even Joe was impressed with the tour and the authenticity of everything we saw. I didn't cry, but I could have. A big Thank You to my colleagues at Diego Hills who gave us this gift for our wedding last year - it was an amazing day.

Just one more, for the road: