On Friday my friend Olivia and I walked to little Venice, which is a little area of London with canals. We had coffee at a cafe that was on a boat and it was so cute. I love my friends across the pond so much. Olivia is the nicest and easiest person to talk to and I'm so glad that I have a friend like her!
On Saturday, my friend and I took a day trip to Cambridge! It was a lot like our trip to Oxford, but the weather was much nicer! Cambridge is basically a historic university town in England. We left from Kings Cross, and we actually left from the area where they filmed the lasts scene in Deathly Hallows and I was literally about to cry in the Pret a Manger over the golden trio.
We basically just spent the day walking around. Cambridge is one of those places where it's just a fun place to walk around! We got off the train and went to tea at a Tea Shop and it was so cute. After that we walked around trying to find the river. Fun fact: The river in Cambridge is called the River Cam, and then there is a bridge on the river...hence the name ...cam..bridge...anyways I was like .....y'all really couldn't have come up with a more creative name than that....
But after we walked along the canals, we tried to find this art museum but just deadass couldn't find it. so we just walked around some more and had some gelato, as one does on a cold English February day.
After our day wandering around cambridge, we arrived back in London at around 5:45 and took the tube up to Camden Market. We went to the mac factory...and let me tell you, it was the best thing I have ever had in my entire life. I was shaking.
lOOK AT HER !!!!!!!1
The first week I arrived in London, I was walking by the British Library and saw a sign for a Harry Potter exhibit, as soon as I got home I looked online and saw that it was basically sold out except for one day in February at 11am, so of course, I bought my ticket! I had kinda forgotten about it until the day came and I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I am SO glad that I went! Basically, it was all the inspiration behind Harry Potter's magical world. It had original sketches that J.K. Rowling had drawn of the characters when she first got the idea, the scratch paper that she wrote the idea of Harry Potter down on the train, and it also had the first draft of Chapter 14 of the Half-Blood Prince aka My favourite chapter in the entire series.
I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit, but I found pictures of some of the things I saw, online! It was so cool to see these things in person and see how small pieces of skratch paper became creative ideas, which then became one of the most loved stories of all time.
Here is J.k. Rowlings sketch of the Weasleys.
This was a sketch of Professor Sprout.
This was a sketch that J.k. rowling drew when she first got the idea in the early 90s. she drew out a sketch of all the characters and how she imagined them in her mind.
This was a diagram that showed how Diagon alley opened up from the Leaky Cauldron!
One of the coolest things to see was how detailed J.k. Rowling planned everything. I remember seeing an interview with her and she said she thought it was important to know everything about the characters and the wizarding world, even if it didn't make it into the books, it would still be known by the author. Seeing some of her notes you could really see that. She had lists of everyone in Harry's year, their blood status, house, etc. It was so cool because I had never heard of these characters but she planned everything so thoroughly. Also, she planned the entire storyline before the first book was even published. My favourite part of her notes was a timeline of Order of The Phoenix, a note J.K. Rowling made was "Cho and Harry- back on their ish"
There was also a diagram of Hogwarts taht I thought was very interesting.
And here is the original proposal that J.K. Rowling sent to publishers to pitch her idea.
And lastly, Europe was basically hit with a frozen wave ( I was going to make a frozen joke but then remembered it was the year 2018). But basically, there is snow everywhere. It never snows in London, and when it does, it doesn't usually stick. It has been interesting to see how people react to this. They don't have any snow ploughs or salt for the streets and sidewalks so basically, everything shut down for a little bit. It was also funny to see Londoners get so excited over an inch of snow because they have never really seen snow like this before. Anyways it is also snowing in Italy and so I'm sitting here praying that it all clears up before I make my way down there tomorrow!
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