Author Archives: Rick Attig

Another wizard takes to the skies

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Deep thoughts on the Harry Potter Experience

By Will

LONDON—Today we went to the Harry Potter movie studios. We got up and I ate a doughnut. After breakfast, we walked to the bus stop and stood in line for the “Harry Potter Bus.” It took about an hour to get to the Warner Bros. studios site, a former WWII airplane manufacturing site, because it is way outside of London where we are staying. When we got off the bus, we saw big statues of wizard chess pieces and we walked through the big doors inside an enormous warehouse-like building that had been the set for the movie and where the young actors spent most of 10 years.

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We waited in line for a while before going into a big movie theater, where we watched a short movie about the production of the seven books leading to eight movies. Once the movie had finished, the movie screen floated through the ceiling and we were led through a giant set of double doors leading to the Hogwarts Great Hall! It was really neat because we got to see some of the costumes that the Hogwarts teachers wore; it looked exactly like in the movie, except there was no enchanted ceiling — that was added later. After we were finished gazing at the costumes in the Great Hall, we walked into another big room that was about the size of a convention center. There we saw the sets for the Gryfinndor common, Dumbledore’s office, and numerous props and costumes. The coolest props were the animatronic ones, like the pewter cauldrons that stirred themselves.

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I got to fly with my mom in a magic car in front of a green screen, which made it look like we were actually flying over the Hogwarts Express. And I also put on a wizard robe and flew through the skies on a broomstick. See the video above, and make sure you watch until you see me!!!

We stopped on the “back lot” for a glass of butter beer, which was cream soda topped with cream to leave a smudge on your upper lip. We saw the Knight Bus and No. 4 Privet Drive and part of the Hogwarts Bridge.

Next, we went into a different big room where we saw most of the creatures that were in the movie. We saw Dobby the house elf, a troll, many goblins, Fawks the phoenix, Buckbeak the hippogriff, and a dragon head. It was pretty neat. We also ran into someone from Catlin Gabel!!!

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The next room had blueprints and drawings of the original characters and monsters. The final room was pretty neat. It was the real castle of Hogwarts. It was really small and kinda disappointing (I thought that it was a real castle) but awesome anyways. After that we toured the impressive gift shop before I dropped a bunch of my chili from my chili dog onto my clean pants, and my mom was mad. At the end of the day, we hopped back on our bus and went home where we ate dinner in our hotel room.

* His mother, who is doing laundry as we speak: What Will really meant to say, was that he has been obsessively reading and re-reading all the Harry Potter books for weeks in preparation, and he really loved the day, though it was sweet and sad to his mother that some of the magic of the movies didn’t seem quite as magical to him when the illusory tricks were revealed. He loves to believe in the magic of the movies. But it was a little like realizing the Candy Fairy who takes away uneaten Halloween Candy and leaves a toy in its place is really me. “Hey no it’s not,” he’s shouting now. “There’s a real Candy Fairy.”

Everything’s Better With Scones and Clotted Cream

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LONDON — Okay, let’s try this again: We arrived in London about noon local time after a nine-hour flight from Seattle. The flight was as good as a long, transcontinental trip can be, smooth and on time, with no drama on board. We had three seats in a row in the middle of the plane and somewhere over the ice cap Will chose to fall asleep across our laps, just as he did as a toddler. Here’s the difference: He’s now 5 foot 8, and Courtenay got his head while I handled size 11 feet for upwards of five hours.

A very friendly Italian driver picked up us at Heathrow and drove us the forty-five minutes or so into the city. It was a beautiful afternoon in London, sunny and all blue sky, and people were out in force picnicking, playing and running in Hyde, St. James and Green parks.

Bit of a snafu at our hotel, The Athenaenum, where the staff told us that are room wasn’t quite ready and suggested we take a walk and come back in twenty minutes. We did that, the room still wasn’t ready, and we took up their offer of free tea or other drinks while we waited. Ten or fifteen more minutes, they said. An hour later, we were still waiting, and waiting. Will and I took another short walk. Still no room. Finally, Courtenay approached the hotel staff yet again and yes, the room was now ready. It’s a beautiful apartment, worth the wait, I guess, with a pullout bed in the living room for Will. They, too, underestimated the length and shoe size of our 12-year-old: The robe they left for him hit him about mid-thigh, and the tiny slippers were hopeless.

We had to hustle out of the room because we had a 4:15 p.m. reservation for afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason, a department store with a restaurant on its top floor. It was our first tea experience, which featured an amazing tier of sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jams, and cookies and other treats. It was fabulous. We ate until we all pretty much faded into our seats.

After that, we walked through Piccadilly Circus, which is London’s neon-lit cousin in sleaze to New York’s Time Square, then strolled Regent Street, one of London’s major shopping thoroughfares, passed a half dozen popular pubs with scores of people standing and drinking outside and wound up cutting through Shepherd’s Market, a narrow alleyway of hip restaurants and bars, on our way back to our room.

We’re running on cakes and scones and no sleep right now, and fading fast.

More tomorrow. Hope all’s well back home.