So much to blog about since the last time! I meant to do this sooner, but got busy writing papers for school and such… so sorry. I've decided that this blog will revolve entirely around my recent escapades into Harry's world, rather than writing separate blogs for both trips to Oxford and Ascot. We'll start in Oxford.
My friend Megan and I decided to go to Oxford with the sole purpose of visiting the Great Hall used in Harry Potter 1 and 2 (they recreated it in the studio for the rest of the films). So we hopped on the train in Grantham at 6:17, got to King's Cross, took the tube to London Paddington (which is actually the train station that Harry uses to go back to the Dursley's after shopping with Hagrid in the first book- it's not included in the movies, but I just finished re-reading the book, and it's there) and then hopped on another train to Oxford. When we got to Oxford, it was raining (what a surprise!) and we headed straight to the Great Hall at Christ Church College. When we got there, we found out the hall wasn't opened until 2:30 pm that day, so we had the whole morning to kill in Oxford. There is a TON of shopping in Oxford (like Primark- my new favorite store). After a long morning of shopping and walking (in and out of the rain, of course) we went back to the college.

The magic began when we entered the building. Leading up to the right was a great stone staircase. Yes, the stone staircase that the first years venture up to the sorting ceremony, and the stone staircase that Ron and Harry walk up after their encounter with the whomping willow in their 2nd year. Then, the doors at the top of the stairs led where? THE GREAT HALL! It was so fantastic to be in the Great Hall. I couldn't believe it! It was smaller than the movies make it look, but it was still pretty great. There were a lot of other tourists there (how dare they enter my Harry Potter site!!) but it was still a GREAT day of Harry Potter.

So then yesterday, I went to Ascot to visit Michelle, a girl who works for the same company as my cousin, Thatch. Michelle is very sweet and told me about how she stumbled upon a current Harry Potter filming site! I nearly died when she told me that! I mean, imagine the possibilities for a second… They were endless! Michelle was kind enough to invite me to come investigate with her, and drove me around and let me stay the night with them even! It was really nice to a) be away from the manor for a little while and b) to go LEGITIMATELY stalk the Harry Potter cast. So when I got there on Wednesday night we went to Number 4, Privet Drive, which is in a neighborhood close to where Michelle lives, and that was AWESOME. I stood in front of Harry's house! It was great! Then we went back to her house for a little while, and then went into Windsor for dinner. We saw Windsor castle (the home of the queen), ate dinner, and then went to the forest. We chose a path and walked up it for a little while, then realized that it wasn't getting us anywhere, and we had no idea where we were going, so we turned around and headed back to the car. When we got back to the car, a man was like, "You all haven't broken down, have you?" and we said, "No, but actually we're huge Harry Potter fans- do you know anything about what's going on here?" He proceeded to tell us about what they were doing, where they were doing it, and that they had also finished doing it (which was sad news for me). But he said that they had about 150 extras, and 2 minor characters, and that they were either running at each other, or the 2 minor characters were running away from the extras, through an archway surrounded by green screen. I'm thinking this has something to do with the battle at the end of the book. So, we went back to the forest on Thursday morning to see if we could find anything else, and took a path the man pointed us towards (which was in the complete opposite direction from the path we were on the night before). Judging from the map, we didn't think the site was very deep into the woods, and I felt like we could get there and back to the train station for my train out at 9:10. Well, we got to the forest at 8, and judging from the fact that we only reached the filming site at 9:00, I was going to miss my train. But anyway, I came over the top of a hill, and down the road from me were all kinds of trucks, bulldozers, and official looking people. So, I walked that way- I knew I had found it. When I got closer I kind of cut through the woods to see around this obnoxious green netting that was in the way, and when I got to a place where I could see, this man started walking towards me. I was like, "great. I'm going to get kicked out." Sure enough, he said, "Sorry, you can't come back here. There's bulldozers and it's dangerous." so I said, "Ok, well can I just hop up there for a second and take a picture?" And he said, "No, I'm afraid not." So I said, "ok, well then I'll just take one from here," and he said, "Sorry, I'm afraid I can't let you take any photographs" (All this time he's still walking towards me like he's going to do something to me if I don't leave- trying to be intimidating. What I thought in my mind was, "Dude, I don't think so. You clearly do not understand who you're talking to. I did not just walk through the woods for an hour to finally find this place just for you to tell me I can't take any pictures." What I said was, "Ok, thanks," then I turned around and walked away. I walked back up the path a little bit until he had stopped watching me, and then I darted off into the woods. Under the cover of how thick those trees were, NO ONE could see me. So, I followed along in the trees until I got to basically right above where I wanted to be. I had to stay hidden in the trees, for fear that guy would see me and then actually like, call the police or something ridiculous like that, but I did get some pictures. Then, I left. I missed my train, but it was worth it.