May 8, "No story lives unless someone wants to listen." - JKR

Oh what a day this was! It started very early, needing to take 3 trains and one bus to get to Warner Brother's Studio for the tour of Harry Potter, not knowing how long it would take to get to our 10am tour. Prior to the trip, we booked this time for the tour without realizing that the studio wasn't even located within London. We had to take the tube to Euston Station, then take a separate train up north to Watford Junction. Luckily we were traveling as a group of four which gave us a HUGE discount off our train tickets! All went well as our express train took only 20 minutes to get to Watford Junction, where we were to await our double decker bus that would take us to the studio. I don't even know how to express the immense joy and excitement we were all feeling. The whole experience was just, speechless. Completely speechless. From seeing the Great Hall, to the dormitory, to the Burrow, to the Ministry of Magic, to Diagon Alley, to Privet Drive, to the Knight Bus, to all the props, and to seeing the actual Hogwarts Castle that was filmed in the movies. It was absolutely stunning! The castle literally took my breath away as my first glimpse of it had me bent over, clutching my knees. Wow, I'm a total geek for Harry Potter. After the tour, we spent a bit of time at the souvenir shop and bought a few souvenirs. Overall, an experience I will never forget. Also pretty awesome that we were some of the first to see it all; it only opened to the public on March 31!

Once we got back to London, we had a super late lunch. Initially, we were trying to find a place that served all-day english breakfast, but we have a convenient habit of not being able to find things when we need to the most. We ended up settling for a very cute and vintage english restaurant by Westminster. We at on the second floor where the food made its way up through a food elevator. The food was great (scampi); but the service, not so much. The one waitress was a foreigner who couldn't get people's order right, and the other clearly had no clue what she was doing, walking around with drinks, having no idea who they'd belonged to. At least it was entertaining to watch. I think the most memorable thing about that restaurant was its bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. The cute, old fashion styled bathroom with having to pull on a chain to flush the toilet. It was so cool! What can I say - I enjoy the simple things in life.

After being energized with food, our bellies all filled, we went on a river cruise along the Thames. We learned many interesting facts about London that day. For example, the Waterloo bridge was the only one built on time, within budget, is self-cleaning, and was the only bridge built on the Thames by women. Also, that the Millenium bridge heavily swayed the first day that it opened, causing it to break completely. The creator blamed it on the English for having a funny strut in the way they walk. After the cruise, we hopped onto the London Eye, which was breath taking. The view was gorgeous and we were so lucky to have chosen such a beautiful and sunny day to go. I'll never forget how Madusha and I were reunited with Brampton in our capsule.

The next stop was to visit Royal Albert Hall to reenact the Spice Girls' run from Spice World. We got off at South Kensington Station where there were signs that directed us to the venue. Little did we know, the venue was about a 15 minute walk away. We walked through a tunnel that we thought would never end. I will never complain about switching lines on Spadina again. But we did get there eventually. We did the run, took photos, and just hung out for a bit by the staircase between Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Academy of Music. We wanted to visit Kensington and Hyde park but it was already getting quite dark. I'll just have to visit them on my next trip to London ;)

Ps. I've learned that my English accent is terrible.