Where is Iris now?

I have been to London a few times already (I even visited London during the Harry Potter Holiday "Harry's Magical England" which is, indeed, as awesome as it sounds), but I had never been to the Harry Potter studios before! Can you believe it? The main reason for this is that you have to pre order your tickets online and I had never had the foresight to do this (I didn’t know this amazing place existed!) and/or I didn’t have a laptop with me, so no chance of getting tickets while I was in London, admiring the billboards…

But, now, finally I had the foresight and I made the book club come along with me! We arrived via Watford Junction and the Harry Potter bus (*screaming internally!!*) and were soon inside the premise. Tips from other Harry-Potter-fan-friends included the fact that I had to get the children’s passport at the studios, because you can collect awesome stamps and look for snitches. I was desperate to get one. Normally, I shy away from things like this, particularly asking these things, because, you know, embarrassing!, but now I was determined to get one of these passports. Shame aside and go for it! So, when I was walking into the studios absolutely giddy with anticipation/happiness/nerves-about-asking-for-this-bloody-thing I soon got a Harry Potter passport from a lovely woman walking past. Yay! Day made! Happy! But only if we would act childish and over-excited inside the tour. No problem!

The others also got a passport (some more reluctantly than others..), but soon found out, when we were actually doing the tour, that the stamps were absolutely gorgeous and so worth it! It is, however, quite hard to get the stamps in your passport nicely, as not all of them work well. The best advice I can give you is to only put one piece of paper underneath the stamps. That seemed to work best.

The tour itself is a-ma-zing! I have always loved the books and the films (although I will always stay true to the books), but I have now gained a whole new level of appreciation for the movies. There is so much detail in all the props and sets! It is absolutely incredible. Most of these details aren’t even visible on screen (or at least, I have never noticed them, and I have seen the films quite often!) and they still put in so much effort!

One of the coolest things there (according to me) were the Death Eater masks, as each Death Eater in the movie has a different, individual mask, with minuscule detailing, that is handmade and fitted to the actor. Stunning.

The set that I found most beautiful was the Ministry of Magic set: it is quite big and has these great, lively colours of red and green! It’s a shame that they put a dark filter on the movie, so that the bright colours don’t really pop out, even though they are incredible on set.


The Yule Ball sculpture/drink bar was visually stunning


Isn’t this amazing? This is an actual, real working door with slithering snakes that they made for movie 2



Hogwarts Railways! On the actual train!


Saying hello from the Knight Bus!

My finest moment was when we were talking to one of the staff members and he challenged us to guess to whom one of the wigs belonged, after hinting that it was a very difficult one. After an additional hint (it was movie 7), I correctly identified the wig as belonging to Aunt Muriel! Woohoo!

I went slightly crazy in the shop, and bought the following:
• An Edible Dark Mark for each of my office mates and myself (although I don’t think they fully appreciate the Edible Dark Mark). Of course, as you undoubtedly know, it was developed by Fred & George Weasley during the Second Wizarding War to make fun of the Death Eaters and keep up the spirits of people. I don’t think my office mates get any of the humour. I don’t even know if they know what a dark mark is. Anyhow, they each have a lollipop now!
• The Souvenir Guidebook. Did you expect me to just not buy it? Right, I didn’t think so!
• A Ravenclaw pillow, because I am a Ravenclaw, obviously. (It’s not just me that thinks so: I was sorted accordingly on Pottermore as well)
• A Pygmy Puff to help me face the lonely days and nights in Switzerland (I know it’s not real, but it does purr…)
• A gorgeous notebook, which I have yet to write in (it is so pretty! I don’t want to destroy it!)
• A snitch charm. Very expensive. I repeat: very expensive. But it is real silver with plated gold and it would just look lovely on my silver necklace, right? And this never looses it’s value, right?

In any case, you get the idea. I won’t tell you what I had to pay in the end (I threw away the receipt as soon as possible. I am repressing the memories as we speak), but let me just tell me that I didn’t feel so bad for spending all my money on this stuff, when I saw the woman that was standing behind me in line holding a broom. I repeat: She was going to buy a broom. At least I did not spend my money on a fake Nimbus 2000, huh? That is something. Although she was also feeling the embarrassement of the purchase herself and kept telling people that it was not for her. Even if it was, I wouldn’t have judged. It is a Nimbus 2000 after all.

And so, I leave you today with an important question: what should I call my Pygmy Puff? I haven’t got a name yet, and am tempted to select a name from Cursed Child… Very tempted to go with Scorpius, but that seems a little extreme for my pink, fluffy Pygmy Puff. So, suggestions?

Instead of trying to catch up with the increasing amount of things I should write here concerning trips/holidays etc., I am just going to write about something that has gotten me extremely excited. Even for me. Office mate R. noted that he knew I could get very enthusiastic, but he had never actually seen me jumping around.

So. Excitement.

I went to London last week for a long Harry Potter weekend. I love Harry Potter, and I love London and the UK. In fact, if it wasn't for the great opportunity at ETH, I would've definitely moved to the UK, because that is just where I would like to live at some point. But we'll see what happens in the future :)

Just so you know, this is not my first Harry Potter holiday, and neither will it be my last. I love Harry Potter extremely. I have a lot of friends who love Harry Potter in various degrees, but somehow I always seem to be the most extreme. How can I not be, I ask you, because it is Harry Freaking Potter (consider yourself awarded 10 house points if you recognise that reference ;) ).

So. HARRY POTTER LONDON.

The idea started a loooooooooooong time ago! In fact, it started in 2015 when I learned that a new Harry Potter play was coming out. Even before the title was released, I knew that I had to go there, because if there is anything I love besides books, it is theatre. It touches me in a way books or movies never can: for me, it is a very emotional, personal and beautiful experience. Which sounds lame, but that is just the way it is. So I was determined to go to this play, no matter the costs or logistics and I registered as a priority member (obviously).

Sidenote: bearing in mind my love for theatre, I was absolutely thrilled when I got a musical-voucher from my office mates and colleagues for my birthday 2 weeks ago :)

When the tickets for Cursed Child actually went on sale, things were absolutely crazy! It was by far my most stressful experience on the internet ever! After a brief moment of panic - where I finally got through the queue to buy tickets, but learned that the Safari browser wasn’t working, so I had to get back into the queue, while frantically downloading FireFox - a new booking period from September - December 2016 was released and I managed to get 4 tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on October 29, 2016 for the entire book club (they had consented to go to the play with me with varying degrees of enthusiasm..). I was elated! But it was over a year before we actually got to go.

And last week, the time had finally come to go to London, to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I had deliberately not read the script (even though it was seducing and tempting me from my book case every single day, since I had pre-ordered it of course!), so that everything would be a surprise.

However, just going to London for only 1 play (even though it is Harry Potter), seemed a bit of a waste, especially since some members of the bookclub hadn’t been in London before. So we (well, I mainly) decided to go to London for a long Harry Potter weekend with lots of activities related to Harry Potter and books! I very happily arranged it all :)

So these blog posts will be the Harry Potter London Chronicles, where I will tell you in detail about our A-MA-ZING Harry Potter weekend. Today, the first instalment: Harry Potter London - Platform 9 3/4.

We arrived on Wednesday, October 26 in the evening and had a lovely pizza dinner at King’s Cross station. After the dinner, we went to Platform 9 3/4 (OF COURSE), where we had our photo’s taken (I did not anticipate buying them, but the photos were just so superior to the ones we managed to make ourselves) in house scarfs (I am a proud Ravenclaw!).
I also bought quite some stuff in the shop: a Harry-Potter-bag (which I really needed), and Harry Potter trivial pursuit (so that we could play it during the weekend) and of course the photo. The rest of the weekend, I bought more stuff, and more justifications will follow :p

For now though, I will leave you, while I depart from Platform 9 3/4 with the Hogwarts express!