Off to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!

Day 4, Tuesday, February 11th: Platform 9 3/4, Cambridge University
Daily Commonality: Um, hello... you should know this one.  We both LOVE Harry Potter!

After finishing watching the latest season of Downton Abbey, Gwen and I promptly started watching the Harry Potter movies; we were getting prepared for our visit to Cambridge. At this point we had enough class from the day before to visit the Colleges of Cambridge, thankfully.  We headed out early on the tube, then on the transfer to our overground train to Cambridge, we connected at King's Cross Station and you know what was there, right?  HARRY POTTER'S station, nine and three quarters! Oh yes friends, this is where in the movies he jumps into the wall and is able to go to the train station to Hogwarts!  This was definitely a highlight of my trip, you just have no idea how excited I was, and Gwen is also a HP fan so she totally enjoyed it as well :)

One of my magnificent ceiling art shots.
This one was inspired by HP.

Equally nerdy.

If only this took me to Hogwarts.

Need a magic wand?

It took everything I had not to buy this outfit
for the visit to Cambridge.

My second piece of art. Ceiling in the train track.

So, we took about an hour-ish ride on the train through the British countryside and landed in a cold and rainy Cambridge.  Not to worry, we still went to all the colleges on our list, including King's College, Christ College, and a handful of other ones.  We also saw the Mathematics Bridge, went to an outdoor market, and saw where DNA was found!  I decided to let people, well, Gwen, know that "I went to Cambridge."  Nobody has to know that that just means that I visited as a tourist, it could mean that I actually went to college there, it's aloof enough that if you say "I went to Cambridge" people can assume what they want.  And, I'm going to apologize in advance but you're about to see a lot of photos of old buildings.

OMG, you have to watch this video. It's of a precious little old
man walking in such a Cambridge way...

Gwen, looking classy as usual.

Mathematics Bridge. Kind of un-impressive and wood.
I think they needed an Industrial Designer to help.

DNA, seriously, found right here.

Another day running around left us tired and in need of Pizza Express.  We enjoyed it while sitting on the couch, watching Harry Potter movies, naturally.

Cheerio!

Cheerio, friends!

Day 3, Monday, February 10th: Trafalagar Square, National Portrait Gallery, High Tea at Fortnum & Mason, Harrods
Daily Commonality: We both love to call Will, "Willis," or now, "Willie."

Ah, London. I'm back to my blog and back to the Brits.  Sorry for the delay, in between posts I've been to Texas and California twice. So picking up, on day three... the first stop of the day was Trafalagar Square.  We arrived on a drizzly day to the square and were greeted by the Canadian Embassy and a giant blue rooster. Yes, you heard me right, a big blue rooster... probably part of some sort of art display. Then headed to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

We wanted to see Kate and Will's portraits but unfortunately that wing was closed for a private party. After spending our morning getting art-educated, we headed to the Queen's grocery store for some class.  Yes, class.  We had the champagne high tea at Fortnum and Mason...maybe we could have had slightly more class instead of eating double servings of just about everything (it was free refills!).  DE-licious!

This picture was the after-math; we're both stuffed.

In keeping the classy theme, we then shopped around the four plus floors of beautiful and lovely things at the Queen's place.  It's called her "grocery store" because on the bottom floor they do have some fresh produce and such, but really it's more like an upscale department store.

We both make home-made Valentine's cards for our hubbies
with an old-fashioned printing press! So fun :)

 

I should have bought this hat for tea.
Oh right, it's like 500 pounds...

Yes, this was at high tea.  I told you, classy!

 The class continued to the next stop of the day - Harrods.  We browsed around the food halls and saw a 1,000 pound Easter egg (and I'm not talking about it's weight)!  The only reason I didn't buy it was because I didn't have a way to get it home, otherwise of course I would have purchased it.

We passed Willie's street...

Riding the tube home, in a very classy way of course.

Our feet were exhausted, bodies a bit tired, so we headed home to eat and play with the other classy ladies on this trip --- Duchess and Georgia Peach.

George licking yogurt out of a carton, classy.

Duchess wearing blush, also classy.
And no, I'm not kidding, she's actually wearing blush.