Spain

And then before I knew it, I was accepting an Internship teaching English as a foreign language in Valencia, Spain. 6 month contract in hand, I said goodbye to good old London (with the promise to myself to come back and see the many things I hadn't had the chance to see) and boarded a plane to Valencia, with no idea what the city was like, and not a word of Spanish knowledge. 

Upon arrival, I was pleasantly surprised by the almost summer warmth compared to the icy cold winter I had just left behind in England. I was shown to my flat and my new room-mates who were also English teachers. It was very much a student flat (the shower leaked, the light switches fell off when you touched them, the wiring was dodgy and the internet was constantly on the blink) but I liked it. My room was bright and sunny and cheerful, and my flatmates were nice. 

 

 My street.

After settling in for a few days and beginning to teach (with very little training but it was in fact easier than I expected) I set about exploring the city when I had time. Weekends were pretty much it for me, as I was working forty hour weeks. Still, the students were often fun, and my surroundings were beautiful. Weekends were of course my highlight. 

The way to work itself was scenic too, and as I didn't finish til 9:20 at night, when I began teaching as it was winter it was dark by then. So I was able to get some pretty photos of the Porta De La Mar - the door of the sea. You will notice the bat on the top, which is also rather cool. The bat is in fact the symbol of Valencia, and can be found on any important monument, engraved on every drain and street, and is in fact the mascot of the Valencia football team also. 

Why? The story is pretty cool actually. on 9 October 1238, James I and his troops were based on the outskirts of the city of Valencia awaiting the right time to attack the Muslim troops and conquer it. One night, while the troops of James I were sleeping, their enemies were preparing a surprise attack against them. In that moment, a bat flying noisily woke up James I and alerted him, so they were able to avoid the surprise attack from the Muslim troops. This allowed James I and his troops to win the battle and take the city; in gratitude the King set the symbol of the bat on-top the badge of Valencia and it has been there ever since. Or so legend says anyway.

My favourite thing about Valencia is the park, or as Valencian's call it, the 'Old River' Turia. The old bridges that still span it are gorgeous and there is nothing nicer than sunbathing here on a hot day.

There is of course a story as to why a river became a park; on the 14th of October, 1957 the 'Great Flood of Valencia' occurred. The old river that had run through the city broke its banks and caused an enormous amount of damage and loss of life. To prevent it ever happening again, the river was diverted, and the old river bed was turned into a beautiful park.

 Beautiful big trees have sprung up with time, and it feels like the park has always been there, even though hardly more than 50 years ago, a great river was there in its place. 


The city is also full of orange trees of course. Valencia is famous for its oranges, and it lives up to its name. Most streets are lined with orange trees, and the gardens and parks are full of them.

Of the many bridges that span the Old River, one of my favorites is the aptly named the Flower bridge. Every time I see it the flowers are different, but always in vibrant reds and pinks.

Harry Potter Part III

My next stop in Warner Bros studios was  the design, creatures and robots room. So cool. Here there were the inner workings of the weird and wonderful of Harry Potter. Upon walking through the door I was greeted by a strange and creepy dog-like robot (left) that I could only guess was somehow werewolf related. The photo on the right was a gigantic and all too realistic figure of Aragog, the giant spider (shudder). 

 There was then an enormous shelf full of Goblin heads and prosthetic body parts, noses, ears, hands - everything you could think of. Both fascinating and creepy. The model of Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix was also very cool and rather lifelike. 

 The mandrake (left) was one of my favorite things in the room, it was a tiny robot and not only wiggled its roots but also made horrible expressions and looked generally miserable. It was awesome. 

The photograph on the right shows the costume of the fantastic moment when Harry blew up his awful aunt Marge. 

And then it was through some doors and it was the moment I had been waiting for and dreaming of since I read the books; I had stumbled into Diagon Alley.

 All the buildings were as they should have been, from the marble pillars of Gringotts bank to the dark and dusty items in the window of Potage's Cauldron shop, to the owls and cages of Eeylops owl emporium. 

My favorites were of course the famous ones, Ollivander's (Wand shop) stood out to me looking just as it should be, dusty, mysterious, slightly Victorian and definitely a little creepy.

 And of course my eyes couldn't help be drawn to the fire-engine red store named Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, not quite as I had imagined it, but cheerful and fun nonetheless. 

 When I saw the sign for Flourish and Botts (the magical bookstore where the students obtained all their books every year) I finally succumbed to the temptation of a photo. If there was one store I could actually pick to be real, I think it would have to be this one.

 And then I was out of the alley and onto the last leg of my journey. Models and concept art, it was here that the magic began.

The incredible detail of the minature Hogwarts and the 'Whomping Willow' (Left) completely astounded me. I spent far too long peering at the models, amazing by the level of detail and perfection on such a small scale. There was also a long corridor of all the concept art before the movies - there are far too many to show here although I loved almost all of them. My favourite however, was Dobby (right), and the sad, knowing, expression on this little House-Elf's face.

And then I rounded the corner and was greeted by a simple enormous, beautiful, detailed model of Hogwarts, covered in Christmas snow. They used this set for a lot of the filming apparently, although you'd never be able to tell, it's so realistic. 

The absolute level of detail was staggering, and I walked around it and examined it for probably half an hour easily. It was literally huge, taking up a massive warehouse-like room.

The last room I entered was like the inside of Ollivander's wand shop. The amazing thing is not only is every single wand slightly different and unique, but there are over 4,000 here hand signed by different actors and members of the crew. 

And finally, I reached the end.

Harry Potter Part II

The movie sets on display were numerous and amazing. My favorite was the Potions Class. It looked suitably dungeon-like, and exactly like the movies. I felt as if I had literally stepped into the films. What you can't see but makes this set even cooler, is the fact that the cauldrons were stirring themselves. Magic.

They also had the costumes of the different characters on display, here you can see Professor Slughorn, and behind him interesting and mysterious potion ingredients in glass jars.

Snape in his element.

The Griffindor Common room below where their beds were (in the second picture you can see the door leading up to where the bedroom is meant to be) here students did their homework, played gobstone and wizards chess, and talking to Sirius black in the fireplace. It's all decorated for Christmas as I came during the Christmas period, which was super cool as it looked so lovely and festive.

Dumbledore's office was another extremely cool set. I wish I could have gone closer to examine everything in more detail, but it was extremely busy, and parts were of course barred off to keep the items undamaged.

Hagrid's hut! And an extremely unrealistic copy of his dog Fang. Never mind, at least they tried! They amount of detail that went into these sets and the hundreds of objects that you would have only glanced for an instant in the films were so fascinating!

One of my favourite items, this was the door to the Chamber of Secrets. In the movie each snake head slides backwards allowing the vault to open. What's cool is it wasn't computer graphics, the snakes slide along slotted tracks and are powered by a hidden electric motor behind the door. Who knew!

Another cool quirk of the movie I never noticed was Umbridge's appalling pink dress, it in fact became more and more bright pink throughout the movie as she gained power. Clever. You can see different versions of it here. 

I stopped for a brief respite at this point because I had already been wandering for a few hours. I had Butterbeer (I KNOW REAL BUTTERBEER) which was funnily enough nothing to do with beer and was more like a butterscotch soft drink. It was nice but rather too sickly, and I struggled to finish it. The foam however was like eating sweet clouds, it was awesome. The right-handed photo is in fact the Knight Bus - a secret mode of transportation helping out stranded witches or wizards, and best of all Muggles can't see it! Guess I must be a witch then.

The Dursley Home! Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Unfortunately you couldn't go inside or anything, but it was a real full sized house, not just a front or a set. Apparently it started off as simply filming a random street in the UK, however once they realized it would feature in future films, they recreated the entire street and house to keep reusing. The number 4 sign however has been replaced; the original was stolen by Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley).

This depressing little house is in fact the 'ruin' of the Potter's house Godric's Hollow, where Harry Potter's parents died. The level of detail is cool, as you can see where part of the roof has been destroyed from the 'explosion' where Harry Potter killed Voldemort and became the Boy-who-Lived. 

One of the moving Chess pieces from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, it was a lot larger than I expected in real life! The cool thing is not only are these the original sculptures, but many of them were rigged to move by radio control, and even explode! 

Harry Potter Part I

Finally, at last, I was able to fulfill my dream, and enter Warner Bros studios, and more importantly, Harry Potter world. Picked up from London in a Harry Potter bus, we were trundled off to the studios early in the morning. As I got off the bus, this sight greeted my eyes.

Waiting in line for my ticket, I passed Harry's cupboard under the stairs. We were then ushered into a large room, where we watched a short movie about Harry Potter introducing us to the studio - It was an exciting start! Things only got better from there, as we were told we had no timelimit, could wander as long as we wanted, and as it wasn't guided, we could go where-ever and however we pleased; just how I like it! Then without further ado, the Great Doors swung open and suddenly we found ourselves in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

Arranged as if in the midst of a feast, with each table sporting Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin or Gryffindor colors, fake (but very realistic looking) food filled the tables, and mannequins dressed in the original costumes used in the films, stood as Dumbledore, Snape and Professor Mcgonagall giving a speech at the head of the hall.

As i came at Christmas time, it was all decorated as if it really were the Christmas day feast at Hogwarts. 

Once out of the Great Hall, I entered a huge room (more like a giant warehouse) full of the props used and collected over the years of the Harry Potter movies. One of my favorites was this table of food, although some of it is of course fake, items like the Phoenix cake are in fact edible, and incredibly lasted for over seven years in storage! Don't think I'd like to eat it now though.

The original wigs of all the actors, plus all their costumes could be seen all over the place, from Hermione's Yule Ball dress, to Harry's clothes over all of the movies, to Snape's wig. It was all there.

Many of the characters had their own area, with sketches, wigs, design art and personal effects. It was awesome to see the development of characters in this way. 

Then it was on to the actual movie props used in the movie. One of my favourite things was the magic fire they had on display. I'm not entirely sure how they did it as it moved and was tangibly there like real fire, but was more see-through, and completely silent. The right-hand photograph shows the Ministry Decrees put up by Umbridge from fifth movie. The amount of detail on each decree was awesome. 

One of my favourite movie sets was the Gryffindor common room, each bed was personalized, Dean's bed with football posters, Ron's with pictures of the Chudley Cannons and so on. 

My favourite part was the beds which were made in the first movie and never changed. Although they had fit the actors when they were eleven, by the later movies their legs would hang off the ends when they were lying down - all of which had to be concealed from the camera!