BOOKS
There were three stops on my tour of places utilized in YA books, or in one case, where JK Rowling birthed the legendary Harry Potter. As a non-magical muggle, Hogwart's refused to even look at my application. Not deterred, I decided to try to hop on the next train heading to Hogwart's, hoping the off-peak travel would help me blend in. Besides, the foggy clouds had descended all over London, so I knew the dementors were occupied. Unfortunately, as you see below, my luggage made it through safely, but the wall detected my lack of magic. The smile on my face is evidence of my embarrassment.
Still not deterred, I headed back to Edinburgh in hopes of setting up an impromptu meeting with the woman who could write me into...er...who could grant me the magic I needed. JK Rowling.
I knew just where to find her: The Elephant House, the place where she gave birth to a boy. A boy who lived. Unfortunately, along with magic, I also lack the talent of photography. This is the least blurry photo I took of the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter 1 and outlined the rest of the series. I hope to have better photos coming since we plan to eat there later this week. JK was absent when I showed up.
Continuing my YA tour, the next place I hit up (back in London) came from Maureen Johnson's Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes.
Maureen has blogged about her adventures at Harrod's, and Ginny in the book experiences some crazy things. All this intrigued me. I had to visit myself. Unlike Maureen, I wasn't armed with a video camera. I only had a cranky guy on my arm who desperately wanted to sit down. (His feet hurt, I told him to wear heels for a while and complain to me then). The other thing hindering me from an exciting adventure was the amount of people herding into tight spaces. They stole the seats from us. So we steered away from them and entered what I now refer to as In-Your-Dream-land. It included things like 45000 pound watches (that's about 65 thousand american dollars) and fine wines of about the same price. The clerks must have realized we weren't exactly browsing to buy, they looked at us and backed away.
MOVIES
How could I go to London and not stop by Notting Hill?
I hoped to see Hugh Grant. I wanted to go into a book store and find love. In fact, I dragged my boyfriend into a bookstore and waited. He didn't tell me he was just a boy, standing in front of girl, asking him to love her. Instead, he pointed out the Twilight books on display and how thin they were compared to mine at home because of the spacing between text lines. This picture below looked like the houses from the movie:
MUSIC
For those that know me, they won't find this odd. Others might. When I was in high school, i had a bit of an obsession with the band Bush. Particularly the lead singer Gavin. In fact, I named the love interest from RHYTHM AND CLUES after him. And, um, I used to run a fanzine back when I was 14 that had over 50,000 /hits to the website. I avoided homework just so I could put together each issue on time. Bush got their start in Shepard's Bush, London. So i had to go see it. Gavin is currently busy with babies in LA, and the rain really did prevent me from doing more than stepping outside the subway this time. But I loved seeing his old haunt just the same.
I also took photos of other random landmarks that haven't yet appeared in any books, movies, or music. But I have my fingers crossed! And if they do end up making an appearance, I'll have photographic evidence that I have been there, done that. Maybe one day someone will embark on a star tour of places found in some of my books. If you're itching to start planning this, I'll be happy to give you a list of potential landmarks, or you can just book a cruise because most of THE ART OF SELLING MY SISTER takes place on one.
If you're interested in my out of focus photo album, you can friend me on facebook where I uploaded those photos.
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