HARRY POTTERRRRRR – July 15th, 2009

So, there were no midnight showings of Harry Potter in England. It made me want to kill myself. And thanks to the time difference, when I got up this morning people in the states were just getting home from their midnight showings and were posting statuses about the movie…it was killing me. I wanted to cry. Luckily, we had quite a busy day so I couldn’t just sit around on facebook and read about the movie…

First we had English, then instead of Arts of Oxford…today was The Alice Walk. Now, the Alice Walk is sort of an Alabama in Oxford legend. It’s like an 8 mile walk, and we go outside of Oxford into the countryside and walk along the Thames where Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll) took the Liddell sisters in a row boat on July 4, 1862, and wove the tales of Alice in Wonderland. It was extremely cool to say the least. Oxford is the kind of city where you feel like you’re in the middle of the city, then walk 2 blocks and you’re in the middle of the country. It’s amazing. We trekked out…stopped at a small, old church with the “Treacle Well” in the back. It’s the well formed when St. Frideswide, patron saint of Oxford, performed her miracles, and then became known as having restorative healing powers. It didn’t actually look like a well, more like a little room in the ground with a hole in it…I happened to have an almost empty Diet Coke so we now officially have healing water from the well…though I definitely did not dip my hand down into sketchy land. Someone braver than me had to get it.

After the well, we stopped at a pub called The Perch, then continued walking, then a pub called The Trout. As we sat at the Trout, Dr. Halli pointed out a statue of a lion in a garden across the river…the statue of a lion that C.S. Lewis saw while sitting at the Trout and came up with the idea for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Oh my god.

To finish the walk, we walked through Port Meadow, this huge huge huge public grazing ground that is literally right outside Oxford. People just let their cows and horses and sheep out there to graze…it was pretty cool. Very beautiful. And we actually had beautiful weather for the whole walk.

We finally headed back to town and were in the process of planning our evening…which unfortunately was not going to include Harry Potter since we did not have pre-ordered tickets. While walking through Jericho (a part of Oxford) though, we passed this little movie theatre that happened to be showing Harry Potter at 5:15. It was 5:05. We walked right up and got tickets. I almost passed out with excitement, no joke. I was the happiest person in the world.

The movie was amazing. Awesome acting, and tons of awkward. Obviously they left out a lot, which I hate, but I think it may be my favorite movie.

Oh, Harry Potter was just beautiful. After leaving the theatre we grabbed dinner at the grocery store since we missed dinner at the college for the movie…then headed back to the dorms to eat and get ready, and of course discuss my love, Harry.

We finally managed to get ourselves together though, and headed down to the college pub to hang out with everyone. Tonight they had a special at this one club where they let all the Alabama and GA tech people do free karaoke. We basically had the basement of the club to ourselves…it was quite fun. Yes, I did do karaoke. With a group. No one who heard is deaf now, so it turned out all right.

Awesome awesome awesome day!!