Leavesden Studio Tour & London Eye

We have decided to alternate who writes the blog posts and today it is Astrid's turn.... Today we woke up pretty early to get out to Leavesden Studios for 10AM. We had to take 2 trains and a bus to get there, and on the second train ride there was this Russian family sitting across from us and the mom kept chewing her fingernails and stared at me for the duration of the 20 minute ride which was really creepy so I was very relieved when we got off. Leavesden wasn't nearly as crowded as I had anticipated which was great because you actually got a chance to look at the props, costumes and sets without some asshole trying to push you out of the way (which has happened everywhere else we've gone so far). Personally I thought that the most impressive part of the tour was the huge scale model of Hogwarts Castle at the end. They used the model in the films for all of the flyover scenes and scenes where Hogwarts can be seen in the distance. To be honest I am too lazy to wrtie any other details about the tour, but if you ever go to London and are a Harry Potter fan, you absolutely have to see it. So far it's my favourite part of the trip! When we were done with Leavesden (4 hours later), we made a stop at King's Cross station to get a picture at Platform 9 3/4. There was a bit of a line-up but it was worth the wait. After that, Mom, Britta, Signa and myself went back to the hotel for a couple hours while Dad went to some bookstore. Obviously his feet weren't hurting. I think I would have killed myself if I had to walk around for any longer. Our hotel is super cheap and there is only free WiFi if you stand pretty much in the middle of the lobby, and if you want to use it in your room is costs 15 pounds for 24hrs. When we were relaxing back at the hotel mom got fed up with having to go downstairs whenever we wanted to use the internet so she caved and bought WiFi for 24hrs. It turned out that you were only allowed to have 2 devices logged on at a time, and when Mom discovered this she nearly lost her mind and called down to the front desk to complain. It ended in complimentary WiFi for our room and saved Mom a lot of time because she didn't have to write them a letter. :) After our feet started to feel a little better, we meet Dad by the Thames and went to the London Aquarium. Compared to the Dallas Aquarium that I went to 2 weeks ago, it was super lame so I went though it at top speed and didn't bother taking any pictures. The only mildly interesting thing that I saw were 2 crabs mating. What is it with me and witnessing animals mating? First lizards at Petland, next turtles in Dallas and now crabs.... :/ At sunset we went on the London Eye which was beautiful. However, the toddler that was crying at the top of his lungs for the entire time kind of took away from the experience a little bit. The last thing we did was take a short trip to Piccadilly Circus which didn't last very long because me, Britta and Signa were all exhausted. Random Notes: -The people here really need to wear deodorant because whenever they lift up their arms on the Tube to hang on to a bar a stinky tidal wave assaults everybody else around them. -I hold my breath a lot when I walk so I don't have to breathe in cigarette smoke. I guess synchro comes in handy for something. -At the Shakespeare play that we are going to see tomorrow night we don't have seats and have to stand for 3 hours. If you try to crouch down they kick you out, so I don't know how much fun that's going to be. It's hard enough to focus on Shakespeare stuff when you are sitting comfortably, let alone when you have to stand on feet that feel like they're going to fall off.