Jaffe-tastic holidays! (part 1)

Continuing with our trend of having visitors here in London, we bring you: The Jaffes in London!

Jen & Brett, two of Gloria's friends from undergrad (Zot! Zot!), came out for a long overdue visit and we were ecstatic to have them here. Jen is one of Gloria's best friends from her Tri Delta days and was one of her bridesmaids. Brett also happens to be a Sigma Pi like me so we bro'd out lots. No big.

Gloria is just a teeny tiny bit excited

It had been the better part of two years since we'd seen them, so we definitely had some catching up to do. They came over to check out London & Amsterdam with us, so first up: Foggy London Town!

In a notable change for London, we had great weather. The sun was shining, it was reasonably warm, and generally very pleasant. Well done brit weather overlords! It was perfect for the mix of touristy stuff and personal things we wanted to do while the Jaffes were here. We'll start with the touristy stuff:

We took Jen & Brett down to the Borough Market. As usual we indulged in some delicious drinks,

some not-at-all-oversized sandwiches,

mmmm salted beef....

and had a lovely time walking around the area.

In addition to the perfect weather, we also had a bit of serendipity. While walking along the Thames, we came upon a sign that directed us to where we were meant to be:

Indeed. We must have this.

After our mandated pit stop we carried on enjoying the beautiful day.

I mustache you a question

We also had another awesome afternoon tea. We went to Fortnum & Mason, which is a swanky London institution. It's know as a very nice store with a beautiful tea room on the top floor. It didn't disappoint. We've done tea several times now, but this was definitely one of the nicest ones we've been to.

All the seriousness afternoon tea requires

Fancy Tea Cups! 

Tiny sandwiches!

Mmmmm tea and 3,000 calories of sugary snacks...

I know what you may be thinking: we've read all about tea and sightseeing in London many times now. Do you take your guests anywhere outside of London? Well have I got a treat for you:

HARRY FREAKING POTTER!

That's right. We went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. This is where they actually filmed the movies. We got to see, original sets, props, costumes, etc. It was awesome. Jen and Gloria were so excited they may have cried.

This is what you see waiting in line. Harry's bed in the stairs. How cool is that?!

After a brief into video, the doors open, and....

Boom! The great hall. It looks just like the movie!

Original Costumes! 

All the wands are specially made and designed in part by the actors who wanted them to reflect their characters. DOPE!

Various Props

Snape's Laboratory

The wall of photos, with the green screen for those that change.

Hagrid's motorcycle!

Fun fact: all the details on the door are functional as a lock. So cool!

A real live death eater! 

Snitch!

Umbridge's office

Actual newspapers and things from the movies 

Another special note - each of the letters that are addressed to Harry are actually hand-written! ALL OF THEM!

Dumbledore's Office - you can't see from here by the sorting hat is on the shelf. 

There's just so much fun stuff here. A few more pics:

This part of the bridge was built for the movie and was never actually mentioned in the book!

Driving miss Jen

Diagon Alley!

Snitch!

So fun. On top of all that, you really get a sense of the workmanship and skill that went in to making the movie. For example, they have technical drawings and models of things on display.

At this point in the tour, you feel pretty overwhelmed and amazed. Then you turn a corner and bam!

Hogwarts!

They have this HUGE model of Hogwarts. It's 1:24 scale, which might not sound like much, but it's really big. As you may or may not remember, computer animation was not terribly advanced at the time of the first few HP epics so they built this model to do the aerial shots. What you see in the movies is actually this model. WWWAHHHH!!!?????

The Harry Potter tour was a blast, and it's definitely a must see for even a casual fan. I count myself amongst that group and I was blown away. Definitely check it out if you ever have the chance.

Our final act of tourism, a way to top it all off if you will, was drinks at The Shard. See what I did there? Top it off with drinks at the top of The Shard! Hi-larious. I suppose I should explain. This is The Shard:

It's tall. And we went to the top. See? We topped it all off! Brilliant humor. Legendary even...right? Meh.

At 87 stories, The Shard is the tallest building in the European Union, and is built to resemble broken shards of glass. It's often mistaken for being unfinished, so I supposed it has achieved the desired look. Anyway, there are a couple bars at the top of it, and we went up there for some drinks.

Happy drinks time!

The views from up there really are quite spectacular.

Smog at sunset. Beautiful.

Jen & Gloria clearly didn't trust my picture taking abilities

That's more like it

That pretty much did it for our touristy adventures. We had a blast. 

Aside from getting to see Jen and Brett for the first time in two years, we also were able to share a very special experience with them. We all lost Sue, Jen's mom and a beautiful and amazing woman, to leukemia in May. Sue didn't have the chance to visit the UK or Europe so this was an opportunity to visit on behalf of the lovely Sue Patton.

One special stop on Sue's European adventure was Hyde Park. We spent a lot of time at the Rose Garden, knowing it would be a place that Sue would especially love. It was filled with the most beautiful pink, yellow, and purple - Sue's fave, flowers.

Sweet Sue - we hope you liked Hyde Park. We are so grateful to have known you and are so thankful that you gave us your beautiful Jen as a best friend. Thank you for filling our hearts with so many great memories. We're off to Amsterdam next and we're sure you will love it there as well!

With love,

Gloria and Brian