When Mo and I were getting our bag checked at the London Tower the guy stopped and gave her a very long and hard look. She was all, "what?" He kept looking at her and she was thinking what she had in her bag. So she said, "the book?" He said, "Yeah. I've seen about 10 in people's bags today." LoL
The book is EVERYWHERE! Laurie (Leaky person, not Laurie who was supposed to go with me) hasn't finished the book yet and she's, suprisingly, hasn't been spoiled yet in London. It's amazing! She'll be done by the time she gets home tonight, though.
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Craziest Weekend Of Current Memory
You think I've written novels before, wait till you finish this post! Oh, on another note, there are NO BOOK SPOILERS. So it's safe for those reading the book to read this. :)
Okay, I last left off with the quickest post about Kate arriving, right? Let me get my head into the right day...Friday.
Okay, Friday Maria and I woke up and went to get Kate at the train station. After we got Kate, we went to the post office so I could post my 2 post cards and get additional postage for some more (I have yet to post those...) and so Kate could get some medicine at Boots. We went to our hostel and dropped off our stuff and went to the castle.
The castle was interesting. We didn't go on our tour and didn't get the audio headset (£3 extra) so it was basically all us. We didn't get a map too (they didn't give us one!). We saw the crown jewels - absolutely amazing - and some other things. Kate and Marie put a coin into a well that's 34 meters deep. I was taking a picture of the well and Kate threw her coin in and I got a picture of the coin falling! Anyway, it was overall pretty neat. The view was the best part. It's at the highest part of Edinburgh and you could see all the way to the ocean. It was just fantastic.
After our stint through the castle, we went back to our hostel and changed into our "I solemnly swear..." t-shirts and went to the 1630 (I think it was) showing of OotP with Kate (first time) and Marie. Well, first off, I had my first experience of standing in the middle of a busy street! I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it was definitely interesting! Anyway, we watched the movie. I actually fell asleep during the climax of the movie. LoL I almost fell asleep earlier than that, but I made myself stay awake through a certain scene.
After the movie, we went and got dinner at Deacons Tavern. Food wasn't too bad. Then we walked down to Waterstones. There was already a line! In fact, 2 girls had started to line up at 11am! We were standing in line and Kate and Maria were getting bored and Kate still wasn't feeling too hot. I didn't mind standing in line and neither did Marie so we stood in line for about 2 hours while Kate and Maria went to the Balmoral (where Jo finished writing the book) and got Cosmos (one for themselves and one for Laurie and called her). A bit after 12am (15 after?) is when the first person with the book walked out of the store!! Apparently, the first 100 people or so got each book in a fairly nice orange bag that said "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on it. We got our books close to 1am! I called home, work, and we walked Marie to her hotel. Then Kate, Maria, and I went back to our hostel and called Laurie. Kate (with the British accent) read Laurie the first chapter. After that, we were off to reading (about 1-1:30am)!
I read till 6am, slept for 2.5 hours, woke up and read till 12:15pm. I took a shower and we left for The Elephant House to meet Marie at 1pm. It was Marie, Maria, and my 2nd time at being at Elephant House and Kate's first time, but we all agreed we needed to read part of the book at the place Jo first started writing the book. Well, we 4 ended up finishing it AT the Elephant House, which meant I was done by 5:30pm, Marie done by 8pm, Kate done by 10:30pm, and Maria by 10:40pm. The place closes at 11pm. :P I almost went nuts sitting around waiting for someone to finish the book so I could dicuss it with someone. Actually, when I finished the book I just closed it and stared out of the window for a bit. Kate, Marie, Maria, and a random guy who was sitting with us all looked at me. It was just surreal finishing it. After 15 minutes of just sitting there, I got up and left for about 45 minutes. I couldn't sit around and just needed to mull in my thoughts since I couldn't talk with anyone. I came back after that, ordered dinner and waited for the rest to finish the book. I ended up buying an Elephant House t-shirt.
The best things about reading the book at Edinburgh were being in Jo's hometown, having a view of the castle out of our window and knowing it was right there, hearing the bag pipes in the distance playing, being with 2 equally crazy Harry Potter fans that would understand if I burst into tears, gasped, or whatnot, being able to just lay in bed till all hours of the night or past morning to read, and, lastly, finishing the book at the place Jo first started writing the books.
Anyway, after we finished the book, we went back to the hostel, talked about it, and I zonked out around 12:30am. I had been going on 2.5 hours of sleep for 39 hours. Did I mention the first night at the hostel I slept 11 hours?! It was the first really good night of sleep I've had in the UK and I'm hoping tonight has the same thing happen!
Anyway, this morning check out time was at 10am so we got up at 8am and packed up. After we put our stuff into the luggage storage room at Castle Rock we walked down the OTHER end (all the way to the other end, in fact) of the Royal Mile (actually called Lawnmarket) and went to the Holyrood Palace. THAT was neat! We had muffins/tea/OJ/scones for breakfast (different stuff for the 3 of us) and got our ticket to the palace. It was cheaper thant he castle and they handed out "free" headsets. Without the headsets, I must admit, it would have been really boring. The palace has some amazing history and just elaborate stuff in it. You only really saw the 2nd floor and Mary of Scotts chambers. Other than that, it was mostly closed off, which makes sense since the palace is still used for the Queen.
After that, I asked if we could go to the post office so I could post my cards, but when we got there we all remembered it's SUNDAY! So I couldn't. We were going to go find a post box somewhere, but had to run by the train station to change Kate's ticket. Well, we arrived 5 minutes before Kate's train was supposed to leave and she couldn't change it then and buying a whole new ticket was WAY too much. So we did a 1 minute panic where Kate asked if I could carry her bag home on the train (I was leaving at 1600), we quickly found her platform, she gave us hugs, and she left. Thank goodness we went when we did! If she missed her train, that would have been a BIG bummer.
After that, Maria and I went to lunch at Bobby's Something. It was named after that dog that was a police dog or something and when his owner died, the dog stayed by the grave till it died (14 years). I guess Disney did a movie loosely based off of that. Anyway, that's where we ate because a few Leaky people tried to take us there earlier in the week, but it closed at 8pm! The food was great (the best so far). Maria and I were sitting there and saw a jacket that looked like Marie's and I said wouldn't it be funny if we ran into her today? Well, we were finishing up our food and guess who walks in - Marie! So she ordered and since Maria and I had nothing to do we sat with her and talked about the book some more. A bit after 3 we went back to Castle Rock to get our stuff and we went to the train station where I caught my train and Maria was going up to the bridge to catch a bus to the airport to catch her plane (a couple hours early).
I caught the train, tried to snooze, got off at Doncaster, waited for 15 minutes and got back onto the train at the same platform as I had gotten off to go to Grantham. Kate met me there and I'm now at her house.
Tomorrow I leave for London on a train from Grantham to Kings Cross (I need to find someone to take my picture there...) and the tube from Kings Cross to Piccadilly Circus where I will walk the few minutes to my hostel, meet up with Moriah, and check-in! I'll be in London till I leave this Friday the 27th. I'll try to update while I'm in London, but we'll see since I won't have easy accessibility to a computer and have to buy time on the computers at the hostel. Now that I've said that, I'll probably do it for sure. LoL
I've got loads of pictures (I'm at almost 250 pictures, though at least 30 will be deleted since they're bad ones and I just didn't delete them and just retook them). :P
With that, I must buy my train ticket and tube Oyster card and go to bed since I'm started to feel dreadfully tired.
Laters!
Okay, I last left off with the quickest post about Kate arriving, right? Let me get my head into the right day...Friday.
Okay, Friday Maria and I woke up and went to get Kate at the train station. After we got Kate, we went to the post office so I could post my 2 post cards and get additional postage for some more (I have yet to post those...) and so Kate could get some medicine at Boots. We went to our hostel and dropped off our stuff and went to the castle.
The castle was interesting. We didn't go on our tour and didn't get the audio headset (£3 extra) so it was basically all us. We didn't get a map too (they didn't give us one!). We saw the crown jewels - absolutely amazing - and some other things. Kate and Marie put a coin into a well that's 34 meters deep. I was taking a picture of the well and Kate threw her coin in and I got a picture of the coin falling! Anyway, it was overall pretty neat. The view was the best part. It's at the highest part of Edinburgh and you could see all the way to the ocean. It was just fantastic.
After our stint through the castle, we went back to our hostel and changed into our "I solemnly swear..." t-shirts and went to the 1630 (I think it was) showing of OotP with Kate (first time) and Marie. Well, first off, I had my first experience of standing in the middle of a busy street! I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it was definitely interesting! Anyway, we watched the movie. I actually fell asleep during the climax of the movie. LoL I almost fell asleep earlier than that, but I made myself stay awake through a certain scene.
After the movie, we went and got dinner at Deacons Tavern. Food wasn't too bad. Then we walked down to Waterstones. There was already a line! In fact, 2 girls had started to line up at 11am! We were standing in line and Kate and Maria were getting bored and Kate still wasn't feeling too hot. I didn't mind standing in line and neither did Marie so we stood in line for about 2 hours while Kate and Maria went to the Balmoral (where Jo finished writing the book) and got Cosmos (one for themselves and one for Laurie and called her). A bit after 12am (15 after?) is when the first person with the book walked out of the store!! Apparently, the first 100 people or so got each book in a fairly nice orange bag that said "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on it. We got our books close to 1am! I called home, work, and we walked Marie to her hotel. Then Kate, Maria, and I went back to our hostel and called Laurie. Kate (with the British accent) read Laurie the first chapter. After that, we were off to reading (about 1-1:30am)!
I read till 6am, slept for 2.5 hours, woke up and read till 12:15pm. I took a shower and we left for The Elephant House to meet Marie at 1pm. It was Marie, Maria, and my 2nd time at being at Elephant House and Kate's first time, but we all agreed we needed to read part of the book at the place Jo first started writing the book. Well, we 4 ended up finishing it AT the Elephant House, which meant I was done by 5:30pm, Marie done by 8pm, Kate done by 10:30pm, and Maria by 10:40pm. The place closes at 11pm. :P I almost went nuts sitting around waiting for someone to finish the book so I could dicuss it with someone. Actually, when I finished the book I just closed it and stared out of the window for a bit. Kate, Marie, Maria, and a random guy who was sitting with us all looked at me. It was just surreal finishing it. After 15 minutes of just sitting there, I got up and left for about 45 minutes. I couldn't sit around and just needed to mull in my thoughts since I couldn't talk with anyone. I came back after that, ordered dinner and waited for the rest to finish the book. I ended up buying an Elephant House t-shirt.
The best things about reading the book at Edinburgh were being in Jo's hometown, having a view of the castle out of our window and knowing it was right there, hearing the bag pipes in the distance playing, being with 2 equally crazy Harry Potter fans that would understand if I burst into tears, gasped, or whatnot, being able to just lay in bed till all hours of the night or past morning to read, and, lastly, finishing the book at the place Jo first started writing the books.
Anyway, after we finished the book, we went back to the hostel, talked about it, and I zonked out around 12:30am. I had been going on 2.5 hours of sleep for 39 hours. Did I mention the first night at the hostel I slept 11 hours?! It was the first really good night of sleep I've had in the UK and I'm hoping tonight has the same thing happen!
Anyway, this morning check out time was at 10am so we got up at 8am and packed up. After we put our stuff into the luggage storage room at Castle Rock we walked down the OTHER end (all the way to the other end, in fact) of the Royal Mile (actually called Lawnmarket) and went to the Holyrood Palace. THAT was neat! We had muffins/tea/OJ/scones for breakfast (different stuff for the 3 of us) and got our ticket to the palace. It was cheaper thant he castle and they handed out "free" headsets. Without the headsets, I must admit, it would have been really boring. The palace has some amazing history and just elaborate stuff in it. You only really saw the 2nd floor and Mary of Scotts chambers. Other than that, it was mostly closed off, which makes sense since the palace is still used for the Queen.
After that, I asked if we could go to the post office so I could post my cards, but when we got there we all remembered it's SUNDAY! So I couldn't. We were going to go find a post box somewhere, but had to run by the train station to change Kate's ticket. Well, we arrived 5 minutes before Kate's train was supposed to leave and she couldn't change it then and buying a whole new ticket was WAY too much. So we did a 1 minute panic where Kate asked if I could carry her bag home on the train (I was leaving at 1600), we quickly found her platform, she gave us hugs, and she left. Thank goodness we went when we did! If she missed her train, that would have been a BIG bummer.
After that, Maria and I went to lunch at Bobby's Something. It was named after that dog that was a police dog or something and when his owner died, the dog stayed by the grave till it died (14 years). I guess Disney did a movie loosely based off of that. Anyway, that's where we ate because a few Leaky people tried to take us there earlier in the week, but it closed at 8pm! The food was great (the best so far). Maria and I were sitting there and saw a jacket that looked like Marie's and I said wouldn't it be funny if we ran into her today? Well, we were finishing up our food and guess who walks in - Marie! So she ordered and since Maria and I had nothing to do we sat with her and talked about the book some more. A bit after 3 we went back to Castle Rock to get our stuff and we went to the train station where I caught my train and Maria was going up to the bridge to catch a bus to the airport to catch her plane (a couple hours early).
I caught the train, tried to snooze, got off at Doncaster, waited for 15 minutes and got back onto the train at the same platform as I had gotten off to go to Grantham. Kate met me there and I'm now at her house.
Tomorrow I leave for London on a train from Grantham to Kings Cross (I need to find someone to take my picture there...) and the tube from Kings Cross to Piccadilly Circus where I will walk the few minutes to my hostel, meet up with Moriah, and check-in! I'll be in London till I leave this Friday the 27th. I'll try to update while I'm in London, but we'll see since I won't have easy accessibility to a computer and have to buy time on the computers at the hostel. Now that I've said that, I'll probably do it for sure. LoL
I've got loads of pictures (I'm at almost 250 pictures, though at least 30 will be deleted since they're bad ones and I just didn't delete them and just retook them). :P
With that, I must buy my train ticket and tube Oyster card and go to bed since I'm started to feel dreadfully tired.
Laters!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Dinner at the Elephant Room
Back from dinner (or for about an hour now) and we went to the Elephant Room, which is the place that JK Rowling wrote the first book!! It was small, cute, and the food not too bad. It is a cafe, so nothing elaborate. We were told the seat/table she sat in while there too. We didn't sit near it or anything.
This is completely random, but the beef here tastes different. It's a different texture and slightly different in taste. It seems to be the norm, also, to have salads with VERY little dressing or none at all. I find it intriguing (don't mind it either) since you're ALWAYS asked what kind of dressing you want on your salad in the US (unless it's a pre-determined dressing, of course). The bacon is different too. It reminds me more of ham than the bacon I'm used to. It's quite nice, to be honest.
Anyway, Maria and I walked around Old Town Edinburgh after we got settled in the hostel. We walked around for some hours. I think we know most of Old Town pretty well now. We're waiting to do the castle till tomorrow since Kate arrives then. We're also going to go see OotP tomorrow and know the theater. We're going to see it before we go and "queue" up for the book at Waterstones. Man, walking up that hill back to our hostel at night is not going to be fun, but oh well. We'll have the book!
Coming back from walking with 1.5 hours till we met up with the Leaky people for dinner, we went back to the hostel (looking in the shops on the way). I fell asleep! So did Maria! We were to meet them at 8:30 at Deacons and Maria wakes me up at 8:25! Lucky for us the Deacon is really close to our hostel. We got there a few minutes late, not too bad.
The funny thing when coming back is Maria and I found out the lighting in our room in the hostel is not good at all. It won't be good for reading. Lucky for me I brought a booklight, but Maria and Kate will have to fight for the light from the one in the room. :P
Anyway, Maria just asked me if I'm writing another novel and we haven't done much since, so I probably should go.
This is completely random, but the beef here tastes different. It's a different texture and slightly different in taste. It seems to be the norm, also, to have salads with VERY little dressing or none at all. I find it intriguing (don't mind it either) since you're ALWAYS asked what kind of dressing you want on your salad in the US (unless it's a pre-determined dressing, of course). The bacon is different too. It reminds me more of ham than the bacon I'm used to. It's quite nice, to be honest.
Anyway, Maria and I walked around Old Town Edinburgh after we got settled in the hostel. We walked around for some hours. I think we know most of Old Town pretty well now. We're waiting to do the castle till tomorrow since Kate arrives then. We're also going to go see OotP tomorrow and know the theater. We're going to see it before we go and "queue" up for the book at Waterstones. Man, walking up that hill back to our hostel at night is not going to be fun, but oh well. We'll have the book!
Coming back from walking with 1.5 hours till we met up with the Leaky people for dinner, we went back to the hostel (looking in the shops on the way). I fell asleep! So did Maria! We were to meet them at 8:30 at Deacons and Maria wakes me up at 8:25! Lucky for us the Deacon is really close to our hostel. We got there a few minutes late, not too bad.
The funny thing when coming back is Maria and I found out the lighting in our room in the hostel is not good at all. It won't be good for reading. Lucky for me I brought a booklight, but Maria and Kate will have to fight for the light from the one in the room. :P
Anyway, Maria just asked me if I'm writing another novel and we haven't done much since, so I probably should go.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Welcome to Piccadilly!
Laurie and I have our London reservations for where we are staying!
We are staying at the Piccadilly Backpackers in a double room for 4 nights (arrive 23rd, depart 27th). We decided on a double/twin room because it gives us more privacy with all our stuff. Though each room comes with a small locker of sorts, having a room to our own will make us just that much more relaxed to know no one else can get to our stuff. This hostel also had the best location of any place we've checked out, so far. Good location (pretty central London) at a "cheap" price. We could have stayed at somewhere cheaper, but further out from central London and then we'd have to take the bus in or something. Just didn't seem worth it to us.
On another note, JK Rowling announced yesterday that she will be in London for the book release (20th). She will be doing a book signing for 1,700 fans/kids. Unfortunately, you have to send in an entry and Scholastic (for those who live in the US) only allows it for people under 21. Bloomsbury (for those who live in the UK/Rep. of Ireland) allows anyone of the age of 6 and older to apply. Thus, Laurie and I are a bit, uhm, screwed. :) I'm 21 NOW. *sniffles* Oh well. Kate and Maria can both apply, but Kate wouldn't want to go if she can't without us and Maria can't change her flight, so what's the point? Anywho, this long rambling paragraph is to say that we will be continuing on with our plans to go to Edinburgh for the release. Does it kill me? Yes. Will l get over it? Probably.
Days till departure: 53
I'm getting to the point where I'm excited, but also depressed. The book will be finishing and that means summer is almost over TOO! Hahaha. Must look at the good points; I'm meeting Maria, Kate, and Laurie and I'm going to the UK!!
We are staying at the Piccadilly Backpackers in a double room for 4 nights (arrive 23rd, depart 27th). We decided on a double/twin room because it gives us more privacy with all our stuff. Though each room comes with a small locker of sorts, having a room to our own will make us just that much more relaxed to know no one else can get to our stuff. This hostel also had the best location of any place we've checked out, so far. Good location (pretty central London) at a "cheap" price. We could have stayed at somewhere cheaper, but further out from central London and then we'd have to take the bus in or something. Just didn't seem worth it to us.
On another note, JK Rowling announced yesterday that she will be in London for the book release (20th). She will be doing a book signing for 1,700 fans/kids. Unfortunately, you have to send in an entry and Scholastic (for those who live in the US) only allows it for people under 21. Bloomsbury (for those who live in the UK/Rep. of Ireland) allows anyone of the age of 6 and older to apply. Thus, Laurie and I are a bit, uhm, screwed. :) I'm 21 NOW. *sniffles* Oh well. Kate and Maria can both apply, but Kate wouldn't want to go if she can't without us and Maria can't change her flight, so what's the point? Anywho, this long rambling paragraph is to say that we will be continuing on with our plans to go to Edinburgh for the release. Does it kill me? Yes. Will l get over it? Probably.
Days till departure: 53
I'm getting to the point where I'm excited, but also depressed. The book will be finishing and that means summer is almost over TOO! Hahaha. Must look at the good points; I'm meeting Maria, Kate, and Laurie and I'm going to the UK!!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Randomness and Waterstones
Days till departure: 81
It's getting closer and closer, yet it still seems SO far away. Laurie and I have both sent in for our passports and, of course, haven't received them. I don't expect to get mine till the end of May (at the soonest).
We all have decided to get our book at Waterstones at 13-14 Princes Street in Edinburgh. Some other Leaky Staffers are also going there to get there book. Apparently for one of the book releases MANY books ago, Jo (JK Rowling) showed up at the OTHER Waterstones on the other end of Princes Street. How cool is that? Not that it'll happen this year since she'd be mobbed, but it's still neat to know. From what I hear, this Waterstones (the one we're going to) is the larger of the two.
Here's a google map from our hostel to the bookstore. They're driving directions, not walking directions, so that's why we go around and backtrack a bit.
*pssttt* click the picture to make it bigger, if you didn't know.
It's getting closer and closer, yet it still seems SO far away. Laurie and I have both sent in for our passports and, of course, haven't received them. I don't expect to get mine till the end of May (at the soonest).
We all have decided to get our book at Waterstones at 13-14 Princes Street in Edinburgh. Some other Leaky Staffers are also going there to get there book. Apparently for one of the book releases MANY books ago, Jo (JK Rowling) showed up at the OTHER Waterstones on the other end of Princes Street. How cool is that? Not that it'll happen this year since she'd be mobbed, but it's still neat to know. From what I hear, this Waterstones (the one we're going to) is the larger of the two.
Here's a google map from our hostel to the bookstore. They're driving directions, not walking directions, so that's why we go around and backtrack a bit.
*pssttt* click the picture to make it bigger, if you didn't know.
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