Paige's European Adventures

I rushed home from belgium to make my chair models for furniture design class. I had to finish them before I left for Barcelona to see Hannah! Here are some of the small scale chairs I made for the presentation. I didn’t use them for my final but I liked them better than what I ended up with. 

After the brewery we wandered around and obviously got lost. Almost missed the boat tour. Luckily we found the group just in time! Once we were in the boat we just ate chocolate and looked at the scenery. 

When it was time to leave we obviously were 15 minutes late to the bus making everyone in our group angry again. I think we made a few enemies in Brugge and gains a couple lbs. So much happened in just one night in Brugge!

Finally the tour ended and we decided it was beer time. We visited this Belgium brewery. Everyone there was really sassy and didn’t want to help us because we were American. They weren’t very helpful. But the beer was good and we were ready to keep exploring!

The tour was boring so obviously we had to take pictures with cats. The rest of the group was upset we were holding up the tour for this. 

The second day we went on a tour of Brugge. It started at our hostel and then moved through the city. All we really saw was a museum that was once a hospital and some of the streeted and courtyards. It was pretty lame so instead we took some awesome pictures!

Totally forgot to mention their love for beer! That night Tony who worked for AIU took everyone to a local bar to try Belgium beer. We got ours in this special Quacker, which is just a funny shaped glass in a wooden handle. 

The town is based off of just a few things… Chocolate, french fries, and waffles. We decided to immerse ourselves in the culture. These were some of the cutest shops I’ve ever seen! 

We ate french fries because apparently they were special in Brugge. They seemed like normal french fries but just with lots of topping options. I’m not a mayo person so I wasn’t really into it. But I did enjoy the tiny forks that came with the fries!

So we pregammed the chocolate with french fries… healthy. I think this is where my abroad bod began. In Belgium, they take there chocolate seriously. They DO NOT mess around. I’m pretty sure if I lived there I would just eat chocolate all day because there’s not much else to do. This scenario sounds dangerous to me. We explored the hidden side streets looking for the perfect place to make our chocolate purchases. 

The funny thing about my trip to Brussels, was that it was in fact a trip to Bruge, Belgium. This was a minor detail that we didn’t realize until the ferry ride over.

 On Feb 25th we set sail to Belgium! Our journey started in London on a bus to Dover. We got to see the Dover cliffs before getting a Costa coffee and hopping on the ferry. We eventually got to Cassis, France. We got back on the bus and drove to Bruge. 

We got to the hotel and Kelsey and I dropped our stuff off in the room. Then the group of AIU girls all headed out to take a tour lead by Tony. Once we visited a small church and wandered around taking pictures we grabbed some lunch and went to the main square. 

Our GWU friend came into town! Love how much Ariel is Cheesin in the first photo. We had dinner at Vapianos obviously, (an Italian chain we also have in DC) Then we attempted to go out but it took so long to make a plan that the clubs were all closed by the time we got to them. But it was a lovely 40 minute bus ride to get McDonalds/ street hot dogs. Someone snatched Ariels fries from her hands and ran off which was comical. The next night Me and Michelle met Quiggy and other GWU kids at Zoo Bar for happy hour then went to Cheshire Cheese which is an awesome historical underground bar. Michelle and I called it an early night because Brugge was the next day!! 

Chi Os abroad!! Miss ya Kels!!

The tour started with a movie, and then you entered through the great hall. It was smaller than I expected. But inside were outfits from each house and their dining room tables. The we entered a huge warehouse filled with props and stages where the filming took place. we walked up to each room from the movie and were able to read about the inspiration behind them. It was cool seeing Hagrids house because they explained how they made him look larger by adding smaller chairs, and the Weesley’s house had animatronics such has knives cutting carrot and needles knitting scarves. My favorites were Dumbledors office because of its architecture and Griffindor’s common room because it was so cozy. 

On a wall of portraits a movie described how they made them come to life in the movies. My favorite moving pictures were from Professor Umbridges office. Her walls are lined with china plates with painted cats on them. A crew member had to drive around london street markets and antique shops to find these tacky pink cat plates. Then the crew spent a day filming tons of kittens to edit into the shot. And thats how they made the cat plates come to life! 

The potions dungeon was filled with dusty jars, and inside were herbs and even fake animals purchased from the London Zoo gift shop. Everything was so hand done it was so over the top. The Goblet of fire was “hand carved from one english oak tree.” Im not sure how necessary that was considering a laser cutter could have done that in second but it added to the affect. 

After the warehouse, Michelle and I walked outside into a courtyard to see Privet Drive, the night bus, and the big chess pieces. Thats where we got to try butter beer and ride on Hagrids flying motorcycle! The next room after the outdoor area was filled with the animatronics from the movies. They had Hagrids head that a 6’10” rugby player wore to be his stunt double. They also had Dobby, any creature you could imaging from the Dark Forest, and the little men from Gringots Bank. 

Next came diagonally, which also felt pretty small. They said its because they will shoot next to a few fake buildings and then edit in the rest of the street on the computer. Through diagonally was a room full on CAD drawings and models of the buildings from the movie. Most of the drawings were hand drafted which was amazing. It must have taken hours to do them. The small scale models were so exact it was crazy. They used these to test camera angles and shot before filming. Then the next room was a 1:24 scale model of the Hogwarts Grounds. This was insane, it was enormous. Last, there was a room with thousands of boxes of wands. Each had hand written names in script, the name was meant to be of the wands owner, but instead, everyone who worked on the set had their name written on a wand box. 

Michelle and I spent three and a half hours at the Warner Brothers Studio. I’m positive we watched every informative film, and read very label. It was a lovely Tuesday afternoon. 

I’m the worst blogger, about to update tumbler on the last month of my life. I think the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio tour is the best place to start! Yesterday me and my friend Michelle traveled and hour and a half outside London to go to the location where Harry Potter was filmed. We got to see most of the sets, props, outfits, makeup, animatronics, drawing, and maquettes from the movie. It was amazinggg. They explained special effects and all the secret filming tricks they used. 

These five are for my movement assignment. For three of them I used slow shutter speed to show movement and for the other two I used fast shutter speed to create a frozen image.