One fannish weekend

Crocky and I spent the HD release weekend in London rather spontaneously, for the HD release, and also as a little treat just for the two of us to celebrate.

We went there with one of those bus tours where you spend 16h of the trip in a bus, trying to sleep in the confined space offered to you. I was glad that none of the tours the company offered were compulsory, I had not been sure about that from the beginning and we wanted to spend time together. Luckily, we were able to bypass the day trips they offered, although I would have liked to go to Eton. Another time - we need to go to London again, anyway, to meet our Pensievers there.

So, here are some rather general pics of London, I'll put the really lovely Piccadilly midnight release pics Crocky's taken in another post.

( Ah doo believe in ferries, Ah doo, Ah doo )

( Baker Street (5) )

( Random tube-y pics (6) )

( Assorted pics of central London (11) )

( Wicked (3) )

Deathly Hallows Release in Piccadilly

There was an amazing amount of people waiting in front of Waterstone's at Piccadilly even by the time we got there, which was around 4pm, most of them dressed up, some in really complicated and crafty outfits. The mood these guys were in was really great, it was basically one gigantic, vaguely scary party. There were a lot of spontaneous discussions among strangers prompted by signs or dresses about the series, too, it was just awesome. I am not usually a fan of great, big crowds of people, but those guys in the queue were fun to be around.

There were people from the various internet sites handing out stuff, even, like SnapeCasters who handed out Snape's Personal Shampoo, a lady who went round offering to paint lightning-shaped scars and Dark Marks (we did not go for it, though), and all sorts of people handing out flyers of sites we all know. We really should have been wearing Pensieve tees, I thought later on.

We learned that some of those guys had been there since Wednesday, camping outside the book store, in spite of the heavy rainfalls, and many had come from other countries, too, flown in only for the event. Queuing next to us were several "Beauxbaton students" from France, but there were also Italian quidditch players, Eastern European house elves, Dutch Gryffindors and German Gryffindors. There were Death Eaters who invited Crocky to "duel" the DA with them - or would have, if the cowards had showed up (thus, the Death Eaters automatically won after the period of grace they had given the DAers was up). There was a "Dumbledore", there was a Mad-eye Moody, there were the four founders, there were the Malfoys, there were two Trelawneys, there was a Firebolt, there was Hogwarts, there were several people with Hedwigs in cages - in short, it was a lot of fun which truly frightened my grandma, who saw it on telly.

Crocky has taken these great pics:



( In front of Waterstone's, Piccadilly )

And, a day later:
( ... at King's Cross )