Friday, July 27, 2007

Harry Potter Village

OK, I know I am terribly behind on my posts - it's been a crazy few weeks at work, I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books (I'm almost done with book six...can't wait for book seven), and we've had two weeks of eating out almost every night!


I'm not complaining, but the blog has suffered.


Before I go in to the restaurant week updates - here are photos from last Friday. As most people on the planet know, Friday (well Saturday at 12:01am) was the release of the final chapter in the Harry Potter series.


In honor of the big event, the Scholastic (Harry Potter publisher) store in Soho put on a big event Friday evening. The street behind their store was turned in to Harry Potter village. I went around noon to see how they were setting up the 'Village'. Most of the big pieces were in place, it was a great time to take photos. The Harry Potter Village was open to the public from 5pm-10pm Friday night. After dinner we went down there to see the crowd - it was packed! I was glad I took photos earlier in the day.
This is looking down the 'Village' from the top, the Whomping Willow is in the middle of the block.
The first area was the media tent - it was properly named the 'Daily Prophet' after the wizzarding newspaper. There is an owlery set up in front of the media tent, most likely for breaking news!
The next area was the Pensive. I'm not sure what happened here, maybe you were able to think about some of your favorite moments in past books?
After the Pensive, there was a huge Muggle Board. This was an area to write down your thoughts and feelings about the book for anyone to read. The diamond shapes were gold and shiny and hanging down in front of the actual board - they were all sparkling in the sun.
Next you passed by the Whomping Willow. The top branches were filled with air and moved around - it was cool!
They also offered face painting.
And a chance to get your photo taken with the HP 7 cover art.
These are the first two girls in line for HP 7. I was there around noon, there were only about 10 people in line. We went back by the Harry Potter Village around 10pm and the line was circling the block!


Some of you should be getting packages from Honeydukes Sweetshop soon - enjoy!