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| Harry Potter Studio Bus |
July 16 – August
14, 2018 – “The London 15” – OBU Student Abroad in London, England 
This summer, I had the privilege of spending a month
in England with a group of 15 students from Oklahoma Baptist University. Dr. Lindsey Panxhi (an English faculty
colleague) and myself, along with our respective spouses, conducted a
faculty-led Study Abroad that spent four weeks on the ground in London teaching
OBU courses to OBU students while being immersed in the culture and history of
Great Britain. These are our stories! 
Saturday, July
28 – Harry Potter Day!
Up early this morning – Vanessa and I took Saydi and
headed to Euston station to catch a train to Watford Junction, to get on the
Harry Potter Studio tour bus – a double-decker painted with scenes from the
movies, which took us to the Warner Brothers Studio where the bulk of the films
were made. From 9-3, we walked through
the tour buildings. The whole experience
was very impressive.
There were two main warehouses and then an outdoors
“backlot” with the Knight Bus and 4 Privet Drive and the Hogwarts Bridge. The warehouses displayed costumes,
prosthetics, props, and sets – all of which were impressive. The attention to detail was amazing – they
even developed unique products (cereal = “Cheerie-Owls”) to put on the shelves
in the Weasley home! There are things
that viewers will likely never notice, but all add a level of detailed
authenticity to the films. 
A few of the sets that really impressed me:
1. The Great Hall – really had the feel of a Hogwarts
Great Hall!
2. The dragon – impressive engineering and production.
3. The Hogwarts Model – a scale version of the
Hogwarts grounds that filled about 2000 square feet, with a 20 foot
ceiling. It was monumental!
The behind-the-scenes look was fascinating, and just
increased my appreciation of the movies – I’m looking forward to watching them
again. We had lunch at their café
on-site, which was relatively reasonable (except for the very pricey
butterbeer, which we went without – but Saydi tried it). 
Home for supper, then we went to Primark, a local
clothing outlet. The Primark near us has
a Harry Potter section, which was a lot of fun to browse. It also had some reasonably-priced men’s
dress clothes – I picked up four nice cotton dress shirts, and almost talked
myself into a 25GBP sports jacket (really regretting that I didn’t buy
it!). We also picked up some London
hoodies for the kids at a streetside vendor – hope they like them! 
Lord, it’s been another great day in London – we are
having an amazing experience, and are so blessed by this opportunity. Thank you for the grace that You give. 
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