Harry Potter: The Exhibition

Today was the day! I have finally been to Harry Potter: The Exhibition at the European premiere in Norrköping here in Sweden. Since there was no photography allowed at the exhibition I will post photos from the Studio Tour in London to give you a hint :)

I was both really nervous (the trains, bus and tram had to be on time!) and extremely excited today. I felt like I was 10 years old and I couldn't sit still. I was like that yesterday too and was so fidgety that I couldn't concentrate on one thing for more than an hour before I had to do something else. The bus and train to the big train station were all on time and the train from Södertälje was on time too. The trip to Norrköping took 1½ hours and when we arrived there the tram was on time too and I found my way perfectly (very proud of myself, I have a lousy sense of direction).

We went inside and after recieving our audio guides (we both picked English over Swedish - I can't stand the Swedish names on stuff) I got in front of the green screen and had my picture taken.

Then the exhibition began. In the first room there was a lady with the Sorting Hat and three children got sorted. Two of them (of course) wanted Gryffindor and only one little guy wanted Slytherin. When no other child volunteered the lady picked one of the adults and she ended up in Hufflepuff. Then we got into the exhibition proper. Portraits, costumes, items and furniture. The first part of the first room was basically dedicated to the Gryffindor common room and the boys' dorm along with clothes and possessions of Harry and his friends. Then there were items, costumes and furniture from the Potions classroom, Divination classroom, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Herbology. I was not pleased that the form of the Boggart that they had chosen for the exhibition was the big jack-in-a-box clown :( But it was a lot of fun to pull Mandrakes, and I think I stood there pulling them up about 10 times, trying all of them a couple of rounds xD

Then there was the Quidditch room. I have never seen the Nimbuses so close up before :) I would've loved another riding-a-broom segment like they had in London, but instead you got to throw the Quaffle through hoops. There was a lot of children there throwing over and over and having real difficulties going through the hoops. When there was room for me I went up to try. I threw four times. There were three hoops and I first tried once in every hoop and then one more time in the middle furthest one. No problems whatsoever for me. Either I was tall enough or I did gain something when I played basket ball all those years ago. But holding a Quaffle was fun :)

Then there was Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forest. Getting really close to Buckbeak was cool :D There was a segment where you could try to sit in Hagrid's armchair but the crowd of children around it proved too long of a waiting time so I decided to skip that one. Instead I got up and close to a baby Thestral. Cutie! :3 Being really close to the Hungarian Horntail's head was awesome too. There's so much detail on it. The audio guide said they made it life-size, which made me rather disappointed cause I thought it looked bigger than that on screen xD

Then there was the Dark Forces part. The first thing is the Angel of Death statue which looked really plastic and small compared to the one in London, but the Dementor prop had me creeped out and I stared at it for quite some time. I also liked looking at the Philosopher's Stone and Bellatrix Lestrange's dress. The glass case with the Horcruxes was also really interesting. The diadem was so beautiful! *_*

Then there was the costumes from Bill and Fleur's wedding along with Hermione's beaded bag. And then there was the Great Hall. Glass cases of all sorts of wizard snacks and sweets along with Yule Ball decorations and costumes. There were also the Triwizard Cup and the case of the Goblet of Fire and a glass case containing the three Deathly Hallows. Fawkes was there too, and the sword of Gryffindor.

And then it was over. The website said the approximate time for the exhibition was 1½ hours and thinking of how much time I spent at the Studio Tour I counted that the exhibition would take about 2 hours for me. Instead I was done in 45 minutes. I was so happy there and when Toni (who went slightly ahead of me) declared that that was the end I felt so disappointed. That's it? I loved it. It was amazing. But it was so quick. So to make up for it, I spent 15-30 minutes in the souvenir shop. I had heard about stuff from there via friends and looked for some things that I had considered buying on before-hand. In the end I didn't buy any wizard coins, which I previously thought I would, and I still didn't buy a Time Turner although I really want one. Instead I got the Official Exhibition Guide (which is how I remember all the things and what order they came in), my picture that I took in the beginning (which looked very fake compared to the London one, which looks much more real), a pink pygmy puff and a chocolate frog. The chocolate frogs from here weren't as big as the ones from London, but at least these ones weren't made of British chocolate (which isn't even half as tasty as Swedish chocolate) and the cards didn't look like in the first movie (like the ones from London) but I still liked it. I got the guitarist from The Weird Sisters :)

I really, really liked the exhibition. It was very different from the Studio Tour in London. In London I hadn't booked any audio guides since they cost extra, but here they were included. So most of the exhibition I spent with the guide pressed to my ear. Most of what they said was interesting but some things made me giggle. One thing that bothered me, however, was that it says clearly on the website and on the tickets that there's no photograpy allowed at the exhibition and still there were so many people there taking pictures. That's partly why it took forever by Hagrid's armchair, cause all the parents wanted pictures of their children in the big ass chair. If that had been at a no-photography-allowed-museum in Japan the guards would've checked our phone photo galleries and camera memories before leaving and make us delete the photos. I almost wish they would've done that here too... I also wish they could've sold Butterbeer on the outside here too. A glass of Butterbeer in this heat would've been amazing.

After the exhibition we walked back to the central station and bought drinks there. Then we went to the park close by and chilled in the shade from a big tree. That's when we heard a clock tower nearby start chiming Hedwig's Theme. It was amazing and so random that I just couldn't help smiling.

"Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."