Deathly Hallows

I finally finished reading the new Harry Potter book (Christine had to help me sound out some of the bigger words). It was good and all, but I could have done without the Hollywood/Happily Ever After ending. I think it would have been way more compelling to end it with the chapter where Voldemort "kills" Harry.

I was put off by how contrived things were in this book. It was like Rowling was inventing the rules that govern that world in order to build a story, which I guess is one of the nice things about writing about a fictional world. The loopholes in the wizarding "physics" (that somehow hardly anybody in all the years of wizarding had figured out) was hack. Maybe I'm no fun and that's why I prefer non-fiction on the rare occasion that I actually pick up a book.

I don't know how the Harry Potter licensing works, but I would expect to see some spin-off books involving the children in that were introduced in the (shiny, happy) epilogue. And I wouldn't be surprised to see a prequel (a great way to rehash beloved characters that got axed in the last installment).

Harry Potter

It's going to be Harry madness with the movie and book coming out soon and we're trying to get all geared up. Speed reader Christine has blazed her way through 4 of the books (and she's mostly done with the 5th) in the past couple weeks and we listened to the 6th book (Half Blood Prince) on our trip. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie (maybe even at the Imax in Denver) and reading the new book after Christine is done. At her speeds, I should be able to pry the book from her within a day of its release. Then I'll take the next month to read it. :)

London - Wimbledon, Potter, Walking

We arose early this morning so we could walk to the train station with Christine's dad. The station is about 1.25 miles from the house, and he walks it every day. Combined with the other walking he does in the city, he gets a lot of walking exercise.

From the train station, we jogged back home to eat and shower. Then it was back to the train, this time for our own trip out. Our first stop was Wimbledon. Centre court tickets are pricey, but we got some grounds tickets to check out some of the action on the other courts. It was cool to see it all in person. The grounds crew was certainly getting a workout unrolling and rolling the tarps when the rain came.

Eventually we made it in to the city with the goal of checking out the Tour de France prologue course to try and find some good places to stand. We also stopped in a pub and had a couple classics: bangers and mash, and fish and chips. Along with a beer of course.

We were on the subway headed back out of town when Christine noticed a news story about a Harry Potter premier today. We were close (just a couple tube stops away), so we decided to check it out. Quite the mad house. It was a big movie premier; something that we hadn't seen before. We were there towards the end, and I actually got to see Harry Potter walk by and into the mass of screaming young girls.

Another long day and we're back with the fam. Tomorrow we have to get up even earlier so we can catch our train to Bruges, Belgium. Mmmmm, chocolate and beer.