Sometimes, you just have to reward yourself

After what felt like a whole day but in reality was just an hour and a half of window shopping for a particular kind of dress that I had in my mind, for a special occasion, I thought why not reward myself for putting in so many hours at the mall, all by myself and without actually getting any positive result for the purpose I was there. I am a go-to-a-shop-and-just-pick-a-dress-that-captures-your-eyes-and-better-priced-and-get-outta-there kind of woman. I don’t like choosing, trying, wondering if it would be OK or not etc etc… I would go mad. But this occasion demands it and moreover, I promised someone that I will try, really really try. So I had to keep my promise. Some promises are so not easy to keep. But I also needed a pick me up after that effort. My eyes were going hazy after all that time. So went into the Sapna Book house in one of the floors on the way back, picked up this book, billed it, and got out of there. Didn’t even loiter around for anything else. I am half way through another book now. So this would have to wait for the three day long weekend  that is coming up.

I still have my reservations about this book, because it is more of a play format than a book format. But then I wouldn’t have not read it. It might have taken me time to do it. But eventually I would have. Now once I read this, I am sure I won’t be bothered to go to that play, unless and otherwise someone is gifting me those tickets 😉 (AM: I hope you read this post)

Waiting…

Whenever I cross this place, I wonder when I will be going in to watch the play. I tried to book it in this time, but it was all full and the only slots available were in end of August (I am leaving coming Monday) . So I decided to wait until the craziness would die down. But with more spoilers coming in, I wonder if it is a wise decision to put it off until later. Also heard that there might be a movie that might be made  based on this play. Wonder how that will turn out.

This waiting game sucks…(and yes, I am talking about Game of Thrones too…book and series) 

My house(s)

I had registered with Pottermore a couple of years back. But I forgot my password to login. When I tried to use the ‘Forgot the password’ option, they informed that I wont be able to retrieve it since the site had changed after I had registered. Of course it has. But thankfully when I reregistered it I was able to use my username and associate my house to my account. And I also figured out my Ilvermorny House and more about my wand too. Here is what Pottermore told me about my houses and my wand. Which house(s) do you belong to?

Harry Potter Walking Tour

During my week long vacation in London, the first thing that we did was to do that Harry Potter Walking tour that I had missed three years ago.
We took Muggle Tours walking tour and our guide was Mr. Lockhart (I swear that it is his true name) who was amazing and hilarious. I was hoping that my friend who is currently in his 6th book might be spared from any spoilers. I did spoil Dumbledore’s death for him long ago. But thankfully it was OK. We went through some of the spots where the movie was shot and the guide told us so many tidbits and inside information not just about Harry Potter but also about London and the places we were going. It also included a Tube journey from London Bridge to West Minister and the whole tour was about 2.5 hours. It was so much fun. We had some quizzes on the way. If you are a HP fan, you should take at least one of these just for fun of going out and about where the movie was shot.

Where Leaky Cauldron was located.

Can you see the Knights bus dashing down? Nope… You are a muggle then.

The bridge where the Wizards keep flying over and about

New Scotland Yard location where Ron and Harry sneak into the Ministry

Cecil Court Street – Apparently the place that inspired JKR for Diagon Alley. The Watkins Books is a very old book shop.

Wizardry object profiling in Muggle world

I have always thought of my blog and to a major extent the hard disk drives or any such storage device as an example for Pensieve. According to Pottermore’s fact file on Pensieve,

MAGICAL PROPERTIES

Memories can be siphoned into the basin to be recalled at a later date

PURPOSE
To clear the mind of certain memories; to examine memories at a later date; to show memories to a second party

That is precisely what we do over here in our blogs, at least, I know that I do it over my travel blog, so that I can revisit my travels anytime and reminisce about those moments.

Do you have any other example that can fit with the fact file of Pensieve?

Now that, that is out of the way, let us see one more object profile from Pottermore. It is the Marauder’s Map.

MAGICAL PROPERTIES

Shows the location of any person or ghost on Hogwart’s grounds, isn’t fooled by an Animagus or an Invisibility Cloak

PURPOSE

Mischief

 

When I saw this I was reminded of the Google Location services,  even though it isn’t exactly the same but still very close in concept. Do you know that you can login to your google account and enable the location services and can share your current location to people whom you chose to share with. They will be able to know the exact location of yours, irrespective of the latitude and longitude. The only difference is that it is a bit secure than Marauder’s Map because you select the people you want to share your location with and not just any random stranger (even though I think they can if they hack it a bit , I guess…every such thing has a hack or a loophole).

What do you think? Anything else resemble the Marauder’s Map for you?