A Magical First Day at LeakyCon 2014!

Well hello everybody! Sorry that it's been a really long time since my last post. It has certainly been a whirlwind for the past month. At the beginning of the month I went to LeakyCon in Orlando (more on that later), then I spent a week in Boston with the family, and finally I moved to Washington, D.C. to start college!

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First, however, we will be discussing the amazing-ness that was LeakyCon. It was five days of pure nerdy greatness. I met new friends and hung out with old ones, I had the chance to meet some of my favorite YouTubers and fangirled with 5,000 fellow geeks.

Day one was check-in day and Open at the Close. On July 12th at 1:00 pm, I was lucky enough to get one of the 1,500 tickets to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter until 2:00 am. After waiting in line for four hours and eating a Nutelle crêpe, I boarded the bus and headed to the WWoHP for my adventure!

My friends and I decided to rush through the park to Diagon Alley to ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.

You can see Gringotts in the way back

It was breathtaking to walk into a world that I had read about and seen in movies. The attention to detail was astounding and there was music playing . . . It was honestly one of the best days of my life.

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The four of us waited in line for about five hours before finally going on the ride. The outside portion of the ride was boring, but the lobby was amazing. There were goblins moving and acknowledging people in the line and Griphook was at the back of the lobby talking with guests as they moved on by.

The ride itself was definitely worth the wait, even though there were some audio problems during one of the scenes. But it was okay because I told one of the employees and she put us back on the ride! So even though we waited for five hours, we got to go on the ride TWICE!

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Next on the list was taking the Hogwarts Express from London to Hogsmeade. The inside of Kings Cross was really cool and had the advertisement from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince that Dumbledore and Harry look at in the beginning of the film. My friends and I kind of freaked out when we turned the corner and saw this!

Before getting into the room with the Hogwarts Express, you have to run through the wall like Harry and his friends do in books. And Universal has come up with a way to do it that is amazing!

Being in one of the carriages looking out of the "window" at the passing landscape and watching Harry, Ron and Hermione (which totally was not Emma Watson) in the hallway was one of the most surreal moments of my life. This video is POV video of the ride going both directions.

At this point in the night, it was too dark for me to take any good photos outside. But over the next few hours we rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (the Hogwarts ride) twice, ate our free dinner (included with our ticket), went shopping for HP merchandise and sang Happy Birthday to JK Rowling and Harry Potter at midnight on July 31st. We also met Joanna Sotomura from Emma Approved and Mary Kate Wiles from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Here are the rest of the photos that I took that night and early morning. 

This is a very dark photo of the Knockturn Alley sign.

Now this is what its supposed to look like. Link to Photo.

Open at the Close ended at 2:00 am, when we herded back onto the buses with our aching feet and heavy shopping bags. Due to some unforeseen difficulties (the bus did not drop me off near parking) I ended not getting back to out hotel in Disney until 3:10 am.

The next day at LeakyCon was pretty busy with a lot of meet ups and wandering around the Marketplace, but you will hear about that in the near future.

Again sorry about the long hiatus between blog posts, hopefully I will be able to write about the next two days of LeakyCon this weekend. But I hope that you enjoyed!

Love,
Kara

A Week of Movies

Last week I saw three movies with friends and family. I love going to the movie and escaping to another world for a few hours. I like every genre of movie, except horror films. My favorite films range from Midnight in Paris to The Avengers to Harry Potter to Frozen, so it is no surprise that I saw a variety of movies last week.

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So last Tuesday, a friend and I saw Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. It is an action film about a soldier named Cage (Cruise) who is stuck in a time loop and has to try to stop a war against aliens, with the help of Rita (Blunt). I thought that the movie was entertaining and funny, but not amazing. While I didn't love it, I was glad to get out of the Florida heat for a while.

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The next day (I know, I'm crazy) a few friends and I saw Chef written, directed and starring Jon Favreau. Favreau plays Chef Carl Casper who quits his job in a restaurant after a bad review and decided to open a food truck. I loved this movie for many reasons. One is Jon Favreau, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey, Jr. back together after Iron Man 2. The second reason is the story itself, it was heartwarming and funny. The third reason is the food. This movie should come as a movie-dinner combo because you will leave the theater hungry! I almost wish that there was a cookbook with all the recipes from the film including: garlic and olive oil spaghetti that Scarlett Johansson eats, a cuban sandwich (including all the variations) and the infamous molten chocolate lava cake. All in all, I would watch Chef again in a heartbeat.

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Dad and I saw Begin Again on Friday and it was a perfect way to end this movie filled week. It stars Mark Ruffalo as an unemployed music producer, who meets and works with Kiera Knightly who is a singer-songwriter who came to the city with her, now, ex-boyfriend played by Adam Levine. I thought this was a really beautiful story and the songs were gorgeous. This is the first time I have heard Kiera Knightley sing, and she was actually very good! It was another awesome film that I can see myself watching again and again.

Overall I would give each of the movies these ratings:
Edge of Tomorrow: 5/10
Chef: 9/10
Begin Again: 8/10

Did you guys like this type of post? If you did, let me know! If you did not, let me know!

Thanks for reading!

An English Tea Party in Florida

Hello! Can anyone believe we are a week into July already? I only have six weeks until I head up to D.C. for college. These last few weeks will definitely go by quickly.

Anyway, a few weeks ago Mom and went to the Taj Hotel in Boston for afternoon tea. While sipping on our tea and munching on tea sandwiches, we decided to host our own tea party. We got some nice invitations to send out to a couple of my friends and their mothers. We took inspiration from our tea at the Taj and Downton Abbey.

Four our menu we decided on doing two courses: sandwiches and then sweets. Our sandwich choices were: cucumber and cream cheese, coronation chicken salad, shrimp salad, egg salad, prosciutto and melon and salmon and cream cheese. We had a variety of breads for these sandwiches: rye for the egg salad, and salmon and cream cheese; whole wheat for the cucumber and cream cheese, coronation chicken salad and some of the prosciutto and melon; and white for the shrimp salad, and some of the prosciutto and melon.

For the sweets I baked scones with raisins and golden raisins and made little lemon tarts. For the lemon tarts I bought same phylo dough cups and scooped some lemon curd into each one. I then placed a blueberry on all of them and refrigerated them until it was time to serve. We also bought chocolates from Sweet Divas, and some benne wafers and ginger snaps from Southern Sisters Bakery in Charleston. There were also some strawberries, Devonshire cream, and Raspberry Peach Champagne Jam.

Now onto to the tea, which is arguably the most important part of the event. I mostly drink black teas, but Mom wanted to get a variety of teas to try. Went to the Hooker Tea Company to get Earl Grey, a white tea and a green tea. After smelling a whole bunch of teas, we decided on a white tea called Peachy Keen and Matcha Genmaicha, which is a green tea. We also had my favorite tea, Twining’s The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Tea, which I have three tins of because it was limited edition.

About ten minutes before the guests started to arrive, we plated the sandwiches on a three-tier stand and other glass platters, we set out ten cups, saucers and spoons, and we boiled the water. After everything was set and ready, I snapped a pic and then socialized with my guests.

When people started slowing down on the sandwiches, Mom and I brought the sweets out. These disappeared much faster than the sandwiches!

Overall, the only piece of food that wasn’t devoured was the coronation chicken. So next time, I will change that out with a plain chicken salad. Personally, my favorite sandwich was the prosciutto and melon sandwich and my favorite tea was Peachy Keen. Mom and I hope to do another tea party around the holiday season. Are there any sandwiches that you would serve?

Walt Disney World | Mary Poppins, Moroccan Food, and Flowers

Hello guys! On Saturday Mom, Dad and I went to Walt Disney World (WDW) in Orlando. For those of you who don’t know, I am in love with WDW. When I was a child my parents and I would go every Spring Break and since we moved a lot back then, Disney was a constant in my life. For the first few years, we would go to Tony’s Town Square Restaurant on the first night and Liberty Tree Tavern on the last night. It was a nice routine when we were moving around. We have now mixed up that restaurant routine, but Disney is still one of my favorite places. I hope to work there one summer, as it has been a lifelong dream of mine. Now, as a Florida resident, we have Annual Passes so we can go whenever we want. So on Saturday we took advantage of this, and drove up to Orlando.

We left the house around 7:15, to get to EPCOT early. As we were driving we saw a beautiful sunrise. I think that my favorite things to take pictures of sunrises, sunsets, flowers and water.

We also saw that Hidden Mickey by the exit for WDW. In all of the Disney parks, cruises and some of the movies, there are Hidden Mickeys. It all started when a few of the Imagineers wanted to hide a few Mickeys in the planned Mickey-free EPCOT. Now, there are books and websites dedicated to the cataloging and finding of the Mouse.

Surprisingly, EPCOT was pretty empty so I got to take a few pictures with some of my favorite characters: Dale and Mary Poppins. I’m not sure where Chip was, but Dale was more than happy to take a couple shots.

Mary Poppins and I talked about the many uses of a carpetbag and we agreed that everyone should carry a lamp and chair with them so that you could sit and read anywhere.

My parents and I went on some of our favorite rides including Test Track, Soarin’ and Maelstrom. In Norway I was hoping to meet Ana and Elsa from Frozen, but sadly they are now meeting fans in the Magic Kingdom.

For lunch, we went to the newest restaurant in EPCOT called Spice Roads Table in Morocco. It’s like a tapas restaurant, but with Mediterranean dishes. We got a variety of dishes to try and we agreed that this place was amazing.

Hummus, olives and flatbread

Spicy garlic shrimp

Mussels Tagine 

Harissa Chicken Roll

Moroccan Merguez Sausage 

Chicken and Beef Skewers  

My favorite was the chicken kabob or the harissa chicken roll. Our view from the table would be perfect for EPCOT’s firework show Illuminations. (See what I mean about taking pictures of water?)

While walking through the park, I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the many flowers in EPCOT. Every year from March to May, EPCOT has the Flower and Garden Festival, which is fabulous. They also have a Food and Wine Festival in the fall, which is delicious, as you would expect.

Dessert was spent in France, where we saw Impression de France. It is a twenty-something minute film of the landscapes and peoples of France. Since Dad and I have been there before, we have seen some of these sights up close and personal. It is truly a beautiful country.

Chocolate éclair, Mousse au Chocolat, Napoleon

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Bye!