Visiting Harry Potter Studios, August 2016

[English version below]

Pensant que tampoc cal que el blog renascut ha de ser monotematic, aniré explicant algunes de les coses que he fet en aquests dos anys sabatics. 

Harry Potter. Al final dels anys 1990 quan Potter va començar a ser famos, jo vaig tenir l'actitud tipic que tenia quan era més jove. Si a tothom li agrada, pos, a mi no. No m'apunto a una moda perque sí. Vaig a ser critic (pensant que merament era un reciclatje d'altres llibres classics de la literatura en anglès). Evidentment, em vaig equivocar com en moltes coses en la vida. Quan vam tenir xiquets, i ells es van enganxar als llibres (llegint i rellegint, en anglès, català, castellà), vaig llegir-los per posar-me al dia. I vaig quedar enganxat igualment! Són molt bons i els recomano a tothom, igual que us recomano a 'open your minds' i no ser tant negatiu en coses noves com jo vaig ser! En fi, l'estiu del 2016 vam decidir visitar els estudis a prop de Londres on van gravar moltes escenes de les pel·licules. Increible, val molt la pena. Si sou fans, ho recomano molt. Vam fer 3 hores de cotxe per arribar (i 3 per tornar), però no m'arrepenteixo. Crec que vam passar gairebé 5 hores dins dels estudis, i una hora dins la botiga!

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To avoid the reborn blog becoming just a Catalan independence blog, I'll throw in a few posts on what I've been doing during the last two years.

Harry Potter. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I was a bit of a fool in that whenever something new came along or became fashionable, I'd always steer in the opposite direction or try and ignore it, if not criticize it. When the Potter craze broke out at the end of the 1990s, I did the same, moaning that it was just a rehash of other great kids' literature etc. I was wrong of course. Flash forward some years until our kids were old enough to get hooked on Potter (reading and rereading them again and again, in English, Catalan, Spanish). I had to read them then to see what they were talking about, and I loved them. So now we're all hooked. That's why we visited the Harry Potter Film Studios near Watford in the summer of 2016. A 3-hour drive down (and 3 hours back) were well worth it. We spent about 5 hours in the studios, and an hour in the shop,and I'd go back tomorrow if I could. There you go, give it a try!