Star Wars 30th Anniversary

London, England
13-15 July 2007

Stef sent Ben and I on a trip to London for the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars! We woke up at 3:30am on Saturday morning. We left the house at 4am and drove to the aiport which is an hour away. We arrive at 5am and waited in line for 40 minutes. We boarded the plan and lifted off at 6:30am. London is one hour behind so we landed at 06:30am as well…from there we got on a train to the city center. After 45 minutes on the train we exited the station and walked to our hotel – this took us 40 more minutes since we had no idea where we were going. It was only 8:30am so our room was no where near being ready. We dropped our bags with the concierge and headed out to the Extravaganza! We arrived a little tired but excited especially when we saw all the visitors in costumes! People were definitely enthusiastic about their dress. Ben brought along a Jedi cloak and quickly put it on to transform himself into a character as well. We eventually made our way to the line which stretched for ½ mile! It was steady moving and only took us 40 minutes to get in the door. Inside there were all sorts of things to do, see or buy. It was a huge Star Wars convention. It was packed and hard to move around and each venue had a line that was very long…by 2pm the place had thinned out slightly so we were able to enjoy it a bit more. I have to say it was crazy packed though but seeing all the people walking around dressed as Darth Vader or Luke or Chewy was amazing and exciting. We stayed until the show closed at 6:30pm and managed to see (from a distance) Mark Hammel (Luke Skywalker); the actors that played Wicket the Ewok, Darth Maul, C3P0 and Boba Fett. It was a cool day. We made it back to the hotel by 8pm and got some great sandwiches, fresh fruit and fruit juice for dinner and ate it on the bed while watching the Discovery channel. By 10pm we were passed out and sleeping, gearing up for the next day. We woke up Sunday morning at 7:30am and walked down to breakfast. We slept well and were ready for a great English breakfast. We were seated in the restaurant and were pleasantly surprised to have a great buffet ready to go! We ordered coffee for me and breakfast tea for Ben then served ourselves at the buffet. We started off with some fresh fruit mix and then moved on to some eggs, ham, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. It was more than enough to fill us all up and even though we tried to stuff more food in, we couldn’t help but stop after 30 minutes and head out the door for the Star Wars exhibit. We dreaded the thought of another packed venue but were relieved to learn that this one had been open since May and was going through September – unlike the other event that was only showing for 3 days! We boarded the tube (subway) at 9:00am and arrived at Westminster station by 9:30. After climbing multiple flights of stairs from the underground (I think 150 feet underground) we arrived at the foot of Big Ben and Parliament. We turned left and walked across the bridge to the County Hall where the Star Wars exhibit was on display. We were at the doors before they opened and were happy to find 5 families in front of us. A sharp contrast to the hoards we saw on the previous day. This exhibit was more organized and more formal. If the extravaganza was a party, this was a black tie affair. It was in a very elegant setting and displayed items from the movies to include the Naboo star fighter, many pod races, costumes, story boards, miniature sets, and hundreds of items taken from the archives. This was a close look at many aspects of the films and although we were through it in 2 hours, it was more concentrated than the previous days events. All in all, it was a fun time – especially since Ben and I were able to go on a multi-day trip together and eat lots of éclairs and sandwiches from Marks and Spencer.


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