At some point in December of 2003, Bridget and
myself (Jude) decided that somehow, some way, we would go to England
in time to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
And, short of the apocalypse, would participate in the weekend
HP Fan Trip
program. Our main interest, at this point, was to meet - no, hang
out! - with Chris
Rankin, who plays Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter
films.
While in England, we would of course spend time
in London, doing various embarrassingly touristy things like visiting
the Sherlock Holmes Museum and taking pictures of every spot used
as a film location in many of the English films we love. But we
would also travel outside of London, hoping to see York, Bath,
Stonehenge and many other well-known places that many American
visitors to the United Kingdom might not think to visit.
Places were on our list, then off, then back
on again. Some things were cut completely, like our plan to spend
three days in Paris (and Disneyland Paris). While other things
were added last-minute, such as deciding to spend at least one
night in Scotland (Edinburgh or Glasgow, we haven't yet figured
out).
Besides just visiting things, we also hatched
a plan that we should document our trip. Each of us are very interested
in photography and filmmaking, and this seemed a perfect opportunity
to break out our used Pentax SLRs and family video cameras to
capture nearly every minute of our trip for posterity. Once home,
we would begin to edit together our travels, and hopefully, when
finished, would be able to share our work with the world through
this website.
Through this all, though, we were constantly
reminded that we really don't have much money to play with here.
And what seemed like little things before (trip deposit of $150,
Passport for at least $85), started to pile up (full HP Fan Trip
is $500, must pay extra for Birth Certificate and Passport to
not arrive together through regular mail, plane tickets $578).
Realizing that some fellow college students
have successfully used websites to convince people to help them
pay their bills, we thought we could at least try our luck at
garnering the same results by asking people to donate to our fund
to help us visit England. Because though we have no problem dreaming
big, we can only afford so much, and currently we're not sure
how we'll be able to pay for every aspect of our trip without
being in some hot water when we return.
A valid question you might have would be, "If
you're so tight on cash, how is it you can afford to own and maintain
a website?" Very reasonable question. The answer is, we don't
pay anything. This site is hosted for free by fateback.com.
Our domain, www.sendustoengland.tk is also a free service, as
is the messageboard. I designed this website with Photoshop and
Dreamweaver, which are expensive programs but which were both
given to me for free by friends. I don't even pay for my internet:
I'm signed up with my grandfather's account, and because he doesn't
use it much, I basically have free reign of it. So as you can
see, we're not wasting money for the wrong reasons. :)
So if you can spare five bucks, or a dollar,
or fifty cents, and you're amused by our gall, please help us
out. Every little bit goes a long, long way.
