I’m Blue Da Ba Dee Dabba Da-ee

After being tucked away in my drafts folder for more or less an eternity, here it is: a post on when I returned to Julie’s stomping ground of Hertfordshire and the obvious reason why I chose London as my study abroad destination… the Harry Potter Studio Tour.

First, Hertfordshire. The University of Hertfordshire makes up for the fact that… you know, no one has ever fucking heard of it, by equipping its campus with a multilevel venue complete with an auditorium, three bars, and a club. They call it the Forum. And as obscure as it is, British celebrities are always filming there – if you’re seen the Lego House music video by Ed Sheeran, for instance, you’ve seen the Forum. Rupert Grint, who also stars in the video (aka Ron Weasley, as anyone alive during the 21st century could tell you), actually resides in Hertfordshire and there are always rumors from some girl’s cousin’s baby mama’s mailman about how they saw him buying milk at the grocery store.

For months now, Jules has regaled me with tales of the Forum – everything from Big Sean guest appearances to waking up to “So when are we having that McMuffin date? Love, DePesh” texts – and now I was finally gracing this hot mess with my equally hot presence.

The first order of business? Dressing to impress. The odds that Rupert would also be making an appearance were approximately .05% and those were good enough odds for us. When Julie’s friends joined us to get ready, she explained to me that the Forum always has costume themes – something that didn’t occur to them until a full month in, when they were finally sober enough to notice. And because we’re college girls and college girls can never say no to costumes, we investigated the uni website to see what we were working with here.

Friday Night: Smurf

Excuse me? Surely it must be a typo. I mean, how does one even begin to dress like a little blue guy? But we didn’t let our bewilderment stop us and proceeded to decide on our own personal theme. I rummaged through my weekend duffel bag and it was exactly the kind of variety you would expect from me: black, black, and more black. After realizing that more of my clothing had skulls on it than not, we agreed goth was the only way to go. Yes, our 7-woman clique waltzed into the pregame wearing studded accessories, combat boots, and a Sephora’s worth of eyeliner. I just kind of dressed like I normally do.

Things went downhill fast. Rookie mistake #1: taking medication that was specifically advised to never, ever be paired with alcohol. It was as my surroundings began to blur together so much you’d think it was a Jackson Pollock painting, that the thought dawned on me: “Oops, I wasn’t supposed to drink tonight.”

But, like the dedicated soldier that I am, I marched onward. Julie and I led our Hot Topic crew to the club portion of the venue because yet another thing we agree upon is that clubs > bars. Bars require actually talking to guys and that just wasn’t the game we played. So we weaved our way through the sweaty mass of miscreants to the dance floor and all was well in the world – for a little while, that is. There I am, happily twerking the night away, when my head starts spinning and darkness leaks into my vision again. I close my eyes to regain balance and when I open them… it was something straight out of a childhood nightmare.

Creepily swaying on all sides of me were guys dressed as Oompa Loompas. I’m talking the green hair, orange skin, atrocious wardrobe, all of it. Full-blown Oompa Loompas and they wouldn’t stop smiling these toothy, registered-sex-offender smiles. Then, suddenly, a bunch of fruit emerge – and that’s no metaphor, there was literally a mob of people dressed like the freakin’ Jamba Juice menu coming to life in every direction. It was terrifying.

Some dude in a banana costume attempted to grind on me with an awkwardness that could rival Michael Cera and I actually roundhouse kicked the freak away because, really, that’s disturbing on multiple levels. It was so disturbing, in fact, that I assumed these were hallucinations conjured via my deadly medicine + liter of tequila combo… but then Jules began shrieking out profanities and exclaiming, “Let’s get OUT of here” and I realized we really were in a scene straight out of Spy Kids.

So I’m scrambling after Goth Julie, elbowing and knocking randoms over as I go because our lives were in THAT much danger – all while on the worst (and most unintentional) trip of my life – when the British prove there is no such thing as too weird a theme. Yes, that’s when the Smurfs appeared. Some were big, some were small. Some had miniature hats, some wore stripes. But they all had one thing in common: they were blue. Tobias Funke blue.

One smurf, who had evidently been inspired by the iconic “popped a molly I’m sweating” lyric, began to literally stroke my face and peered deep into my soul with pupils so huge they demanded immediate medical attention.

“Make it stop!” I screamed helplessly into the crowd, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

But then, after breaking free from Druggie Smurf, we were out of harm’s way. Jules and I drew a sigh of relief as we wandered over to the nearest bar to collect our composure. For her that meant ordering another round of shots; for me it meant collapsing onto a couch in fetal position.

As fate would have it, two lone smurfs had also strayed from the herd (i.e. the club) and plopped down adjacent to me. I stared Red Hat Smurf dead in the eyes and cautiously pulled out my iPhone, daring him to make a move. The bastard didn’t even blink. I felt as I imagine bomb squads do as my thumb inched towards the camera icon… slowly, carefully… until finally breaking the tension as my camera’s flash went off. Rookie mistake #2: keeping your flash on when snapping photos of randoms.

Unsurprisingly, the munchkins didn’t seem too pleased, so before they could retaliate I hurdled myself off from the couch and sprinted like an Olympian all the way back to Julie. I then made a mental note to examine my evidence the following morning; perhaps it was nothing more than the alcohol or dim lighting that caused my surroundings to resemble Willy Wonka meets Saw III.

At noon the next day, I pulled up the picture. It was definitely as bad as I thought.

And that, my friends, was the last time I ever visited Hertfordshire.