Well, it is now August, and we have finally caught up with the rest of the world…at least the world of Harry Potter fans. Although the latest movie debuted July 11, and the final book hit the shelves July 21, we have patiently waited for our turn to see the new movie and receive our copy of the last book by international mail.
After several failed attempts to line up our schedule with the few theaters showing the original version of the movie (instead of dubbed versions in either French or Flemish), Ken drove like a maniac from Antwerp to Brussels after work Tuesday to try once more. Knowing that we were down to the wire on time before the next showing, we worked up a sweat during the fast paced 20 minute walk to the theater. As luck would have it, though, we sat down right as the lights were dimming for the opening scene. The next couple of hours proved quite amusing for both of us. Although the movie was in the original version with the characters speaking English, the bottom of the screen displayed the translations in both French and Flemish. We found ourselves quite often reading along in French and even comparing the spoken English words to the written French and Flemish words. It was quite an interesting experience but worth finally seeing the movie.
We were losing hope that we would ever see our copy of the final book in the Harry Potter series. We have avoided any articles or write-ups about the book and have quickly told our friends and family in the U.S. not to tell us ANYTHING about the book…even their opinions. The difficulty of this became clear pretty quickly as most people in the U.S. obtained their copy the very first day and finished reading it soon after. Just as we began to doubt if we would ever see our book and wondered if it had fallen into the ocean on the trip across the Atlantic, it arrived...yesterday. Ken gets to read the book first, but he promised me that he won’t say a word about it until I have read it too. As I see it sitting on our desk, it takes all of my will power not to push aside my “to do list” and spend the day reading. Hopefully it is worth all of our excitement and anticipation.