So, after a very fruitful, educational and relaxing trip to Puerto Vallarta, we came home to San Francisco. Sitting in the kitchen were rewards for Emma's Hogwart's summer school activities including a model of a Golden Snitch and some stickers of the different House crests. Emma was pleased.
It wasn't long after this that the third letter arrived. Emma was reluctant to open it. You see, she hadn't yet written down the information about the shells yet because she is reluctant to part with them. She was afraid that this letter might be a Howler. We opened the letter very very slowly (though I did give her a slight fright when I jumped), it was not a howler... phew.
This letter had one lesson with three parts on Muggle Studies.
We were to find the oldest building in San Francisco, Hogwarts heard it was called ""The Mission." Emma was supposed to find out who built it, where they came from and some of the names of the people. Of course recording this in her journal and draw a picture of the place they came from and the route they took to settle San Francisco.
Then she was supposed to go not much further to a district also called "The Mission" and she'd find a mural there painted in the style of these first settlers. The mural had lots of women painted on it and she was supposed to find out some of the names of these women, especially one that was a famous artist who painted flowers and landscapes. She'd need to know more about this woman for the next step in Utah.
Then she was supposed to go to a specific eating establishment nearby in this same district. This particular establishment is run by witches and wizards and they were expecting her. She was supposed to read a secret passphrase to the witch who served us ("A cat and a rat sat on a hot pepper"). She was to read this on her own because it was powerful and the witch would only listen to her. Once she did this, the witch would give her a pouch with a very powerful ingredient for the potion.
Well, we went to this "Mission" and Emma found it it was built by Spanish-Mexican missionaries including Junipero Serra. He was a missionary who taught about a religion called "Catholic." They came from Mexico.. the place we just visited! Some of the names of these settlers were 'De Anza', but most interestingly... BERRYESSA, some of our own family ancestors!
We then went and found the mural. We found many names and pictures on this mural including those of Queen Leliokalani, Ella Fizgerald, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, Mother Theresa and Rigoberta Menchu. We are going to find out some about these women later.
We also found the artist. Her name was Georgia O'Keefe!
Then we went to the restaurant. It served... Mexican food! Emma ordered a burrito from the waitress and then read her passphrase.
The witch-waitress then said:
"Ah, you are the Hogwarts student we have been waiting for!"
and then handed her a cloth pouch embroidered with flowers saying
"these are very powerful dried peppers called habanero peppers, from Mexico. They will make a powerful addition to the potion"
Then Emma noticed this behind us, she suspected this was a stash of very powerful potions and ingredients.
She did wonder why the photographs on the wall weren't moving. We figured it was because muggles were in there too.
Quite the adventure! We have to get it all down in the journal this week!!!
We are looking forward to what adventures we will have in Utah this next week!*
So we await the next letter...
(I'm betting it will have something to do with sea creatures, religion and the migrations of people and will be connected somehow to stuff we learned in Mexico and SF... ;)
Previous installments of Hogwart's Summer School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:
Hogwarts I: the first letter
Comments (2)
These are exciting adventures to read about ;-) but seriously, you two put so much work and thoughtfulness into this that it's /wonderful/ to read about all the idea you came up with and emma's involvement/reactions to all of this. looking forward to future installments :-)
Comment #155304 on July 2, 2008 7:49 PM |
Thanks Dave,
Next installment is tomorrow :). We went to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City Ut and then Zion National Park.
Comment #155468 on July 6, 2008 9:20 PM |