HARRY POTTER WORLD! AGAIN!

We went to Harry Potter world when it opened four years ago, but since then they have added a new section - Diagon Alley! Since I was already in Orlando with my friends for LeakyCon, today we went to Universal Studios so we could frolic through Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley - I didn't think it was possible, but it was even more magical than the first time!

From the main walkway through the park, you can't even see Diagon Alley. They have some of the London scenes from the book instead:

We just apparated at 12 Grimmauld Place.

Hanging out with the conductor of the Knight Bus.

But then, tucked behind a brick wall, you enter into Diagon Alley! It's crazy cool how it appears out of nowhere when you come around the corner.

Drinking butterbeer at the entrance to Diagon Alley.

Just as the highlight of Hogsmeade is the Hogwarts castle, the highlight of Diagon Alley is Gringotts.

THAT DRAGON BREATHES FIRE!!

The day had a bit of a rough start in that we waited in the Gringotts line for two hours, then the ride broke and we waited another hour before giving up and abandoning ship. So three hours into our day we had done nothing but wait in line, and that was a bummer. But then we spent some time wandering through the alley itself, and all the connected smaller alleys, and we were happy again. As in Hogsmeade, the attention to detail is just crazy throughout the park.

This seems like my sort of place.

Inside Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes

About to get our butterbeer on.

Swooning over Gilderoy Lockhart

Outside Gringotts

My favorite newspaper!

Hagrid's motorcycle!

They also have Knockturn Alley, which is SO CREEEPY. As we were walking through it, a person in a crazy witch costume walked up behind me and started stroking my ponytail and staring at me. I saw that she had a Universal name tag on so I knew she was an actress, but my friend Ashley didn't see the name tag and freaked out. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away while telling the lady to get away from me - I was touched by her protective instinct. None of the photos we took in the Alley turned out because it was so dark, but I did get a shot of me about to enter a vanishing cabinet in Borgin and Burkes.

It had bird noises coming from inside it :/

Diagon Alley is in a different Universal Park than Hogsmeade, which is obnoxious in that it is a blatant money grab (since you have to pay more to go to multiple parks) - BUT the one good thing is that you get to ride the Hogwarts Express between the two locations!.

With our tickets!

ON THE MOTHER FLIPPIN' HOGWARTS EXPRESS!!

The ride is really neat - the "windows" are screens that show you the scenery going by with fun little things happening (like Buckbeak flying by, Fred and George setting off fireworks, and Hagrid swooping by on his motorcycle). I knew that even though I didn't get my Hogwarts letter when I was 12 I would still get to ride that train one day!

We spent some time revisiting all the Hogsmeade attractions in the afternoon, before heading back to Diagon Alley and trying our luck at Gringotts again. Happily the ride was fixed, and they had given us a special pass to skip to the front of the line because of our morning tragedy, so we got to go on it! You get to walk through the Gringotts lobby and it is amazing - but I have to get those pictures from Ashley. I did take this picture of the dial over the elevator you take down to the vaults, though:

The ride itself was pretty short and sweet - you are in a Gringotts cart and careen around through the vaults while dodging Voldemort and Bellatrix, who are trying to keep you from stealing the horcrux from the Lestrange vault.

The last thing we did before heading home was go to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for BUTTERBEER ICE CREAM (which is new from last time). They had lots of wizardly flavors in addition to butterbeer:

Strawberry and peanut butter.

Now we are back in the hotel, watching the last HP movie and dreaming of butterbeer. Pure happiness.

LeakyCon!!!

I am in Orlando for LeakyCon!!!! Yesterday, me and two friends woke up at 2 am and drove 17 hours to get here (Ben is in Istanbul for a conference so he couldn't come). It was totally worth it!!

Me and my buddies.

The sessions themselves were pretty hit or miss - the best was  Potter Puppet Pals live, followed by Dance Against the Dark Arts (which was exactly what it sounds like). We went to a panel about LGBTQ representation in the books that was really disappointing (the panelist were just not good - one said it was best Dumbledore wasn't out in the book because it might upset Christians), so we are plotting how to make our own social justice panel next year. But the unquestionable highlight of the day was that I MET LEV GROSSMAN!!!

My friend Ashley is much bolder than I am, so she grabbed him as he was leaving a panel and said "let me introduce you to the person who made the animated cross stitch video for you." He GAVE ME A FIST BUMP, said MY SUBMISSION WAS HIS FAVORITE and THE SAMPLER IS IN HIS ROOM, and WE MADE SMALL TALK FOR NEARLY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE HE HAD TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. I can't even handle my life right now.

Harry + Cherries

Our family friend is a librarian (or, as I called her growing up, "library mom"), and she told me about a traveling library exhibit on Harry Potter's World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine currently visiting Philadelphia. Today Ben and I finally got to go up to see it, and it was great. Among other things, I learned that Nicolas Flamel was a real alchemist rumored to have discovered a way to make himself immortal, and a whole lot about mandrakes. Also, it was housed at the Temple Medical School library, which was the fanciest library I've been in - it had one of those water fountain walls, and giant glass cell sculpture things hanging from the ceiling.

Learning things!

After we left Temple we walked up to the Schuylkill river and along its bank, since it's cherry blossom weekend and everything is blooming and beautiful (including, unfortunately, these trees too).

Ben is amazed by the beauty of nature.

Yay, spring!

Small project

A friend at work has been exceptionally supportive with a challenging situation lately, and she is also obsessed with Harry Potter. Hence, this small weekend project for her:

Nothing like releasing work anxiety in embroidery form!

A Very Potter Christmas

I was so sad after the last Harry Potter movie came out because I thought I had no more HP to look forward to, but this year I got not one but two excellent HP themed gifts! From my aunt and uncle, the official USPS Commemorative Harry Potter booklet:

They are too pretty for me to even consider using them as stamps. Instead I have the booklet sitting on my bureau for staring-at purposes.

From Ben's aunt and uncle, we got tickets to the Philly production of Potted Potter. Tonight was the big night, but we didn't think to bring a camera so here's Ben holding the (scroll!) program once we got home:

It was very fun and goofy - probably the best part was when they called a little girl on stage to play a small part, and then offered her a choice of being squirted with a squirt gun, or receiving a chocolate frog and having the audience squirted instead. She heaved a big sigh and said "I guess you better squirt me" - I don't think they'd had a kid do that before, because the actor lost it and doubled over before collecting himself, giving her the chocolate, and sending her back to her seat.

All in all, 2014 is off to a magical start!

More Harry Potter!

Look where I went this weeekend!

Me and my friend DJ at "Harry Potter: The Exhibition" in NYC

That's right, even though the last movie has come out, I still found a (sort of) new method of experiencing Harry Potter! Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so this photo is all I have to show you.

The exhibit had a bunch of the props and costumes from all eight movies, it was crazy how detailed they were. The annotated potions textbook from HP6 in particular was a work of art - they actually made up an entire book of potions, and then wrote all kinds of crazy stuff all over it. Other props were less meticulously crafted - the small print on Prof. Umbridge's educational decrees from HP5 (you know, these things) was just "blah blah blah blah blah."

The craziest thing was how tiny the main actors' costumes were from the first several movies - I mean, I knew they were only 10 and 11 when they started, but seeing those little kid clothes really hit home how young they were. It boggles my mind. Also, I always thought Snape's robes were black, but apparently they were really dark blue.

Next item on my agenda of perpetual HP excitement: the Harry Potter set tour in London?

Gingerbread Champion

My manager and I are both very competitive, and we both love Harry Potter, so when a friend from work invited us to a gingerbread house decorating contest it could only end one way:

Quidditch!

So technically the only gingerbread is holding up the stands, but I think it still counts. The people are teddy grahams, the capes are cut up fruit roll-ups, the brooms are pretzel sticks and chocolate twizzlers tied together with gold twist-ties, the bludgers are red hard candies, the quaffle is a mini-marshmallow, and the snitch is a dollop of gold icing. We spent a lot of time planning this.

We are the gingerbread champions!

Harry Potter Mania!

Sorry for the lack of posts all week, some friends from work and I decided that we needed to buckle down and do some serious prepping for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today. Starting on Saturday we watched one HP movie a day, each over dinner at a different person's house, culminating in the midnight premier of HP7 last night (this morning?). It was really fun to visit everyone's homes, and interesting to see the differences in how and what each person made for dinner, as well as how they obtained and showed their movie: one person owns them all already, one person got theirs from Netflix, one person has fancy on-demand TV, one person downloaded theirs and used a projector to show it on the wall...guess which one I was!

The midnight premier was SO AWESOME!! I don't want to write about the movie itself because I don't know if people have seen it yet or are planning to, but I think I might die from having to wait until 2011 to see the finale. We didn't get home until 3 am and I was pretty sleepy at work all day, but really my only regret is that I didn't have a cape to wear.

HARRY POTTER WORLD!

The excitement began as soon as we landed in the Orlando airport:

It's hard to read, but that's a giant Harry Potter World sign over Jessa's head.

We were lucky to be staying at the Universal Studios on-site hotel, which meant we got to enter the park at 8:00 am, an hour earlier than everyone else. We thought we would be smart and get there all early at 7:15, but there was already a long line by then! Still, it's good we didn't come much later, because by 10:00 the park was full and you had to wait in a super long line for a chance to be admitted later in the day, if enough people left. Like anyone would be crazy enough to leave Harry Potter World once they get in!

Waiting in line at 7:15. Ben and I are putting on sunscreen, and only Jessa realizes she is in a picture.

Once they opened the gates, the entire mob of people moved with an almost frightening single-mindedness of purpose. HP World is just one part of the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure park, but no one so much as slowed down as they ran past all the other rides on their way to Hogsmeade. It would have actually been a pretty good day to go to the park if you don't like Harry Potter, because you would have had the rest of the place pretty much to yourself.

Once we got to the entrance of HP world, I was pretty much too excited to breathe. It was just like walking onto the set of one of the movies!

The snow on the rooftops is less convincing in the 95 degree heat.

You couldn't actually get on board the train :(

They had all the Hogsmeade stores, and you could go shopping inside most of them. Once the park filled up, there were even lines just to get into the gift shops!

Ben is not properly excited about being at Honeydukes

Inside Dervish and Banges

Check out all the wands!

Shopping for an outfit to wear to the Yule Ball

Ordering Butterbeer inside the Hog's Head Pub

The Monster Book of Monsters ran around and snapped in its cage

The most expensive item they had for sale was a $300 commemorative Harry Potter broom. According to the cashier, they sold out the first week the park was open. I love Harry Potter, but I find it vaguely disturbing that so may people are willing to pay $300 for a broom in the name of HP fandom.

I was really excited to finally get to try butterbeer, and I am glad to report that it was delicious - it tasted kind of like shortbread and butterscotch, and the foam (which they add separately from a special dispenser) was like Marshmallow fluff. Apparently J.K. Rowling herself was involved in taste-testing and developing the drink especially for the park!

Mustache Sisters

The only disappointing thing was that they wouldn't give you extra foam, which was the tastiest part. Apparently the recipe, including the precise ratio of foam to liquid, is trademarked, and altering it in any way would be sacrilege. The bartender at the Hog's Head told us that someone had been fired for dispensing extra foam, but I'm not sure if he was telling the truth or just trying to make us stop begging him for a cup full of only foam.

Sharing a butterbeer with the officially sanctioned amount of foam.

The highlight of the entire park is "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey," in which you get to actually enter Hogwarts castle!

Getting ready to go to Hogwarts!

The ride itself is one of those simulators where you are in a moving seat while having wind and water and various things sprayed at you. The plot is that Harry and the gang has busted you out of class so you can go to the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin quidditch match, but - surprise! - things go awry and you end up encountering dementors and going through the forbidden forest and the chamber of secrets and other scary places. But then it all works out and you get to see the quidditch game, and then Dumbledore tells you that you did a good job and you can come back to Hogwarts any time.

The ride itself is fun, but waiting in line is the best part because the line goes through all the different parts of Hogwarts.

All the paintings talk to you!	The House Cup scores
Dumbledore's study!	Defense Against the Dark Arts
Entrance to Dumbledore's office	The Mirror of Erised

The attention to detail was really impressive. I expected the talking paintings to just look like TV screens with frames around them, but they had actually done something to the surface of the screens to make them textured like old oil paintings, complete with brush strokes and cracks. It was very convincing.

In the greenhouse, in addition to having squirming/shrieking mandrake plants, they had a whole bunch of bizarre wizardly plants hanging from the ceiling, and each post had a Hogwarts "H" emblazoned on it.

Weird hanging plants

Closeup of a post

Waiting in line in the greenhouse

Also, Dumbledore's study had a pensieve, so we could collect our thoughts while we waited.

I am thinking about how many horcruxes Tom Riddle wanted to make

I was actually disappointed when we reached the end of the line and it was time for the actual ride. Although it was entertaining to hear the attendants say things like "Make sure your harness is on securely, muggles!"

Other random things that happened:

I won the Triwizard Tournament!

Mariel and Jessa won too, but it was a portkey!

Gringott's Bank ATM

No goblins came out :(

Too many choices!

Sirius Black is on the loose! The moving picture didn't photograph very well.

There was some stuff at the park that I don't remember from the books:

The "Wizarding Wireless Network"

Also, at one point a plane came and spelled out messages about loving God overhead, I guess to try and save all us witchcraft-loving sinners. Our friends who live in Orlando said that it  does that every day! Can you imagine having enough money to hire a private plane every single day, and deciding to spend it on that?

REPENT!

In the end, it was the most magical vacation of my entire life, and I am making plans to sneak into the Hogwarts basement and live there forever.

Yay!