One thing you should probably know about me and Ben is that we are both more than a little bit obsessed with Harry Potter. Somewhere during the course of planning our trip down to see Nick, we discovered that Savannah was a mere five hours from Orlando Florida and the Magical Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Only 5 hours each way?? Surely we must go.
And so that is why, on our second day in Savannah, we left Nick's apartment at 6am to drive to Orlando. I really needed coffee. But I was also freakishly excited. This combination resulted in strangeness.
...you'll be seeing that face a lot over the course of this post. I apologize in advance.
The drive was relatively painless, and we were very entertained by the Deejays of Jacksonville, FL's morning show... and Jacksonville in general. Every time we stopped there, something strange happened, such as a catfight at a gas station and the woman who spent 5 minutes telling Ben about her digestive problems and wondering if maybe she should eat something today other than ice cream. But those are other stories for another time.
We wandered through the park for a bit - and I had to take a picture of all these Evil Eyes because they made me feel like I was back in Istanbul. Finally... we reached Hogsmeade! Hooray!!!
... there's the face again....
Personally I thought it was a bit much to have the buildings permanently covered in fake snow, even when it was 97 degrees... but the Hogsmeade buildings were adorable, and thanks to the overly-warm weather, nothing was overly crowded. We immediately hit up the Three Broomsticks for a delicious lunch of turkey leg, cornish pasties and butterbeer!
The turkey leg was delicious - actually all of the food beat most theme park food I've had. Butterbeer was cold unfortunately (I always felt it should be warm, like hot buttered rum... but I get that in Florida probably not a lot of people want hot buttered rum...), but it still tasted great - it was very rich though - Ben and I shared one and still didn't quite finish it.
Pretty sure this leg came from some crazy mutant turkey.
This is probably my favorite picture from the whole day. It's too bad the train conductor left to take his coffee break right as we got to the Hogwarts Express, but I think it's a pretty good shot anyways :) Then... off to HOGWARTS!!!
OMG HOGWARTS OMG!!!
Ahh the little village of Hogsmeade. Love the crooked chimneys. After our tour of Hogwarts, we waited in line for almost 30 minutes to see Ollivander's wand shop.
This is probably my favorite picture from the whole day. It's too bad the train conductor left to take his coffee break right as we got to the Hogwarts Express, but I think it's a pretty good shot anyways :) Then... off to HOGWARTS!!!
OMG HOGWARTS OMG!!!
Ahh the little village of Hogsmeade. Love the crooked chimneys. After our tour of Hogwarts, we waited in line for almost 30 minutes to see Ollivander's wand shop.
It was totally worth it though. "Ollivander" re-enacted the whole wand selection ceremony, and completely made this little girl's day (and her dad's too! He was this big, sweaty muscle-shirted bald dude, but when "Ollivander" picked his daughter for the wand demo he just started beaming from ear to ear...cutest thing ever).
Later in the wand shop I picked out my own wand! Obviously, I wasn't making it out of there without a wand, and I also bought one for my friend Tessa as a birthday present. This pic is when I was trying to decide between two wands, and the shop worker told me to "close your eyes, swish and flick! choose with your heart, not with your head."
Later in the wand shop I picked out my own wand! Obviously, I wasn't making it out of there without a wand, and I also bought one for my friend Tessa as a birthday present. This pic is when I was trying to decide between two wands, and the shop worker told me to "close your eyes, swish and flick! choose with your heart, not with your head."
And obviously we got a chocolate frog. And then we hit ridiculous traffic on the way home and ended up eating at IHOP because there was nowhere else convenient to stop - I had French Toast for dinner. There is so nothing wrong with that.
Welp, now that you all realize what a HUGE dork I am and probably stop reading my blog... yeah. Next up: Chicago!
Bahaha this is a post I needed to see! Just yesterday I was talking with my friends about wondering what the authenticity was like. Was it really awesome? Because I so badly wish that that whole mystical world could be real... and I dunno I just have high expectations lol :p my imagination. It looks like you had fun though, so I'm going to take that as a good sign :)
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p.s. I always loved how mammoth the turkey legs at theme parks are. They force you to eat them in such a primitive way, it's awesome. Random thing... I think eating primitively is fun :]
Yay! Another HP fan!! I was definitely skeptical about the whole theme park concept... they usually make everything so cheesy and touristy. Overall I'd say it was really well done, but you can't really get around the fact that it's at Universal Studios. I'm in the same boat as you - I want it to be real! And it's really hard to pretend that it's real in the middle of a bunch of tourists, there are lines for everything, it's 97 degrees, and when you can't actually just run amok in Hogwarts (saddest part probably...le sigh). So I guess it was definitely still a theme park.
ReplyDeleteI love eating primitively - food so does not need to look pretty to be delicious. I used to always get the Turkey Leg at Disney when I was little and pretend I was roughing it on a ship with pirates or something (why pirates on a ship would be eating a turkey leg... I have no idea. just what my 7 year old mind dreamed up).
LOVED this post! :D I'm going there in two weeks so this post really helped me get a taste of what to expect!! thanks! :)
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