Wizarding World of Harry Potter

It was a wet and drizzly Sunday morning.  I shout "Five more minutes Mom!" to no one in particular and go back to sleep.  Is that a train whistle I hear?  Muttering angrily to myself, I hop out of bed and rub the sleep from my eyes only to find that I am certainly not in Kansas anymore...  A cheery, round faced train conductor beckons me forward past a large red steam train.  "Welcome to Hogmeade!" he says.  "Hogsmeade?" I ask.  "Why of course, now pick up your things and head on up to the castle, Dumbledore is waiting for you..."  With a rush of realization, I take a look around with new fresh eyes.  All around me are slanted chimneys and tiny shoppes crammed together.  A hooting owl comes out of a belfry to ring the time...  I have arrived.  Falling in line with the rest of the eager wide-eyed muggles, I enter a fantastical place of wizards and witches, magical creatures, and of course, Butterbeer.  Yes, today I was in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and there is no place I'd rather be.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is truly a wonderful place of magic and mystery.  That is not prose, that is objective fact.  The Wizarding World is simply a marvel...  While it isn't large, it does have a true sense of place and a transcendent quality that allows you to suspend reality if just for a little bit.  When I think back to all of my favorite destinations I have been over my lifetime, Loch Lomond in Scotland, Chiang Mai in Thailand, Bruges in Belgium, all of those places were true destinations of distinction. However, after this trip, I will reserve a spot for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter alongside those other destinations on the list of my most favorite places.  Am I a biased Harry Potter fanboy?  Maybe...  Am I a theme park geek?  Guilty on that count as well, but when you first step foot into Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, you will literally step right onto the pages of the books and walk right into the scenes of the Harry Potter movies.  Wonderment will be all you feel living inside of a story that has so captivated a generation.  What Universal has done to transport you to the World of Harry Potter is simply astonishing...

So instead of the normal banter and longwindedness of my normal blogging, What I have for you today  is a collection of photos of the Wizarding World taken with just my cellphone camera.  Enjoy the magic.

Here are my lovely companions for this trip.  Kelsey on the left is a Hufflepuff, Katelyn in the middle is a Gryffindor as evidenced by the red and gold scarf, and Kayla on the right is sporting her snazzy Ravenclaw robe.

It is the end of our visit and we must leave Hogsmeade and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  My companions and I make the long walk home, all the while looking over our shoulders at a place we'd rather be.  I turn to my fellow muggles and say "The park is open for another 5 minutes, wanna go back up and take a last look at the castle?"  After an enthusiastic thumbs up from the mini-muggles under umbrellas, we had back up to Hogwarts for one last look...