Harry Potter World

So I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I also went to Disney World, and that was awesome, but I can't talk enough about Harry Potter.

I walked in the gate to Hogsmeade as a tuft of steam issued from the Hogwarts Express and the Harry Potter music being played swelled to a climax. The moment was perfect, and Hogsmeade was just as I had imagined it. I started crying. Everyone there looked at me like I was crazy, but the experience was unreal! You can laugh at me if you want, but if you're a Harry Potter fan, you understand. For eleven years I have wished and dreamed that Hogwarts really existed. I would say that Harry Potter defines my generation. We are the kids that spent their eleventh birthdays looking out the window for their owl with a letter from Dumbledore accepting them into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We are the generation that waited in three hour lines to buy the next Harry Potter book when it came out at midnight. We are the generation that locked themselves in their rooms until they finished the book so no one could ruin it for them. I walked onto that street and all of these fantasies were realities.

I had a butterbeer in the Hog's Head pub with some friends. I rode a dragon. I bought a chocolate frog in Honeyduke's. I looked at Extendable Ears in Zonko's Joke Shop. I bowed to a hippogriff. I walked by Hagrid's Hut. I toured Hogwarts and saw Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, the Herbology Wing, and Gryffindor common room. I played Quidditch. I got attacked by a dragon, dementors, and the Whomping Willow. I ate lunch in the Three Broomsticks. I saw a wand choose a wizard. I looked at robes for sale in Dervish and Banges. I met the conductor of the Hogwarts Express. I saw the Goblet of Fire, Hermione's dress for the Yule Ball, and the Triwizard Cup. It was the most perfect day I could have imagined.

Maybe it's silly that in twenty years, the best day I've ever had involved living in the world of Harry Potter, but I've never been so happy in my life as I was walking through Hogsmeade. No one can ever tell me again that magic isn't real.

Looking Back

Last night I did some cleaning. I found some old diaries in my room from junior high. It's amazing how things change, and how some things don't. Some of the things I read surprised me. It's amazing how events can seem so earth shattering at the time but can be completely forgotten seven years down the road.

I'm not one to reminisce happily over that kind of thing for long. I read them once and threw them away.

Makes me wonder. Will I look at my journals that I write in now with embarrasment a few years from now? Will I throw them away too?