The Most Magical Place on Earth Deserves a Better Title Than This: Part I

This was me less than 5 minutes ago, before I started writing this post: "Alright, deep breaths. Close your eyes. You can do this. You can write about Harry Potter world like a normal person without totally freaking out. You can keep one train of thought. You can compose a normal blog post that makes sense to the reader because you are a wizard and you can do anything you set your mind to." So, with that said, I'm gonna try and tell you about my vacation to Florida and the motherland of all motherlands - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Two weeks ago I boarded a plane to Florida to visit a girlfriend. Except that technically I hadn't met her in real life before. Like, we text message and video chat all the time and everything, but since she lives in Florida we don't always hang out. And by always I really mean never. Cause you know, Florida and Arizona aren't exactly a five minute drive down the block. So what brings two girls on opposite ends of the country together for a few days to frolick around Orlando together? Blogging.

I met Mosby via her blog. In the huge, gigantic, ginormous world of blogging, one day I somehow landed on hers a couple of years ago, left a random comment on a random post, and like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, that random comment turned into a real-life friendship. A metamorphosis, if you will. ...do I get extra credit for that analogy? So long story short, Mosby is who she said she was and I didn't get catfished...nor did she try and kill me in my sleep, so that alone makes the trip a win, right?

I got into Florida late Thursday afternoon and our first order of business (besides wine... Oh and sushi for dinner.) was...drumroll please...The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

We woke up super early, made a pit stop for coffee, and drove to the park to be there as it opened. And like the punctual ladies we are (I'm not actually that punctual, but for Harry Potter I will be) we did just that.

As soon as our tickets were scanned and we passed through those turn styles we kinda looked at each other with bug eyes as if to nonverbally say, "OMG WE'RE HERE!" Who am I kidding, we verbally said it too. And that moment has to be documented right? So we took a quick selfie and then power-walked through the rest of the park to finally arrive at Harry Potter World's newest addition - Diagon Alley (queue harps and angels singing).  

Diagon Alley just opened this summer so being the newest of the two Harry Potter parks we decided to tackle that one (and its lines, and crowds, and all of the lines) first.

The main attraction in Diagon Alley is its ride, Escape from Gringotts, which is like, a roller coaster/4D simulation thing. Inside of Gringotts. Like, you get to go in it. And there's goblins for bank tellers and newspapers with moving photos, just like in the book and ohmuhgosh I'm getting excited just thinking about it again.

Is that a picture of a picture, you might be asking? Yes. Yes it is. Cause I'm an amateur blogger and don't have a scanner. There's probably a spell of sorts to turn a hard copy photo into an electronic version but since I left all my magical powers in Diagon Alley you're just gonna have to deal with a picture of a picture. Muggle life...the struggle is real.

After we successfully escaped from Gringotts on the back of a flying dragon it was time to peruse Diagon Alley.

We started by ordering none other than a butterbeer. Cause how else are you supposed to start your journey through Diagon Alley?

We then proceeded on to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes,

Stopped by The Daily Prophet,

...couldn't find Rita Skeeter however. Rehydrated with some Gilly Water,

then continued on past Flourish and Blotts,

And even cruised through Knockturn Alley by Borgin and Burkes (no vanishing cabinets for sale, however)

...we didn't stay long though; all that dark magic is bad ju-ju.

The grand finale was at Ollivanders where you guessed it.......I bought a wand. A magical, interactive wand.

My wand didn't choose me per, say. I chose it. Mostly because the little show they do where Mr. Ollivander actually comes out and pulls someone from the crowd to have a wand chosen for them, they always pick the kids. It's not fair. Grown ups are kids too OK? Don't make me stand there and raise my hand and stomp around yelling, "Pick me! Pick me!" Cause I'll do it. But I digress. I went with Luna Lovegood's wand because I liked the look of it, I love Luna, and I too - like Luna - was personally sorted into Ravenclaw House via Pottermore, the "Unique, online, Harry Potter Experience." But don't tell anyone about the Pottermore part - I have to be careful about the level of Harry Potter fandom I publicly divulge because I still need people in some aspects of my life to take me seriously, like the 27 year old adult that I am.

So after all that spell casting, it was definitely time for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Casting spells really works up an appetite.

Lunch wasn't complete with an adult (albeit, still muggle) beverage: A Dragon Scale brew.

After we were finished at Diagon Alley we figured it was time to head over to Hogsmeade. Do you know how you get to Hogsmeade?? You guessed it:

The Hogwarts Express!

We made our way over to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station and ohmuhgosh is it 

oh-so-real.

We pulled out of the train station in London and made the magical journey to Hogwarts, and it was just that - magical. Like, the people that work on the train tell you, "Have a magical day!" as you exit. I always replied with an enthused, "THANK YOU! I will definitely do that!"

And we did. We had a magical day. A magical day that ended with a couple glasses of wine in Mosby's backyard.

Cause that's where this post is ending.

I'll tell you all about Hogsmeade in another post because I think this one can only be described as "long-winded" so far. Oops. I was trying to do this logically and separate the two posts into Diagon Alley and Hosgmeade - but truth be told, we were at both places, back and forth, all day, errry day. We apparated between the two parks. Or used Floo Powder. They teach you how to do that at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, you know (not really, but one can hope). 

So there it is. Diagon Alley is everything you would imagine it to be times a million. Yes, A MILLION.

Net up: Hogsmeade!

Wait, It's Almost October?

It's weird because the more I force myself to start blogging again the more I notice I'm starting to employ my former homework stall tactics: check FB, check Insta, scroll through Twitter, see if anything good is on the Bravo network, make the dogs give me high fives, pour a glass of wine (homework and wine go together right?), Snapchat my glass of wine, etc. etc. and so forth. This really prolongs the blogging process if I'm not careful. For example I sat down here tonight just after 6 to try and blog...it's almost 8 now. In my defense though, my iOS 8 download was being a real bish and required my attention for like, 10 hours. I'm being dramatic, but part of me feels like it really did take that long. 

Anyway, now that I'm done blogging summer (if you missed it, read here, here, and here) I feel like I can officially get into Fall mode. It's gotten off to a good start, that's for sure.

It took me a while, but I finally got my Halloween decorations up.

It took me a while because I feel like you have to give your house a good cleaning before you put up your seasonal decor and well, we all know how I feel about house cleaning. So I was procrastinating cleaning things which in turn delayed the decorating of things. I finally got the rest of it up this weekend, but I'm still ahead of schedule right? So it's whatevs.

Beyond just decorating for fall, the fall weather is starting, albeit ever so slowly, to come around. Fall weather, or maybe more realistically, weather that's not 115 degrees, makes the concert-going experience much more enjoyable. Outdoor concerts, that is. For example, a couple weekends ago I went to see Florida Georgia Line and Jason Aldean in concert and it was an awesome time for three reasons:
1.) Florida Georgia Line
2.) Jason Aldean
3.) It wasn't 115 degrees

I was on a little bit of a boycott of country music for a while there because it was soooo annoying and super generic...and that's coming from a girl whose favorite music is country; but I feel like there's new stuff coming out and new stuff (finally!) on the radio so I've been coming around to it more often. Binge listening to Jason Aldean's old stuff before the concert actually kind of made me miss him.

In hindsight, there's only like three songs on his latest CD that were dumb and rap-ish and I'm wondering if maybe I over-generalized his douchey-ness. I dunno though cause "Burnin' it Down" is pretty bad. But maybe the rest of his new stuff will be better.

Speaking of better country music, if you haven't already, puh-lease go by Tim McGraw's new one.

It's good. It's quality. It's Classic Tim. Thanks Tim, for restoring my faith in today's main stream country music.

You know who else can restore my faith in things? Paul Goldschmidt. After an awful season of baseball, I finally got the bobble head of all bobble heads: Paul Goldschmidt.

...And suddenly everything is ok and I forget that we had the worst record in all of baseball. THE WORST. But it's ok because, Goldy. We spent our last game at the ballpark this season in his presence. Or, his bobble head's presence. Which is basically the same thing.

I'm sad there will be no Dbacks baseball in the fall but I'm happy the bleeding has finally stopped. Cause that was a painful season.

And with that, I think my life is finally caught up on this here blog of mine. So see ya in another 2 months. Just kidding. I think. If this were a text message I'd put a little winky face emoji here.

See ya September! Helloooooo October!