'Arry Pott'r

 I'm takin' a break from the Holiday jabber to rehash some vacation fun.

Admittedly I'm a big dork over Harry Potter.  I'm sure you could've figured that out after seeing this year's Halloween costumes.  But seriously Harry Potter was so well written and just delightfully done that I can't wait to read it to my future kids.  It's just a damn good book.

(the broom ride is inside and you can walk thru most of the castle on your way to the ride it's really cool)

This year I had my Hogwarts dreams fulfilled and we got to visit the theme park at Universal Studios.  It's alot smaller than you'd think it would be, kind of crammed into one end of the park, but they did an amazing job on recreating the look and feel of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts.

Even Honeydukes was packed with just about every candy they had in the book, though I was disappointed with the Chocolate Frogs it was still bright and lively inside.

I sampled the Pumpkin Juice.

and decide the stuff that's fresh from the tap was better.  Yes, they have Pumpkin Juice on tap and it's actually VERY good.  I must say though I think a Harry Potter themed park would've done better further North.  It felt weird to be walking thru snow covered streets with tourists in shorts and tank tops with temps in the low 90's.  They had random walking performers stop and do short "meet and greets".  I missed the "Toad Choir" by about 15 minutes but managed to see the Beauxbaxtons.

Ollivander's wand shop even did limited wand castings in which Ollivander himself picked out one person to fit a wand to.  It was very neat, though the wait was insane.

All in all it was a fine time walking thru it all.  I'm glad we went.  Summer vacations always seem so far away once the season turns colder.  Do you remember your favorite summer trip?