Fulfilled a lifelong dream (well, at least MY lifelong dream) of going to Hogwarts!! As Francy is a sinner and had never read a single Harry Potter book, we spent the entire drive from California preparing him for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando by listening – and by “listening”, I mean me almost literally shoving Harry Potter audiobooks down Francy’s ears – to the books. Side note: Stephen Fry (British comedian) narrates them and does an AMAZING job.
By the time we reached the parks, we were almost done with Goblet of Fire (the 4th out of 7 books, for those of you who should be ASHAMED that you don’t know), so Francy was decently prepared at that point.
Unfortunately, one negative side-effect of Francy’s introduction into the world of Harry Potter is that he found himself a supporter of Slytherin, and specifically, of Draco Malfoy. Naturally, this developed into a contentious matter in our relationship and resulted in many fights (in fact, our only fights) in the car on our drive out East. Fortunately, Francy behaved himself and did his best not to outwardly support Malfoy whilst we were in the magical world of Harry Potter. He did, at one point, want to buy a Slytherin hat, but I of course would not allow for that.
Disclaimer: Almost all pictures below feature me. There’s maybe, A picture with Francy, mainly just to prove that he was there too.
Miles walked: 8
Miles driven: 9
Approaching Hogsmeade!
HOGWARTS IT’S REAL!!!! I KNEW IT!!!!!
A natural (obviously):
First taste of butterbeer!
Ahhhh so much excitement!!
And pumpkin juice!!
Took the Hogwarts Express over to London and Diagon Alley:
In Diagon Alley!!
Had a little chat with Stan, the Knight Bus conductor, before heading back to King’s Cross to take the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade:
Getting onto Platform 9¾:
Leaving Hogsmeade after the best day of our (well, my…) life. We’ll be back!!
Samsonite's Great Adventures 