When Nerds Go to Harry Potter World

Libby and I did something extremely important a few weekends ago.

We listened to every. single. One Direction album. TWICE.

I know this might sound like just an average weekend for us. It was not! We were on vacation! In Florida! For Harry Potter World!

Let’s recap via crappy iPhone pictures and jokes at Libby’s expense.

When we decided to go to Florida, we also wanted to go to the beach, which meant a road trip. So after landing in Orlando, Libby and I drove three and a half hours to the beach, starting at 1 in the morning, because we have A+++ ideas. This is where the One Direction CDs come into play. There was also some Taylor Swift involved. Other highlights include: almost hitting a possum, almost hitting a deer (which, by the way, since WHEN do deer live in Florida?!), and Libby’s speech slowly deteriorating from lack of sleep until she could no longer form complete sentences.

Good times. Here’s a picture of Libby attempting to figure out how our rental car works at midnight in the Orlando Airport parking garage. I’m pretty sure Libby was saying “HOW DO I TURN THE LIGHTS ON?” while I took selfies.

Anyway, after the roadtrip, we joined the rest of the retirement community at the beach the next day, where Libby and I got sunburnt in the weirdest places. Like… the tops of my feet are sunburned. Libby’s armpits are sunburned. How does this HAPPEN? We also saw dolphins! And alligators! We should’ve played animal bingo on this trip. And then we went out for dinner in a marina and had a life changing meal in the form of SHRIMP NACHOS (!!!!). The shrimp on the shrimp nachos would not have applied to the animal bingo because they DEAD.

Then we drove back. It was a much less risky journey the second time around because, ya know, daylight and things. Please feel free to ignore the fact that I look like an actual turtle in this picture (DO I COUNT FOR ANIMAL BINGO? Oh my God.) Please also feel free to laugh at Libby’s sunburned armpits. I feel like this post is turning into a collection of selfies I took while Libby wasn’t looking.

And now for the important part. HARRY POTTER WORLD.

Guys, I brought my Harry Potter book to Harry Potter World. You might have seen it on our Instagram. How nerdy does that make me? You can be honest. Like a thousand nerdy points? Two thousand? The limit does not exist?

Anyway. I don’t know how to say this, but, uh. HARRY POTTER WORLD IS SPECTACULAR. Not that I expected anything else, but still.

Libby and I had both been to the Hogsmeade portion before Diagon Alley opened, and that side of the park is really incredible. The Hogwarts ride is really well done, the Dueling Dragons roller coasters are really fun (pro tip: ride both of them! Although, I literally could not walk straight after either of them. I kept bumping into walls and falling over. Haha.), and the shops are all really cute! (I just broke all writing rules and used “really” in front of every adjective in that last sentence and my soul is bleeding.)

BUT. Even though Hogsmeade is great, Diagon Alley is BETTER. Because it’s HUGE. And you get to go on the Hogwarts Express! And then walk through King’s Cross Station and behind a brick wall and then there’s a GIANT DRAGON on top of Gringotts!!!! There really aren’t enough exclamation points in the world for this. I mean, if you imagine all the tourists are actually wizards in disguise, you feel like you could actually be in Diagon Alley. There’s so much to see, and everything is so thoroughly detailed. Also, pro tip: the puppet show of The Tales of Beedle the Bard is gorgeous (Libby would probably want me to mention here that I accidentally wrote The Tales of the Beedle and the Bard the first time, because I’m a Harry Potter poser).

When we finally emerged from Diagon Alley after indulging in ice cream, fish and chips, and butter beer (because why NOT), we found the Knight Bus and Grimmauld Place. And in front of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, something historic happened: I discovered that LIBBY IS A FAKE FAN. I asked Libby to take a picture of me on the front steps, and she took it, but looked slightly confused while she did it. And then as we were walking away…

“OHHHH. Is that Grimmauld Place?! I thought it was just supposed to be some random block in London!”

Yes, Libby, it is. (Disclaimer: Libby is not actually a fake fan. That is a very serious allegation.) [Libby’s note here I am most definitely not a fake fan.]

Here’s the part of this post where you’re definitely going to be like, “oh man, these book bloggers are huge nerds.” Actually, you’ve probably already had that thought during this post, but here’s further evidence: Libby and I literally ran out of things to do at the Universal theme park.

See, we accidentally did Harry Potter World a little too well. We got there SUPER EARLY and we went through all the lines as single riders, which means a much shorter line. So in the end, we didn’t end up waiting in a single line for longer than 15 minutes. And we definitely didn’t plan for that. We planned for, like, five hour waits. So somehow it was noon and we had ridden on all the rides twice and we were like “What do we do now?”

We’re book bloggers. I’ll give you one guess as to where we went next.

THAT’S RIGHT. We went to a bookstore.

Typing those words out makes me feel like a loser. I mean, we didn’t immediately go to a bookstore. First we wandered around a little, because we paid $155 to get into this theme park, damn it. And then we rode the Seuss carousel, obviously.

And then we left to go to the bookstore. I’m choosing to believe that this is a perfect example of us living our best lives.