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| Photo Credit: Ali Niemeyer |
This morning, Islands of Adventure opened at 8:00 am, and by 8:20 we had
already ridden Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at Hogwarts. The ride
gives guests a true Harry Potter experience, taking them flying over Hogwarts,
through The Forbidden Forest, and then through a Quidditch game where Dementors
attack and Harry saves the day. After the ride, there were still no lines and the sun was only hot enough to keep a steady stream of sweat trickling down the back and not yet hot enough to melt our faces. Ali wanted to go to Ollivanders
again and I agreed because the shop is dark and cool. It’s a good thing we went, because out all the people in the wand shop, the
wand keeper chose Ali to experience the wand-selecting ceremony.
As he welcomed us to his store, he glanced at Ali and did a
double take. He walked up to her, leaned in closely, and said, “Tell me, what
is your name?” in a beautifully magical British accent.
“Ali,” she said, not even trying to hide her excitement.
“Are you here for your first wand or a replacement wand?” he asked.
“My first wand,” she told the wand keeper. And the selection
process began. First, he measured Ali’s wand arm and her height. He chose a
wand from the wall of wands and handed it to Ali, telling her she was going to
levitate a wand that was sitting at the top of a shelf, close to the ceiling.
He explained the spell, and she held the wand up high saying, “Wingardium
Leviosa!” Wand boxes began wildly jutting in and out from various shelves until
the wand keeper aimed his wand and said, “Reparo!” and everything went back to normal.
The wand keeper chuckled and said, “This is definitely not
your wand,” as he took it from Ali's hand. He offered her another one, instructing
her to light up the room by pointing her wand and saying, “Lumos,” but the
spell went awry and caused lightning and thunder inside the shop instead. The
wand keeper yelled, “Meteolojinx Recanto,” and the light disappeared in an
instant. He chose one final wand with a unicorn-hair core, and when he placed it
in Ali’s hands, a light shined on her face, wind began blowing her hair, and music swelled.
It was such an incredible moment that I don’t even know what he said next.
I do remember his last words to Ali, though. They were, “The wand learns from
the wizard and the wizard learns from the wand.”
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| Photo Credit: Ali Niemeyer |
Well, of course we bought the wand because how could we
not? It came with a map of the locations in the parks where Ali could practice
her spells. Most of the spells are cast in front of store windows in Hogsmeade
and Diagon Alley, where bronze medallions mark the spell and the motion the
wand makes. For example, in the window of Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop, there sits
a cake with a little snowman on top. Ali pointed her wand at the cake, said,
“Locomotor Snowman,” and moved her wand a specific way (according to the medallion),
and the tiny snowman began to spin around on top of the cake.
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| Bronze medallion |
We had reservations for Mother’s Day breakfast at The
Three Broomsticks, so Ali's spell-casting was cut short. I ordered the Traditional English breakfast, which consisted
of eggs, a croissant, English bacon, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms,
breakfast potatoes, and black pudding. Ali ordered the porridge breakfast which
came with porridge, fresh fruit, and a croissant. For drinks, I ordered coffee,
but Ali made the wise decision to choose pumpkin juice. Pumpkin juice is
delicious. It tastes a bit like apple juice with hints of pumpkin pie, but that
description doesn’t make it sound as good as it is.
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Pumpkin juice
Photo Credit: Ali Niemeyer |
Neither of us had big appetites, but breakfast vouchers came
with our vacation package and we wanted to sample the food. The only “English”
breakfast food I liked was the sautéed mushrooms. The roasted tomato was
disgusting, and the black pudding was totally foreign. So I Googled it and
found out that it’s actually sausage made from pork blood and oatmeal. I couldn’t
bring myself to take even the tiniest bite. The black pudding smelled bad, it
looked weird, and, well, it was black. I was upset at Britain for a minute. But
Ali gave me a Mother’s Day card while we were eating and that took my mind off
of the tube of coagulated bloody oatmeal meat. I did not mean to cry when I
read her card, but I did and then I made it all awkward. Hey, it’s what I do, and
she’s used to it.
The rest of the day was spent going back and forth between
the wizarding worlds, shopping, riding rides, and letting Ali practice her wand
skills. As the afternoon wore on, we stopped at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour for a cold treat. Ali had butter beer soft-serve ice cream, I had a scoop of sticky toffee pudding, and while it cooled us down for a moment, it soon became blistering hot and our faces were in
danger of melting.
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| A great way to spend Mother's Day |
Everyone knows that it’s hot in Florida, but not everyone
knows that it's because Florida is actually located on the sun. Or, if you
want to get all scientific about it, about 4 miles away from the sun. Ali and I
dragged ourselves back to the hotel and spent some time at the pool. We chose
our lounge chairs on the white sand under the palm trees, and then went straight
to the lazy river. We didn’t even bother getting inner tubes, we just floated
in the cool, 3-feet-deep water and talked, mostly about our cat Tootsie, whom Ali misses so much I won't be surprised if she asks to fly home early. More and more people came to the lazy river
as the sun continued to melt all of humanity, and soon Ali and I moved to the
other, less-crowded pool until she was ready to go back to the room. I lay out in the sun for
a bit before I realized that, since Orlando rests nearly directly on the sun, lying
out in it sucked and I was probably only burning myself.
Ali isn't awake to give me a Harry Potter quote so I'll make one up:
"I'm Harry Potter and I do tricks with my wand. My scar hurts."
- Harry Potter
"I'm Harry Potter and I do tricks with my wand. My scar hurts."
- Harry Potter
- Rachel
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