The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Last week while I was in Florida for YNATS, one of the other swimmers and I went to see Harry Potter World after we were done at the meet (actually called "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter").  IT WAS SO COOL! Being a huge Harry Potter fan I probably would have found something to love even if it ended up being super lame, but it was fantastic.  After entering the park I had to take a quick detour through something to do with Dr. Suess, but once we entered the part of the park devoted to Harry Potter it was fantastic!  We walked through Hogsmeade to get to the first ride, Dueling Dragons, which was pretty good.  But the best part of the ride was probably the decorations they had along the way.  While we were walking up to where the line was supposed to begin there were flags that said things like "Go Fleur" and "Krum for Durmstrang", and other Triwizard Tournament related phrases.  Once we entered the indoor part of the wait (which was hardly anything, five minutes at most) the real cool stuff came.  We saw the Triwizard Cup and the Goblet of Fire, it was ridiculous.  And since there wasn't a big line, we could stand and enjoy the cool artifacts, and walk quickly past the inbetween spaces of the line.  So cool.

But the main attraction of the park was called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  The line for this line was much longer (75 minutes), but so worth it.  And the line for this ride was filled with adventure as well.  The line kept moving at a pretty steady pace, so we were walking slowly for almost the whole time as well.  The outside portion of the line began after a quick pass-by of the Mirror of Erised and a few other cool things from early books, like a site from Harry's battle with the Basilisk.  Once we were in the long stretch of line, there was less to look at, but we did pass by some Mandrakes and a few other Herbology Creatures.  And I found a guy wearing a Dunder Mifflin shirt, bringing a little of The Office into Harry Potter, a pretty nice combination.  The next indoor portion was by far the coolest, and obviously the most expensive.  The recreated a corridor with moving and talking portraits, and when we entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in there too, and eventually showed off a little by going under the invisibility cloak, a demonstration of video project on glass of some sort.  We walked past the Fat Lady and had another portrait tell us the safety guidelines for the ride as we passed by the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

The actual ride was ridiculous, in a good way of course.  It began when we got on this conveyor belt of sorts and strapped ourselves into seats that moved along.  As we neared the end of the track Hermione began talking and all of a sudden we were flying!  We witnessed Harry and Draco playing a Quidditch match and  ran from a dragon (who blew nasty smoke in my face).  We watched the spiders and the family of Aragog come dangerously close to eating us, close enough to spit on us, and flew through the Chamber of Secrets to see the decomposing Basilisk.  Perhaps the most terrifying part of the ride was the dementors, close enough for us to reach out and touch, and they could have sucked out our souls!  The ride was a combination of digital effects projected on a screen and actual figures coming at you in real time.  A true Harry Potter experience.

After our adventure, we passed through one of the many gift shops scattered throughout the relatively small park.  It was pretty impressively stocked.  There was everything from golden snitches to dolls of Voldemort to most t-shirts imaginable (although there was no shirt with Malfoy on the back to my disappointment).  You could even buy the Harry Potter books there, but I can't imagine why anybody would want to.  As we passed through the streets of Hogsmeade there were a few stands where you could buy Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice, it was all really authentic.  But then we saw a long line.  It was for the wand show!  We stood in this line for a good 45 minutes, but the show was so cool!  We entered the shop and Ollivander began talking, then all of a sudden picked someone out the the audience (who happened to be the sister of the girl on my relay) and she participated in the wand show.  He handed her wands and she pointed them at various things around the room, making it clear the wand was wrong for her.  When she tried to water a plant it died.  (We wanted her to try and hex him, and see what he would do, but she refused).  Then, when he finally handed her the wand she was best matched with, fans turned on and blew her hair back, and the room had a nice glow.  The wand had chosen her.  We were then directed into a gift shop where we could all buy our own wands, I obviously chose the Elder Wand, and then proceed back to the street.

The park also included other authentic attractions.  The restaurant, The Three Broomsticks and The Hogs Head, was stocked with things one might actually eat at Hogwarts, but were less than ideal for a day at an amusement park.  I wasn't exactly in the mood for real chicken or a roasted pig.  The candy shop, Honeydukes had quite a variety from Chocolate Frogs to Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans to Peppermint Toads and even more I can't remember.  It was attached to Zonko's Joke Shop, which really had Extendable Ears.  But everything was priced super high.  So we headed out to the final ride, something to do with a Hippogriff, promising to return for our Chocolate Frogs later.

The ride was pretty lame all around, it was described as a family ride, but we did get to see Hagrid's Hut and get a close up look at Buckbeak, and I felt slightly obligated to go on it.  I needed the true Harry Potter experience after all.  But by around noon we were ready to head out.  The park wasn't that big, although it was super cool.  We checked out the rest of Universal and came back later in the day for another ride on the Dueling Dragons and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  The park was great, and any Harry Potter fan would thoroughly enjoy everything from the Harry Potter soundtrack that can be heard throughout the park to the shops, although they were a combination of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, yes I did catch that mistake.  Nice job overall, Universal, although I was slightly disappointed there wasn't anyone dressed as Voldemort running around.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was fantastic.

Prelims are enough

Well, my trip to Florida is approaching quickly, and we're finally starting to work out some of the finer details.  Everyone is allowed to swim one time trial per day, and I'm signing up for the 50 Fly and 100 Fly.  However, I'm a little bit nervous.  The last time I swam a decent 100 Fly was about six months ago, and I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of all these fantastic swimmers who can consistently kick my butt.  Hopefully I'll be able to avoid the shame of coming in last place (and I think I can) since the qualifying time is a few seconds slower than my best, but you never know what kind of shame might occur.  At least I'm not in the actual race, which you have to be able to swim in less than a minute simply to qualify for!  I can't even imagine what you have to do to win.  But, no matter how my race turns out I'm pretty sure I'll have a fun time in Ft. Lauderdale regardless.  I mean, it is Florida after all, and I can enjoy it while everyone else is sitting in school back in Iowa.  Ha ha ha.  And I'll have Harry Potter World to look forward to, which will definitely be the highlight of my trip even if my relay managed to win nationals, Harry Potter wins in my eyes.

My medley relay makes me nervous on a whole different level.  We aren't in a time trial.  It's the real thing.  We qualified nearly six months ago and we really need to pull out a good, no a great time to avoid the embarrassment of coming in LAST place.  That can not happen.  There was a bit of a confusion at our last championship meet and my whole relay didn't swim together, meaning I wasn't on it.  But the other three girls swam fast, which makes me pretty optimistic that we'll end up doing alright at the meet, as long as I can pull out a fast time, too.  I've been working a lot on my stroke lately, so I think it's manageable.  I don't really think there's a lot of pressure for us to do fantastic overall though.  We qualified with a time just a few tenths under the qualifying time, so we'll probably be one of the slowest seeds.  And that's okay.  There isn't a lot of expectations for us to do super well.  No one is expecting us to make it to the finals (the top 24 teams) when we'll probably be seeded somewhere around sixty, so I'm okay if we don't go.  The finals are in the afternoon and at night, and I'll spend that time on the beach if I'm not swimming.  However the meet turns out I'm okay, as long as we don't come in last place.  But recently is was questionable if we were going to be able to go at all.

Due to unfortunate circumstances I missed the state qualifying meet, sectionals, and that put us in a predicament. In order to swim at nationals you have to swim in the state meet, probably some rule to make sure the state meet stays a competition with competitors who still know how to swim, and it seemed like that wasn't going to happen for me.  My coach somehow worked it out so I could swim in the last relay (freestyle) and someone else could swim for me at sectionals.  So I got to the state meet and we realized that if our team got disqualified our national trip we had already planned would have to be cancelled.  So our coach talked to us, "slow, safe exchanges", and I guess we took it to heart.  I probably spent a good second and a half on the block after the person in front of me finished.  But we didn't get disqualified, and even ended up with sixth place (not very good), nonetheless, everything was okay.  Our sixth place meant more, we could go to nationals.  And now it doesn't really matter if we make it past prelims or not, the fact that we get to go to the meet at all is enough for me and my team.  And obviously Harry Potter is a big part of that

Harry Potter!

Lately my life has been pretty Harry Potter centered.  I've read the books recently and have all of them on CD as well.  I loved the seventh movie part two, and it's coming out on DVD on April 15th.  But perhaps the most exciting part of my spring will be my trip to the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, Florida.  My relay qualified to go to a national swim meet down in Fort Lauderdale in a little over a month, and while we're down there my family and one of the other girl's families is going to take a trip to visit Hogwarts.  And boy am I excited.  Even though there are only three rides I'm sure there are going to be plenty of adventures down in Florida.  Although I'll have to be careful around the overpriced merchandise, I don't think those wand replicas are really worth more than a few dollars.   I can't wait!

I'm optimistic that Harry Potter World is going to be one of the coolest things ever!