Day: March 9, 2019

Harry Potter World and studio tour

On Saturday we all got up insanely early because Clarissa crawled into bed with Lydia and me around 4:45am, and then the kids were up about an hour later. So we gave everyone baths and then walked around Hollywood. We stepped out of our Airbnb literally onto the Hollywood sidewalk stars, so we spent a lot of time searching the stars for names the kids know (Daniel Radcliff and Emma Watson, to be specific. We found Daniel but not Emma.).

Then we went to breakfast at Mel’s Diner. The food was overpriced and not great, but the atmosphere felt very appropriate. We were still so hungry after breakfast, so we went to a donut shop on the Hollywood strip (I really don’t know what you call it, but the part of Hollywood where they have stars on the sidewalk. It reminded me of Vegas so I am calling it the “strip.”).

This superman made a beeline for Ammon and then insisted we take a bunch of pictures with him. We were naive and thought it was fun, so we did. As soon as we were done, the Superman informed us that his fee was $10. Abe only had $3 in his wallet, so we gave him that instead. He was a really nice Superman, though, even if he was kind of sneaky.

After this we headed over to Universal Studios. We were so excited to visit Harry Potter world!!!

I didn’t anticipate the lines at Universal. They were worse than Disney on Memorial Day weekend! I was on my period and have plantar fasciitis, and my main memory of this day was physical pain from standing in line for hours and hours (no exaggeration) and carrying Clarissa (Abe and I passed her back and forth).
Ollivander’s wand shop.
Lydia got Fleur Delacouer’s wand.
The talking portraits in Hogwarts. I wish we had gotten pictures of the greenhouse, but honestly, Clarissa was so hard to control in the line and I was in so much pain that it wasn’t an option at the time.
Flight of the hippogriff

Practicing spells

Lydia in her Ravenclaw robes. I thought she would want Gryffindor, but she went straight for Ravenclaw.

After we had toured the castle, done the rides (well, Abe and the kids did those), procured wands and practiced our spells, we ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks. We were starving and it was deeeelicious.

After this we went to the studio tour line.

Oh. My. Gosh. It was seriously the longest line I have ever stood in (almost two hours of passing Clarissa back and forth and snapping at Ammon, who kept trying to escape, all the while on the heaviest day of my period and suffering through the plantar fasciitis pain). I kept looking at how far we had to go and feeling waves of despair each time. The only way I survived this line was meditating hard on how transient time is, how God exists out of time, and how at some sure moment I too would exist out of this specific spot in time. And hooray, here I am blogging from my spot in time NOT IN THIS LINE.

The studio tour ended up being Lydia’s favorite part of the trip, which is saying something because Harry Potter world did not in any way disappoint. The studio tour had a 3D experience of King Kong fighting dinosaurs, flash floods, earthquakes, car chases, Jaws eating a diver, a thunderstorm, lots of set displays, and was just very exciting.

After this we were about to head home, but Abe noticed a special effects show and we got almost front row seats. It was an INCREDIBLE show, with a woman getting lit on fire, stunts galore, and sound effect demonstrations. We were so happy to end off Universal this way.

After this we headed back to our Airbnb in Hollywood, where we picked up some pizza and went to bed.