To celebrate the release of the last book in the Harry Potter series, the town of Sandwich transformed itself to celebrate Harry Potter Day, so fellow fan and pal Vicki and I decided to check it out.
Sorry to say we arrived at the school too late to enjoy what we later heard was a terrific Quidditch match.
Eager to get in on the fun, we stuck out our thumbs and hopped aboard the Knights Bus, which took us into town.
In town center, we found a variety of witch crafts being practiced everywhere we looked!
As they say at the circus, children of all ages were getting into the act.
These young wizards were stopping to complete their Marauders' Maps, in hopes of winning a stuffed Hedwig the owl.
Here's Vicki and I chilling with The Boy Who Lived on Main Street. Yes, friends, the Midnight Gardener owns a shirt reading "Hairy Potter." Am I not the most delightful geek?
Next we visited the grounds of the public library and the site of the Magical Menagerie.
Whilst there, we were able to brush up a bit on our Parsel
tongue.
After a wonderful visit with this blackbird and his wizard at the Herb Shop, we moseyed off to the Sandwich Railroad Station, to meet the anticipated arrival of the Wizard's Express!
What a stroke of luck that the livery colors of the Cape Cod Central Railroad are also the colors of Gryffindor House!
Glad to say that Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were well represented, too!
Our next stop was Sandwich Town Hall, magically transformed for the day into the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, and all its various departments.
Here's the office of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catas
trophes, where clearly magic was afoot.
(Did you see the flying broom in the office photo above?)
The Shreiking Shack was one of our last stops of the afternoon, where we enjoyed the gardens along the millpond.
Really, great credit must be given to the Town of Sandwich for really stepping up and hosting the day with style. It was so much fun to see so much excitement over a book!
We had a fantastic time (and even heard Moaning Myrtle when we visited the public rest rooms--talk about attention to detail!): Thank you, Sandwich!!
Once we'd seen it all, we enjoyed a special Wizard's Afternoon Tea at a local tea shop--Mrs. Weasley's Egg Salad may be the best we've tasted!!
We sat on the outdoor patio, enjoying the breeze and the birdsong and our ribbon sandwiches and chocolate frogs, and discussed our hopes and fears about the forthcoming book, and proper Potter Geeks that we are, took pictures of our Butterbeers.
Of course that wasn't the end of the day; we still had hours to kill before going to pick up our books, and so we carried the theme of the day and enjoyed the evening show of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" at the cinema.
After the movie (great!) and a bite to eat, we arrived at Borders to find The Grand Hallows Ball in full swing, and quickly joined the line to check-in for our eventual pick-up of the book.
There was a discussion group underway on the virtues and vices of Severus Snape.
We wandered around taking in the evening's sights and sounds and doing a bit of shelf browsing.
Naturally, there were plenty of great costumes. And as the minutes til midnight ticked slowly by, we enjoyed some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans...and I use the term "enjoyed" rather loosely. Fun though they are, too many of those Earwax and Bogey flavored ones can really impact one's mood!
Like everyone else, we were thrilled when the Witching Hour arrived, and those trolleys of pristine books rolled up toward the check-out area.
I'm amused that I would take pictures through the whole day, and not even think to have a photo taken of us with our actual books once that moment arrived. But to be honest, we were just too darned excited to get home and start reading!
This was obviously evident on our faces on the way home(and maybe Vic's Hogwarts shirt and my lightning bolt tattoo and the glowing magic wands around our necks were a tip, too, I suppose...), judging by the way the cops at that Sobriety Check Point just waved us on through with barely a second glance.
Heh heh, a truly magical day...
3 comments:
This is so cute, Greg! Thanks for sharing. (Also, thanks for not spoiling, with spoilers! :-) I have 100 pages to go now.)
They really went all out for this, it's amazing.
It's impressive that an entire town worked together to set this up. The attention to detail is quite good! It's also nice to know that I wasn't the only nutter that dressed in costume for the DH release!
It's very, very cool and I give them props for well-realized and done well set-ups. Kudos. Also, thanks for no spoilers. Am not even done with 6, so it'll be a while before I deal with 7.
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