{"id":9381,"date":"2016-01-05T16:20:37","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T00:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tillthemoneyrunsout.com\/?p=9381"},"modified":"2016-01-08T11:06:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T19:06:14","slug":"do-you-believe-in-magic-harry-potter-worlds-interactive-wand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tillthemoneyrunsout.com\/do-you-believe-in-magic-harry-potter-worlds-interactive-wand\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Believe in Magic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wand chooses the Witch. BUT. First, the Witch must be chosen by the Wand Keeper.<\/p>\n

What brought me here? A grown ass woman in a wand shop in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in Orlando Florida silently pleading that a theme park actor will choose me over the excited 10-year-olds around me as the \u201cwitch\u201d for the 3-minute wand choosing ceremony. A ceremony that ends with me buying a $50 plastic replica of a 10-inch long twig. <\/p>\n

The type of item that since we travel full-time with carry on luggage<\/a> is actually completely ridiculous. <\/p>\n

\"Jenny

How did we even end up here, having flown across the country to the middle of Florida to immerse ourselves fully in a theme park for two days? <\/p>\n

The short answer is that back in February when we were staying in Puerto Escondido on the Oaxacan Coast of Mexico<\/a> I stumbled across another traveler\u2019s blog post about her visit to The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando<\/a>. I had never heard of such a place! I truly had no idea that a Harry potter theme park existed. I was as flabbergasted as Hagrid on the first day of Care of Magical Creatures when he discovered that NOT A SINGLE student had been able to open their biting, snapping, fur and fang covered textbook. <\/p>\n

\"The

I knew immediately that we had to go! And even though we definitely had real work (like for our real business that funds our lifestyle<\/a>) to do that day, I immediately abandoned it to start studying Universal Studios crowd calendars and other online posts to help me choose when would be the best time for us to go<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But how did I even get there? In the middle of Mexico, feverishly researching the park with a thoroughness that would make Hermione revising for her NEWT’s look like a cauldron cake walk. <\/p>\n

\"The

How I ended up there is a longer story, that explains both my love for Harry Potter and what Tom and I have been doing for a living while traveling full time for just a month or two shy of five years. <\/p>\n

When I was 18 I took my first real job, as a special education instructional aide with San Diego Unified School District. I had just graduated high school myself a couple of months before and then on September 5th found myself entering the very place that I had so happily left “forever” in July. <\/p>\n

I had decided to not go straight into college from High School, but that was basically all I had decided. I knew I would end up in a university eventually, I just wasn’t in a huge rush to get there. I didn\u2019t have any grand plans for my year (or more) off, I just wasn\u2019t sure what exactly I wanted to study and felt like I needed a little time to chill. A decision that had horrified my teachers and guidance counselors. I remember one guidance counselor in particular practically wailing at me that with my “4.0 GPA there was no reason to not go directly to college!\u201d I explained to her patiently that I was (probably) going to college one day. Just not yet. Apparently I was skewing her percentage of students that get accepted into college numbers and she was going to have to do some more math to get the new one. I could empathize, math is the worst, right? It\u2019s right under divination, or Defense Against the Dark Arts when taught by Professor Lockhart, as my least favorite subject. <\/p>\n

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