When I was about seven, I picked up the second "Harry Potter" book and started reading, knowing nothing of the series. My mom glanced at me curled up in the corner of the couch and laughed. "If you're going to read those, you should start with the first one," she said, and handed me "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Unbeknownst to her, that started a lifelong love affair for me. Wherein I polished off the books as though they were five-course meals and I had been in a Gulag prison camp for the last several years.

I loved everything about the series. The setting was especially appealing; Hogwarts was like everything I ever wanted in a school. I had a wonderful relationship with the characters too. Contrary to many other books, I didn't feel as though I related to them per say, as though I knew how they felt and would have felt the same way were I in their shoes. In general that was not the case, but J. K. Rowling was such a masterful storyteller that it made me feel even more interested in the books.

I couldn't predict what was going to happen, I never knew what lay on the next page, and because they were different and separate people from me I felt as though I was watching a movie in my head every time I opened one of the books. I never pretended to be one of the characters or felt like I would have been one of them had I been in their world. They were such well-rounded and self-possessed characters that it would have felt sacrilegious to rob one of them of their identity by assuming it myself.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Universal Studios theme park based on the books. I personally never felt that the movies did the books even a remote version of justice, so I was interested but wary to see what had been concocted for this place. Needless to say, I was blown away.

The reality of the exhibits was mind-boggling. Around every turn there was some new thing that had been mentioned in either the books or the movies, brought to life in painstaking detail. They left nothing for the skeptic to feed on; even the tour of Hogwarts looked just as I had imagined it did.

I didn't take very many pictures, partially because I wanted to use my own eyes to see and remember everything, and partially because the number of people in the park was almost impossible to navigate. Even when you weren't stopping and starting constantly to take pictures it was hard not to be swept away by the washing crowds. Here are a few of my snaps of the park, the place we stayed, and a few other attractions we saw while we were there. Hopefully they captured some of the magic I felt being there.