Back to Hogwarts.

Well - the trip back to Hogwarts is over. I was one of the 6.9 million people in the US that bought the new Harry Potter in the first 24 hours. Actually, I had mine in the first 10 minutes. I was number 119 at Borders in midtown Manhattan at midnight as July 15th rolled into the 16th and the book officially released. Amid the festive air that filled the bookstore with Harry Potter trivia questions being thrown around, lightning tattoos and Every Flavor jelly beans (such as dirt, bacon, earwax and vomit), we waited impatiently for books we had pre-ordered over a month in advance.

It ended up being a 6 hour read that alternated between being very tense and laugh-out loud funny. It's almost sad now that it's over after such a long, highly-anticipated wait. I feel like I should have some opinion on being one of the millions that subscribe to such commercialism, or some criticism or self-reflection that I bought my book from the first publisher to refuse the campaign to print the books on recycled paper. But at the end of the day - the trip back to Hogwarts was too much fun to turn away from. Now to wait the next movie releases in November.