This will always be home.

“Where would you like to go while we’re in London?” My mom asked me from the computer in the next room.

“Harry Potter.” I answered without any hesitation.

“No, really,” she said. “That’s it?”

“It’s really all I care about.”

Sometimes, my nerdiness astounds my mother. Usually it’s by way of me liking video games or a “boy movie,” but with all the history and culture in London, I’m still shocked that she was shocked that my priority was a Harry Potter tour.

I expected to do one of those double-decker bus tours, where they drive you around and say “Hey, that’s where they filmed this scene,” and then you can get out and take pictures. No. Maybe it’s because of my conviction or maybe because Harry Potter was also my brother’s priority…but damn, did my mom deliver. She booked tickets to the new (at the time) Warner Brother’s Studios Harry Potter Tour.

To say it was too good to be true was an understatement.

I nearly cried before we even entered The Great Hall, watching a short film that introduced the studio and the series (for the weirdos who don’t know anything about life) and when I entered, wandered around each exhibit in a trance.

It was home.