By now you’re probably wondering: how long was that woman supposed to stay in London, anyway? Did she never leave? Is she still there, snarfing down fish and chips and getting lost on the Underground? 

The answer is no, she’s not still there, and the reason you got stuck on Day Seven is that Mom, Interrupted actually got interrupted to go on a week-long trip for work and thought she had all the stuff to finish posting the trip and it turned out she didn’t. 

But she’s back now, and ready to finish this bad boy up with a few more days of fun across the pond. Because, while we didn’t stay there forever, we did do ten days, and I want to remember this forever.

***

And now, for something completely different.

Up to this point, we’ve been marinated in History, with a capital everything. In London, you literally cannot swing a dead Tudor (Spoiler Alert: they’re ALL dead!) without hitting a tribute to a dead something else. Westminster Abbey is a quadruple dose of espresso antiquity, chased down with a side of The Past. (Dad, Interrupted described the Abbey as having ‘mugged him with history.’ He wasn’t kidding.)

And this is good for us, history buffs that we are.

DI has graciously consented to take this day to travel to the town of Watford so I can visit another kind of sensory overload: Warner Brothers studios in Leavesden, where they filmed the Harry Potter films.

This requires another trip to Euston Station, where we are helped by yet another lovely Brit who saves us time and money by informing us that if we ran we could get a train that would be fast and would be accessed by our Oyster cards.

We run.

Sidebar: by this point we are old hands on the Underground and all things TFL (that’s ‘Transport For London’). No more fears of winding up in Scotland by accident; no, if we wind up there now it’s gonna be on purpose.

We make the train, and we find ourselves in a lovely little place with some time to kill before our bus takes us to our appointment with The Boy Who Lived. There’s a lovely little pub right across from the train station and bus stop, so we stop for the standard Guiness for DI and a cider for me.

And then it’s off to the bus stop.

It’s easy to understand why J.K. Rowling is a kazillionaire now. All those books, and the movies, and the Universal theme parks, and crowded busloads of people shuttled out to the studios just to see props from the movies, essentially. Constant busloads, filled with Potterites who paid (was it £40 each? I think so) ahead of time, months ahead of time because ohmygod these things sell out quickly and they do!, and you just know they did what we did and stopped at the gift shop on the way out.

Rowling deserves every freaking pence.

When you visit Universal Studios, you’re invited to enter the world of magic. In California, you’re visiting Hogsmeade and you’re in the shops Harry and Ron and Hermione visited on their free days from Hogwarts.

When you visit Leavesden, you’re essentially told: yeah, it was a movie, and we’re gonna show you how we did it. They say it with a gorgeous British accent, but that’s essentially it.

Not that I’m complaining.

I see the Mirror of Erised,

and the Gryffindor common room

and the boys’ dormitory (which is okay but I’d like some Ravenclaw action, because I have it on good authority that I am one).

I see Dumbledore’s office, and Dad, Interrupted delights yet again me by paying careful attention and noting that there are two Slytherin cabinets in there and what’s up with that?

You can walk through the Hogwart’s Express and hold out your hand and have a broom jump into it. You can get green-screened into some Quidditch and walk through the parlor in the house in Little Whinging. You can see the Ford Anglia get whomped by the willow. You can watch some excellent videos that show how they managed to put all this stuff together.

They show us what I suspect is the hero model of Hogwarts, which has its own ginormous room and is stunningly detailed, as befits a hero.

They do not, however, show me how to pick up my acceptance letter, a stunning oversight on their part.

We stop to buy souvenirs and quickly realize that we will need another suitcase if we keep this up, so we arrange for shipping (a lot cheaper than the $55 British Airways would have charged) and march back to the bus.

The young woman waiting in front of me is wearing delightful Dobby earrings, and I tell her how much I like them. This starts a lively exchange where she admits that her partner (the resigned-looking gent next to her) doesn’t want her to get the Lego Hogwarts, complete with five dementors, because it will take up most of their flat.

We agree that anyone who isn’t willing to move to accommodate the Lego Hogwarts may not be much of a fan. I refer to her HP problem as a ‘hobby,’ and she likes that. Her main squeeze looks more resigned when I gently suggest that maybe she and I both have crossed the line into ‘obsession.’

We get back to Watford by bus (not the Night Bus, but we got to see that, too) and by this time we know enough to not even try to get back to London while rush hour is in full swing. So it’s back to The Flag, where everyone else is celebrating Friday night and we sit near a table of young Watfordians (Watfordites? Watfordi?) who start off with traditional pints and then graduate to traditional shots and then graduate to traditional mooning passersby.

And then it’s back to London. We’re getting good at this stuff.

© E. Stocking Evans 2018