Last book of HP series being sold at Dubai Airport

I have just finished watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in HBO. It wasn’t really the story that kept me glued to the TV set for more than two hours. A lot of those locations in the movie reminded me so much of last year’s trip to England.

There are probably a hundred different things about the place I missed so much. The erratic weather, yellow and brown hues of autumn, colorful blooms in summer, age-old castles and buildings, the deafening silence of the suburbs and the consistently cold climate. Waking up at four in the morning to find a 7am sun already up in the horizon was another mind-blowing experience I had during summer.

Life there was as easy as getting auto insurance quotes, buying an Oyster card or getting kids their trust funds. It was the kind of life I dreamed for myself before. So I set out to taste the English life, find Nottinghill, Hogwarts and Pivet Drive and go home with an autograph from Radcliffe, if not the Queen. However, it turned out that the life of an outsider was not actually easy. Plans were always bound to change like those keys I left stuck at the door and required changing the entire complicated unit. I found myself poring over every thick literature I could find in the house, boarding the train from Chessington South instead from Platform 9 3/4, clipping want ads, planning trips that never materialized, attempting to run away and constantly shutting those voices that always called me home.

In those seemingly frustrating moments, I found grace and discovered what it is exactly about life that I really wanted. It was freedom and nothing else.