yeah!! I have moved around a LOT in my life and have almost never gone back to any of those places - it's a bit as if with each new move I sort of 'reset'. so physically going back to those places always feels weirdly disorienting like I'm literally going back in time or "regressing" to a previous stage. the place I was born and grew up I visited in 2005 or 06 (it was the summer HBP came out because I read it on the plane). I'd not been there for ten years at that point, since we moved, but my dad still lived there then so I and my siblings stayed with him for a couple of weeks that summer (before that point he'd come see us as a single plane ticket is cheaper than 5 plane tickets). across the street from his flat was an ice cream bar, a classic 50s American diner-styled up place. or at least, it HAD been like that. ten years later it was still ostensibly an ice cream bar, but all the seating had been removed to make space for gambling machines and while you could still get ice cream there, you could also get cigarettes, candy, alcohol, and some other convenience stuff. it had turned into a shady kiosk! it was SO weird. many other things had changed as well but that was the one that threw me off the most.

(the natural history museum in town? hasn't changed in DECADES. I know because one of my cousins went there right before the pandemic and posted some photos on facebook and the displays were EXACTLY THE SAME I just about fell off my chair laughing scrolling through the photos. I used to go there all the time as a kid because it was free and I loved looking at all the taxidermied animals and fish and live fish and whatnot. the museum was mostly fish, sea creatures and birds, lbr, as Iceland just doesn't have a lot of wild animals...)