Going to London. It feels big. Like it should be in capital letters. I AM GOING TO LONDON. Maybe an explicative should be thrown in there for effect. You think people are going to be different, everything is going to be different. The minute you cross the ocean and hit land the air itself will ooze LONDON. At least, that’s what I thought.
But I found myself at Heathrow, jet-lagged and dazedly giddy (because…LONDON) searching for little indicators that I wasn’t in the states anymore. An extra ‘u’ in ‘color.’ Cars on the left side of the street. Outlets wide and slanted. Accents ranging from refined to ‘colourful.’ Even taking the tube here was a game of trying to find what’s different (for one, the tube works much better than any metro or subway in America, also we have no where as many brick buildings).
You expect this sudden change. Like diving into water. It’s not. It’s a slow integration. Like Richard III slowly and subtly pulling apart his family, it slowly dawns on you that you’re in London. You’re not in the USA anymore. Granted, London doesn’t ask/coerce you into marriage and then kill you.
