All in all, the first few days of my big adventure have been awesome. I've finally met Alex's parents in person, experienced some fantastic food, seen huge portions of the countryside by coach, taken some really cool pictures of buildings older than my country, attempted to defeat jet lag (although the fact that it's 4am and Alex has been asleep since 11:45pm means I may not be winning the battle), and am learning to be a better traveler and step out of my American bubble by diving head first into wherever this adventure may lead - or at least trying to.
I've also found that I should probably have a stamp on my forehead that says "American" - or maybe even a shirt that says "I'm sorry. I'm an American." I think we, as Americans, assume that Brits are basically identical to us. Sure, they might have some different words, or spell things a bit differently, but we think their culture is basically the same. Certainly, one would assume, it would be close enough that one could go out to dinner without causing such a shirt to be necessary. Well, if that one were me - which it was - one would be wrong.
Alex and I went out to dinner at a gastropub. For those of you who have never heard this term, it's a pub that also has real food - this one happened to have really great food. I had my first ever open pie and it was fantastic - so fantastic that I thought it was a great idea to bring the half I didn't finish home. Apparently that's not a great idea in a gastropub in England - no matter how wonderful the food is. Alex, being the wonderful person that he is, asked for a box for me and had to explain to the perplexed waitress that I just thought it was really good and wanted to take the extra home. She informed us that they only had small pizza boxes, but she could put it in there if we liked. She was super sweet about the whole thing, but something about her confusion made me want to crawl under the table (after apologizing for my silly American ways). Which brings us to my first big lesson in UK travel: our cultures aren't identical - just leave the leftovers, it's really ok.
Money has been another learning experience. First of all, if you ever travel outside your country, don't change your money over at the airport if you can help it - the exchange rates are horrendous! But also, familiarize yourself with the money beforehand if you can... trying to figure out which coin is which while the clerk is waiting on you and there are twenty people behind you in line is not a great experience.
Another thing that my little anthropologically-minded self has found interesting is the lack interaction with strangers in public. I grew up making friends in the line at the grocery store and smiling at every person I passed. That's not a thing here. If you're actually talking to someone, a clerk for instance, they're super sweet and friendly. However, if you're walking down the street NO ONE will make eye contact. So another news flash for me: social interactions amongst the public are different here. Again, not what I expected.
I also tried "Squashies" the other day. They're a British candy that's somewhere near a marshmallow but flavored like a raspberry and cream taffy. I had no idea what to do with it. Eat it, obviously; but I had no clue how to feel about it. I didn't know if I liked it, or was just neutral towards it, or what. It was so far from anything I'd ever tried that I just couldn't decide anything about it. That's the point I decided I might not be as good a traveler as I thought. Here I was 4,000 miles from home unable to decide what to think about a candy. It was mind blowing.
I've always fancied myself a good traveler. I was lucky enough to have parents who felt travel was worthwhile and important for kids, so by age 14 I had been to Germany, Austria, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, the Bahamas, the British and American Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and much of the southeast US. I am so grateful to have had those opportunities and attribute much of my wanderlust to these early experiences. But what I never realized until now is how sheltered we were on these trips.
For example, with the exception of one onion-filled hamburger in Paris, I don't remember eating anything new or unusual on any of these trips. Thankfully, Shepard's Pie was a staple in our household because I'm almost positive Austin and I lived on that for three weeks in the UK. In France, we ate lunchables brought on the plane and visited the Hard Rock Café regularly... We did experiment with French desserts - but who wouldn't love a chocolate crêpe?
So in the last few days I've traveled over 4,000 miles from my country, spent roughly 14 hours on coaches along the English countryside, learned more about British culture than I have in eight months dating a Brit, and learned a lot about myself. The crazy part is, this trip is only three days in. Tomorrow (really in a few hours) we leave for Dublin and multiple day trips to other portions of Ireland. Then there are trips to Belfast, Budapest, Munich, Edinburgh, Wales, and all over England planned. If I've learned this much in three days, I can't imagine what I'll learn in the next two months - but I can't wait.
