kenjisan

English recollections

Have you ever noticed how on a trip—even a very long one—it is often the first week or so that stands out most clearly in your memory? Perhaps it is the enhanced perception that voyages bring, or perhaps it is an effect of orientation response on the senses, or perhaps it is simply that even the charm of newness soon wears off, but it has been my experience that the first days in a new place, or seeing new people, often set the tone for the rest of the trip. Or in this case, the rest of my life. —Dan Simmons, Endymion

I can still clearly remember the disorientation I felt stepping off the plane at Heathrow over four years ago, finding my way to the bus that would take me into London for the first time in my life. I can remember thinking that this wasn't the London I'd dreamt of based on Dickens and Eliot. There were used car lots off the elevated super highway selling cars that I'd never seen before. There was industry and suburbs—not row houses, but houses. And not the chugging smoke stacks of the industrial revolution, either. It felt, for a second, like I was approaching Baltimore.

And then I was in a city that was unmistakably London. Low buildings, winding streets, the occassional tree-lined boulevard, the Tube's crossed out O. I remember Regent's Park in the summer time. I remember walking down Baker's Street. I remember Shakespeare in the park, swans and ducks in the man-made river. I remember taking the long way around the park and walking into an ivy covered building with that same nervousness you get on the first day of class.

If I just stop and think about it, I can practically recreate those first few, wandering days.

But you know what I remember most? I remember eating lunch with Cyndi for the first time in my whole life. She was wearing a flannel shirt (plaid, of course). We ate sandwiches bought from the college's cafeteria. We were eating outside, on the soft grass in Regent's Park, under the trees, away from the tourists. I was impressed.

It was a nice day.