Ever since we found out that this impending move really was going to happen and wasn't just some crazy story I'd used to fuel my day dreaming while lying in bed each night, I've been scrutinizing various aspects of my Canadian life to understand how my life will change once we're finally in London. Silly things, almost insignificant things, have occupied my mind in ways I never thought possible!
For instance, the day we arrive in London, I will have a pocketful of some currency I can't quickly identify and enumerate in my head. Sure, I'll figure this out in a jiffy, and this in and of itself doesn't seem like much, but I expect I will go through that process a hundred times over in the first week we're in London. When you start to add up all the little, insignificant differences, it actually amounts to, well, a lorry full of insignificant differences. Did you catch that? I used the word "lorry" instead of "truck" because in England that's what I'm likely to hear. I'm already going to stick out when I open my mouth due to my (hopefully endearing) Canadian accent, so no harm in leaving it at that and picking up some British terms before we've even landed.
I've learned that I am, if anything, very laid back and capable of adapting to these sorts of scenarios, so I have no fears of extreme culture shock or of a tearful outburst in a tube station when I'm asked to use an Oyster card and I don't see a fish monger anywhere. But I am learning that I relish in these little differences and quirks that will make living in London an entirely thrilling and endlessly amusing situation. For my part, I'm inclined to share these here, as social observation, and to help flesh out the "today I walked around and looked at stuff" posts that I'm sure are bound to run amok in tediously short time come December 2011.
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