It wasn’t until I looked in the wrong direction crossing a busy London street and was almost run over by a taxi that I realized just how American I was, and how a lifetime spent in America had trained me to expect the rest of the world to live like we do.
Traffic drives on the left side of the road in England, a fact that the London taxi driver reminded me of as he sped through the crosswalk on Victoria Street. It wasn’t until later that I would understand the driver actually let me off easy. The drivers in the city are ruthless, and I’m convinced some of them would run you over if you stepped in their path.
My semester spent in London, England was far more magical than I had ever imagined it would be. I had the chance to spend my 21st birthday in South Wales, travel through other parts of Europe, become friends with girls from all over England, and spend my life savings on British clothing.
But one of the most fascinating lessons I learned in Europe was how much Americans take for granted. Even in England, united with the States in so many ways—a common language, top-level political ties, and an undying love for McDonald’s double cheeseburgers—I kept discovering just how different our nation remains.
I love London, I love England, and I love traveling to different and interesting parts of Europe, but there is no place like America. Nowhere else in the world do people truly believe that they are entitled to everything and actually receive it. We take everything for granted in America because we have never known otherwise.
We don’t know of grocery stores where the food runs out and isn’t replaced for days at a time without explanation or apology. Our ATM machines aren’t patrolled by police with machine guns. We have stop signs so pedestrians don’t fear for their lives every time they cross the street. We don’t have to pay to use the bathroom. (Well, allright, neither do the Brits, but they sure do in Italy.)
We have a choice over which telephone provider we want to use; British Telecom isn’t ruling our every move on every phone call we make. Our grocery store cashiers and subway fare attendants don’t have signs on their tills stating, “Please do not harass our employees.” As a former grocery store cashier, I appreciated these signs; customers do tend to take their grievances about the store out on the cashier, and the signs made me laugh every time I laid eyes on them.
Or perhaps it’s the prices that makes them upset. London is the second most expensive city in the world, outdone only by Tokyo. The Pizza Hut buffet in London is 5.95, just like America, but instead of it being $5.95, that is £5.95 GB pound, making the grand total for the Pizza Hut buffet almost $12 American for one person. This fact, coupled with our ever-declining U.S. dollar, meant that I used my entire life savings, plus the credit card I treasured so dearly, to live, eat, travel, and shop to my heart’s content.
I went to classes, washed my laundry, cooked my own meals, drank in pubs with my friends, and traveled on the weekends—all over Europe.
I really did not know what to expect before I arrived in London, got settled into my living space, and started going to classes. I went abroad through SUNY Brockport’s London program, which was very helpful, as everything was taken care of before we even boarded the plane in New York. We were picked up at the airport and taken to our residence halls in a small bus. Then we were on our own to find food and bedding so we could sleep that night.
The university, or “uni,” as the British students refer to it, was spread over separate buildings that were within walking distance of each other. I loved walking through London to get to my classes. It was only three or four blocks between each building, and the streets were always lined with designer shops and hairdressers, which kept my interest. Sometimes I felt like Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway walking to buy her flowers.
The British education system is different from ours in that they focus on independent studying more than class time. Each class meets once a week, and assessment and grades are based on one or two papers and possibly a final exam. Attendance is never taken.
This doesn’t mean students don’t study; on the contrary, British students are just as studious as we are. They just take the initiative to learn on their own. I loved this system and I now feel like going to the same class three times a week here is unnecessary.
My small problem with going to class was that my school was set in Oxford Circus, the intersection of Oxford and Regent Streets and London’s biggest and best shopping area. My logic at the time told me that shopping was more important than learning, and I can’t say that I regret all the times I was lured into Topshop to browse the beautiful shoe selection.
Oxford Circus, which is right up the road from Piccadilly Circus, is also a fabulous place to people watch. In Britain, the term “Circus” simply signifies the intersection of major streets. One of my favorite sights were the Hare Krishnas draped in orange robes and Converse All-Stars, their shaved heads gleaming in the dreary overcast sky, and the steady beats of their drums reverberating off the classic British architecture lining the high streets.
The architecture of London only amplifies the fact that UB is a campus made of concrete. Tall marble buildings and department stores are a regular sight in London, as well as glorious fountains and monuments lining the streets. It is not all cityscape though; parks are around every corner with tall trees and blossoming flowers.
Another favorite was the man who stands in the center of Oxford Circus with a megaphone, screaming that everyone is doomed for Hell except for him. These were always great ways to start my day as I made my way up from the stairs of the tube in search of my morning coffee.
London is full of sights that you’ll never find in the U.S. In front of the Houses of Parliament, a man sits surrounded by signs opposing the war in Iraq. A tour guide told us that he has been protesting in the same spot for over two years.
The focus of the opposition in his signs is that children are being hurt and killed by the fighting. They are clearly opposing the British government, but there is nothing Parliament or Tony Blair can do to stop this man’s freedom of expression, even though it is so close to Parliament’s house. I can’t even imagine what the compassionately conservative Bush administration would do if such a display were on view from the White House lawn.
It was a sight I walked by almost everyday, just because I loved to see Big Ben and the Thames River with the London Eye just beyond, with the pancake and orange juice stand just in front of the Westminster Bridge, and the cool breeze from the river as I walked over the bridge at night.
A good portion of my time was also spent attempting to pick up a British accent, to the amusement of my friends, all of whom were from different parts of the United Kingdom. The difficulty with assuming an accent in that country is that each part of the UK speaks with a different dialect.
The north is blended with Scottish and is sometimes unintelligible, the south sounds more open and proper. Even east London has its own dialect, commonly called “Cockney” English, which can be heard in my favorite British soap opera, Eastenders.
I lived in the neighborhood of Pimlico and Belgravia—two very well-to-do areas of London (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are rumored to be living in Belgravia). Our halls of residence were a two-minute walk to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen, a three-minute walk to visit the relics of Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey, or a four-minute walk to check up on the politics of Tony Blair in the Houses of Parliament and hear the ring of Big Ben at noon.
Westminster Cathedral, a famous Roman Catholic Church and example of Byzantine architecture, was also in my front yard. At first, it was astounding to walk past this glorious top-ten attraction every morning, noon, and night, but soon we began to take it for granted that tourists were always snapping photos as we scurried to class or to the grocery store.
It was those simple pleasures that I loved the most about living in London. I loved the fact that I could walk to Sainsbury’s Market two blocks away and pass four pubs on the way. I loved that to get anywhere I needed to walk through Victoria Station, a bustling train and coach station full of tourists and commuters.
I loved Marks and Spencer, the upscale UK grocery store that sold the best pre-made food a college student can buy. I loved that within minutes I could be standing at Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame at King’s Cross station, pretending I was awaiting the Hogwarts Express.
These are the things I miss the most back in Amherst, as I make my way down the hill from Clemens Hall towards the Commons every day. The Starbucks reminds me of the Starbucks that was literally at the corner of my street in London, a little pleasure that I began to take for granted that I now miss dearly.
Other moments and events that I will never forget from my time in Europe were unique, though.
My 21st birthday was spent atop of a mountain in Wales in a hotel called Caer Llan, where our 40-student group made up the only guests. It was cozy, with a view for miles of countryside out of the front windows and a fire blazing in the large dining room. The Welsh family that runs the hotel gave us afternoon tea upon our arrival out of the wet Welsh rain and a buffet of different foods for dinner. We had salmon with dill sauce, deviled eggs, salad, assorted meats, a strange pate that no one was brave enough to try, and pasta. For dessert we had a rhubarb crumble with cream. Let me assure you that it was a birthday I will never forget.
We toured the English countryside in a bus, visited Tintern Abbey, the city of Bath, and made our way back to London in time to watch the Super Bowl on the big screen TV at the Sportsbar on Piccadilly—the only place showing the Super Bowl in London. That was the last American activity I took part in.
I cannot call myself a complete expatriate, but as I was traveling through Spain on spring break, I began to feel like Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises. I visited Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice, Dublin, and Paris. Some of my American friends traveled to more countries, but I really loved London so much I didn’t want to leave it. There were too many memories to be made with my British friends.
There was the time we arranged for a girl’s night out to Tantra, a nightclub in London’s Soho with a strict dress code and a celebrity guestlist (one of my friends met Paris Hilton and Usher). We borrowed each other’s shoes and clothing and hired London taxis to get us to the club in style.
Normally we walked or took the tube, but it was a special occasion. After about 4 hours of scouting for famous people, we decided to suck it up and take the night bus home in our party clothes at 4 a.m. to save ourselves £4 each ($8 U.S.). In London at 4 a.m. in May, it is beginning to get light outside, so we felt ridiculous waiting for the bus, but after 30 minutes, my friend Camella spotted it roaring down Regent Street. We waived our arms for it to stop, but the bus kept on going, right past us, leaving us with no way home. Inevitably, we hailed a taxi and paid the £4, laughing about it the whole way home.
Not every annoyance was so easily forgivable, however. Our residence halls were home to some of the biggest pranksters London has met since Guy Fawkes. Not once, not twice, but three times a night, on any given night except for Friday and Saturday, someone would set off the fire alarm, creating havoc and insanity throughout the entire building.
We would throw on our winter coats (it is cold year-round at night in England) over our pajamas and curse at the top of our lungs as we descended five flights of stairs and outside into the night. At first it was funny, seeing the London Fire Brigade come to press the button and shut off the alarm.
Then it started happening every single night, and then people started throwing eggs from the third-story windows at those of us who had evacuated the building and were waiting for the a-OK to return inside. Then, we decided we weren’t bothering to go outside when the alarm went off and instead hid in our kitchen with the light off. The fire brigade caught on to this and began banging on people’s doors to make them go outside. Then they started just barging into rooms and forcing people out.
It didn’t get any better, and when final exam time came around, people started throwing things out the windows: TVs, chairs, fire extinguishers. I was outraged. I could not sleep. I was annoyed with all of the childish behavior, and nothing was being done about it. The police had not been involved and I couldn’t believe that the university hadn’t taken any action to find out who the students were that were causing the problems.
This would never happen in the U.S., I thought, and then I realized just how much different our standard of living is here in good ol’ America.
In the wake of the London Underground bombings, I was already home, far away and safe from where the tragedy struck. People here in the States kept telling me, “It’s a good thing you’re home now!” But really, those words sounded ignorant to me. My friends were still there, and I was worried about them.
I managed to text message my friend Mike to make sure he and his friends were safe, but it took me several hours to get in touch with everyone else. Luckily, no one had been harmed. It just seemed so unreal to me that something terrible could happen in a place I had grown to love as much as London—my home.
After spending five months away from everything familiar to me and immersing myself in a completely different culture, I believe that Americans are over-indulgent in just about every way, but that we do not realize how truly lucky we are that we can do so without consequence.
In America, we have rights, not privileges. In Italy, there is a cover charge just to sit down at a table for dinner and use silverware. In America, we can go out to dinner every night of the week and demand to be treated in whatever way we desire, and then have that expectation fulfilled without question.
If we step in someone’s path in Buffalo, we say “excuse me.” If that happens in London, we keep on walking. America has a seemingly endless supply of food, and has no problem wasting it, either. In England, the grocery store might be near empty for days, and nothing will be done about it.
In America, we talk of a “post-9/11” world, and how it differs from the way we lived before. In my opinion, 9/11 made Americans realize that the U.S. is not the indestructible society we blindly thought it was, but is just another country on planet Earth. We see ourselves as the ultimate world power, but all we are is a country that has never known what it’s like in other parts of the world.
Without my time abroad, I feel that I would have missed out on seeing how these other societies live, and how they are not so different from us, but how America believes it is so superior, and works to fulfill its promises to Americans.
While I did earn all A’s while abroad, none of them will impact my GPA. So was it a waste? Hardly. Five months spent in London bought me the world in return. I’d call it a fair exchange.
