Arriving in London, I thought it would be an automatic, “oh my god, I’m here, I can’t believe it!”, but it really wasn’t.  There was no huge moment of realization and it actually took until we saw Big Ben in London that it did start to sink in that I was truly 3,950 miles from home.  There are many differences here in England from home and many things that are different from what I expected.

Of course there are the obvious things such as the cars on the opposite sides of the road that everyone already knows about.  However, they look significantly different than they do back home in the US even if they are the same brand like Ford or Toyota.  Another huge difference is the food.  I had already heard that burgers taste differently because their cows are treated and fed differently than ours are in the US and I can confidently agree with that statement now from experience, they taste significantly different.  Not bad different, but just not what you would expect when biting into a burger.  Of course the first night in the pub, that’s exactly what I ordered.  Pubs are quite different from our restaurants or bars as well.  First off, you don’t have someone waiting on your table, but you go up to the bar, order your drink and food, pay and then sit back down.  They will bring you your food and that’s about it, and they will bring it out as its ready, not everyone’s together.  If you are just going for drinks, but don’t actually want to order something, they do want you to pay for water just because they don’t like it when people are taking up a seat and not spending money.  In restaurants, if you want your check, you have to ask for it, they will not just bring it out to you.  All of these are good tips to know when eating out inEngland.

When walking around, the city itself is so significantly different from anything I have ever seen before.  The streets are so narrow you wonder how those huge double-decker buses even fit on the streets.  A general rule for walking around the town, always stop and wait for the walking signal, cars, buses and especially bikes will not stop for you.  Bikes here are treated like cars, they drive on the road and have their own lane and they will hit you if you walk out in front of them.  Pedestrians in no way have the right of way in the roads.  We always have to be very careful and look every which way before we cross because most times we cannot even tell which ways the cars are coming from.  It really did not come as much of a shock to me when I heard that kids here do not learn to drive until they are 17 and do not get their licenses until at least 18, if then.  If you think driving in Chicago is bad, you can’t even begin to imagine what the lane changes and crazy driving goes on in England.  The traffic patterns still have yet to make sense to me and people should really be saying that those English drivers are bad, not the Chicago ones.

While walking the streets, I noticed that there aren’t garage cans spread along the sidewalks.  It’s actually a bit of a search to find one.  Surprisingly enough, the streets aren’t filled with litter.  If walking in the City Centre around 6:00pm, it was very shocking to notice that the stores were beginning to close, so if you wanted to go shopping, you have to make sure to do it earlier in the day.  However, while shopping earlier, something that is quite common I have found to know is that there are street performers either singing or playing the guitar all along the streets.  It’s very interesting to me as well as very enjoyable to hear.  In general while walking, the British will not make eye contact with you if you are passing them.  In my opinion, I have found that the men are much friendlier than the women as well.

A few things that I was told to prepare for that I don’t find accurate exactly was first that the portion sizes were very small.  I did not seem to think they were small but actually quite large in some pubs.  In London, it seemed like every place we passed had a huge section of fried too as well.  At the hostel we stayed at, breakfast included fried bread, a fried egg, fried hash browns, a fried tomato, fried sausage and ham that were all cooked in a large pan filled with about an inch of oil.  They also served baked beans which everyone in our group decided to pass on at 8:30am.

The girls in our group were also told to make sure to pack tampons because they were very hard to find inEngland.  I have been to many different grocery and pharmacy stores-similar to a Walgreens, CVS, or Walmart back home-and have seen tampons sold at each.  On the other hand, I wish we were told that zip-lock baggies were not sold in theUK.  The British seem to love their saran wrap and use it for everything.  A few people had told me that North Face jackets were slightly frowned upon as well as sweatshirts with hoods, however, I have seen many people wearing both and many people also wear jeans out and about.

Overall, I have to say that I am loving my English experience and learning all of the differences between America and England.  It is fascinating to witness everything and I cannot wait to have more interactions with the British to learn more about their culture and ways.