Today marks my first week in England, last Monday I arrived in London and took a bus directly to Leicester to visit two amazing friends. Tom and Francis were traveling in South America last summer at the same time that my cousin Jon and I were traveling and serendipitously we meet each other in a small beach town in Northern Peru. We were all on the same course in terms of where we wanted to go in South America so we wound up traveling together for a whole month. When we sadly parted ways we made promises and future plans to visit each other in our respective countries some day.
THanks to graduation, I had the time a lot sooner than I'd ever imagined! When you travel with someone, you get to know them very well, you spend all of your time together and your attitudes and priorities have to mix.
It's been a very cool experience to get to peek into their daily lives here at their university. All week I've been watching and trying to pin point any fundamental differences in culture...and I'm not coming up with much..mostly superficial differences. They drive on the left hand side of the road, their slang words are completely different, we have tea about 15 times a day(seriously!), Nights out start about 7 or 8 o'clock(these people have excellent drinking endurance), but as far as the way people relate to each other it feels like home. Everyone I've met has been extremely friendly and open with me. I've been completely included by all of Tom and Francis's friends. I do have to stick up for myself though, the British overall are very sarcastic compared to folks at home, their humor is very dry and weird sometimes. So rule of thumb is, if something is offensive or shocking to me, it's probably a joke. I'm getting better with my comeback lines, it's going to take some more work though. Leicester is a really nice city, it's smallish, you can walk to wherever you want to go in about 20 minutes, the architecture is really nice, they are literally up to their necks in castle like structures. Leicester is also very diverse, their are loads of immigrants for the middle east, India, and northern Africa. When I walk around the downtown I pass so many different languages and evidences of a richly diverse city. The local economy seems very healthy, tons of local shops and a big market place...no walmart takeover here. It's about the same temperature as home but it's much wetter, it rains almost everyday and has hailed twice this week. That doesn't stop pedestrian traffic though, people are out walking all the time. Thanks guys for your support..it is wonderful to hear from people back home. I'm keeping you all with me in my heart. love, Morgan
| 
9 votes 
