I’ve been back almost a week now from our 3 week vacation in the UK (with a side trip to Spain). Here are some impressions:
I was taken aback at how busy London is nowadays – I used to work in the City, so I thought I understood crowding, but it seemed there were 10 times more people than I remember. In fact, I felt at times i was close to having panic attacks from the number of times I was pushed, shoved or totally unable to get through the mass of people all around me.
England (outside of London) really IS rolling and green, just like my US friends used to tell me! I guess I never “saw” that because it was just normal, but wow is it different from the much of the Mid West!
I missed the US road system, and how easy it is to get around by car. I seemed to either be in traffic jams on the motorways, or crawling along tiny country roads little bigger than my car! (Admittedly, that was when I was driving around rural Norfolk). And I was on the M25 parking lot for more hours than I care to remember!!!
Nowhere else is quite like a British pub – I mean a real “local”, not one of the fancy bars. You can be at home there in 30 seconds, and the people are funny/wonderful/annoying, but always real.
Bits of my heart are left all over England; The South Coast, a number of London suburbs, King’s Lynn, the Norfolk countryside and coastline, the South Downs. And on this trip I found new places to love too; Eastbourne, Nantwich, Alicante (yes, that one is in Spain).
I love my life and my home in the here and now, and I am blessed beyond measure to have so many other places to love too.