after falling asleep on the plane and changing sleep positiions 18 times (even with two coach seats, there’s still not a semi-prone position that you can relax into for some decent sleep), i woke up watching the sun rise over the atlantic. from my 23j window seat, i could see the sunrise and moonset, the view from the cockpit must’ve been phenomenal. deboarding at gatwick, i started to wind through customs.

they must have been staring at me like i was crazy. or an idiot savant. or something. it wasn’t that i couldn’t understand them. it was the fact that for the first time in, well, maybe the first time ever i had a passport stamp and they were still speaking english. no spanish, no japanese, no portuguese (if you want to count portuguese as a language). now to be fair, it is the queen’s english. you know, lifts and queues and lorries, etc. you can just hear the u’s that webster painfully took out of words like color and favorite. the accent up in leeds and manchester is definitely thicker but not nearly as horrible as something out of snatch.

after navigating two flights, one train and a