The note from my professor (at this point clutched in my hand, highlighted, and marked up) reminded us to queue up at the bus stop. The British are very strong on the matter of queuing (lining) up. So, as the bus arrived, I pulled my bag over and stood by the sign. A woman walked in front of me. :"No matter," I thought, "just remember, 'Queen's Lane on the High Street.'" Then a group of people began to line up behind the woman. Before I knew it, I was left out of the queue I'd started! "I'm out of the queue!" I said aloud. And they looked up at me, bored.

I was happy when I bought my ticket, because when the driver confirmed that it was one way, he said incredulously, "Not coming back?" "Nope," I replied, "Not coming back." His reluctance was probably due to both my age and my accent. It wasn't that I'm never coming back, but those return tickets are only valid for one month, and I'm staying a few days over that. Still, it felt nice to say, in my American accent, "Nope, not coming back."

The first thing I saw once we emerged from the tunnel was a rustic looking cottage standing alone. "Really England?" I thought, "A cottage, first thing?" I watched all of the funny looking signs and different license plates go by. I read the funny town names like "Paddington" and "Slough." I noticed how it really wasn't that weird to be driving on the left side of the road because everyone else was. But mostly I tried to stay awake. It was, after all, after 7 am.

I found I had to try quite hard to understand the names of the stations as the driver called them out. The accent barrier was more difficult than I'd anticipated. Who knew mumbling had accents, too? My stop became a mantra, even though I hadn't taken a wrong turn yet: "Queen's Lane on the High Street. Queen's Lane..."

People rode bikes a lot here. Houses went up instead of out. People walked with their burlap bags to the store. It was already growing on me.