A Girl...

Simon Says - "Sheffield Redux"

Wow. Who knew they had computers in England? It's like they have finally caught up. When I lived here briefly in 1995-1996, there was one computer at the bank. ONE. A single terminal. I had not necessarily expected the advances that I am now seeing... high speed connection, wireless, flat screen monitors. Way to go, England, way to go.

So I am at my sister's. All is cool between us. Rift? No such thing.

Yestereday my mom and I did the downtown Oxford thing. Today we went to Sheffield, my alma mater. Each trip started with getting lost, and each ended with getting lost. Not so bad on the way home today, but we almost got lost. More like confused about how on-track we were, so we backtracked 10 miles, just to make sure.

It was great going back to Sheffield, but as you can imagine, it's never the same. I had a sandwich at my favorite lunch place (for all you Sheffield readers, that's Scott's Pantry, across from the Union, and across from the West End Pub), and I bought some souvenirs at the student union. Sweatshirt, mug, and stuff for some of my other expatriate friends.

Here's what's so weird... when I was there, I walked everywhere. I took a bus every once in a while, and maybe 3 taxis that whole year. So a trip from Ranmoor house to the campus was 25 minutes, and it was 45 minutes to get to City Centre.

Today I had a car. And today I realized that the world I occupied, which at the time seemed so large, is really quite small. What took me 45 minutes to walk 10 years ago took me 5 minutes to drive today. And this was my whole world for all that time... so very small.

Granted, I knew every step of the way rather intimately, and as I drove through that stretch of road that was my world, I had more stories running through my head than I could get out for my mom. Each block held 10 events in my memory, all of which could have been told if we had been walking. But most of them came and went as I whizzed on by.

"Hello UK Mama where Lydia the cunt had her party! Hello Antique Store where I bought the Charles and diana mugs that were later smashed to bits! Hello Notty House, where Keyong threw up on that old guy! Hello Fox and Duck, where I smoked my first ever cigarette! And of course, hello Psych department and Nigel Beale's office and the hospital where we threw snowballs the night it snowed, and the feild below the sports centre, and hello corner where my girlfriend almost got hit by a car, and hello to the stereo shop where I stopped 50 times but never bought anything. And hello to you, dear sweet Broom Hill Friary!"

Whoosh, all of that in 10 seconds.

I didn't take enough pictures.

The traffic on the M-1 was horrible on the way back. Nearly fell asleep at the wheel. Not really, but I was pretty tired.

Ah, how I love England.

Tomorrow: STONEHENGE. Last time I was there, my ladyfriend was cold, so we left after about 10 minutes. That's not enough time, so I'm doing it again, and I'm doing it right. We'll take in Sarum, a run through the Salisbury Cathedral, and we'll stop for a spot of tea.

Do they sell Druid costumes at the Stonehenge gift shop? I forget. I'll have to ask the dancing dwarf.

Posted by Simon at December 21, 2005 12:38 PM