Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed so many things that never mattered to me. For example, while driving over the mountains from Virginia to Ohio, I was struck by how HARD it is to follow a larger truck. My husband was driving and had the GPS, so I had to follow behind with the dogs in our car. Oh my goodness! I couldn't use cruise control because I'd just fly past and be lost. I have a much greater appreciation for truckers even though my view of the drive was less than fabulous.
In addition to my new found respect for truckers, I have a whole new appreciation of cruise control. I wound up jetting past once we hit the last leg of our journey, just so I could be lazy and let the car drive. We were exhausted from our previous days' activities, but my thigh had actually started to ache from the constant speed adjustment.
Since we had been considering purchasing a home instead of renting (which didn't work out), while viewing our rented home, I paid attention to so many things I never would have noticed before. My husband and I both agreed that though the house isn't something we'd buy (and that we could have fixed it up better), it is what we need and that's good enough.
Now that I'm in London and have to "struggle" with a new culture, I'm aware of so many things that I would take advantage of at home. For example, the currency. I'd always heard people complaining about how odd it is that the American nickel is bigger than the dime and that there isn't a correlation between size and value. I'd heard these arguments and brushed them aside because it didn't matter. But let me tell you - the Brits love their coins. And I know exactly which coin is which when I'm sitting quietly in my room. Put me at a cash register and tell me to pay 60p...I'm done. I found a 50p piece just fine and what I thought was a 10p piece...derp! I gave the cashier a 5p piece and she looked at me like what I was - a silly American.
Having lived in southeast Virginia my whole life, I was accustomed to seeing both colonial and modern architecture in the same day, but not usually at the same time. Walking through London, I am touched at the sheer amount of history that you can see and touch and how that history co-exists with modern London. Everywhere you look, you can see buildings dating back hundreds of years, as well as cranes to renovate and build new skyscrapers. The juxtaposition of the two is breathtaking.
I'm also not used to being on the look-out for celebrities. Now I'm not a big celeb follower at all, but I will freak out if I get to meet David Tennant or Benedict Cumberbatch. However, just as we were meeting to walk to Platform 9 3/4 (which is not at Kings Cross Station), Russell Tovey passed our group walking his ADORABLE French bulldog. One of our group recognized him, but we weren't able to snap a photo. I wasn't too impressed, because I'd never heard of the show he's in, but a little research and I found out that he was in an episode of Sherlock! Now I'm sad I didn't whip out the camera.
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