I have twenty days left in the UK!
Twenty days.
My PC is all but stripped, adverts for my belongings broadcast, "Sale due to emigration" from newsagents' windows across Hatfield.
I've cancelled my mobile phone contract with Orange, given notice at work, for my house, everything. I have an 'Eyewitness' guidebook for New York which is slightly overdue for return to Hatfield library which I feel a bit guilty about, but other than that all systems are, as they say, go.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Krissa has sorted me out with a cellphone (please note the ever so subtle linguistic changes that will be taking place here over the next few months: mobile = cellphone, pavement = sidewalk, boot = trunk, democracy = financio-hierarchial dynasty, crisps = chips, chips = potatoes frissé á l'anglaise) and a number, which really brings home the reality of it all - I already know what my mobile number is in the US.
The 7th of October, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be quitting these shores, and with good reason.
It hit me last night.
Despite the fact that everyone I know has shown considerable restraint with the 'Englishman in New York' comments, I am going to be in unfamiliar territory.
Even when the skyline has become known to me, when I know which subway lines to take without checking the map, when I know which bars, restaurants and shops are my favourite (I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the American-English spellings yet, I'll get back to you) there will be differences underneath which will only become apparent from time to time but still carry all the impact of alienation.
Krissa and I were talking about Hurricane Ivan, and I mentioned the plight of New Orleans, with a passing remark about having read in the news about the scale of a worst-case evacuation being akin to Dunkirk. Krissa hadn't heard of it, and it was at that point that I realised.
However 'native' I go, I'll still be me, here, British, with all of the associated little things that go with that - and I won't have all that under-the-bonnet stuff which is the background knowledge which you get from growing up an American.
Of course to a degree I'll pick stuff up, but...not all of it, so I'll always be a little out of place.
I do know one thing, mind you.
If during a phone conversation where I explain about the BEF pulling out of France, all the little boats, and the triumphant 'We just pulled off a seriously impressive retreat' headlines in the days following Dunkirk I can make the woman I am madly in love with laugh or even just chuckle, then everything in this new life I'm heading for is fine by me.
You know you don't have to change the words you use when changing countries. I haven't.
see you tomorrow for some good old fashioned cricket.
Yes indeedy. Sorry about not replying to the email. I will. Honest.
I think it would be much more interesting if you stayed as British as possible. I swear you'll have them drinking pints of lager in no time.
Although go easy on The Goodies and pies with mushy peas... they should never have left England!
All the best!
I agree, my Scottish husband hasn't changed his slang words either! I think the minute you do, is when you start to lose your wonderful accent.
eeeuw, mushy peas should never have existed in the first place.
Keep the English spellings!