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I woke up and rolled out of my famously comfortable bed. It would be the last sleep in that squeaky worn down twin mattress that had held me during my sleep for the past three months. It was a real champ.
I looked around my room and found that the only things on my walls were chipped paint where past tenants had hung posters – no more Christmas lights, no more harry potter poster gracing my bathroom door, no more England football poster over my bed – this certainly did not feel like my room. My suitcases were neatly lined up in a row ready for my departure. I walked into my kitchen to savour one more bowl of Kellog’s delicious Crunch Nut Clusters Milk Chocolate Curls and woke up Erigony and asked her to join me in the kitchen. I had so much sentiment built up inside for this flat, was this the last time that I would see it? Sadly, it was beginning to feel like I was a guest in someone’s house, and it was a feeling I was not warming too – I needed to leave to the airport quickly as to not let the feeling set in. It was not a tough goodbye. I had thought that it would have been hard to say goodbye to such close friends knowing that I was leaving to another country an ocean apart, but it was surprisingly easy. Easy because I knew that this was a “see you soon.” Not a “goodbye.” Something told me that I would be back in London, and back to see my mates. These are friends that are worth travelling great distances to see, worth staying in touch with, and worth making great sacrifices for.

I brought my luggage down the stairs and met the car that was waiting for me outside. We loaded my bags into the car and headed to Heathrow via the M25. I was happy for the decision I made to have a car take me to the airport; I was imagining myself carrying all of my luggage on the underground on a Monday morning rush hour – it would have been madness. The driver of the car was from Cyprus and we had an enjoyable conversation on the 45-minute journey.

I checked in, passed security and entered the main terminal. I was beginning to feel quite nocuous. I was carrying every souvenir I had bought over the 3 months on my back, I was tired, thirsty and starving. I walked over to Pret a Manger – my favourite sandwich stop and grabbed some yoghurt and granola and a large water. I sat down.

“Man this sucks!” said a man at a table behind me, as I turned to see a large Denver Broncos logo printed across the back of his t-shirt. My jaw dropped. I turned to look at the other table and there was a group of teens wearing shorts and flip flops and in front of me I found a lady and her husband arguing over what to feed their child who was crying out for food. They were all American. I had suddenly found myself inside the USA enclave of Heathrow airport and I despised it. Was this really where I was from?

I arrived at the gate to find passengers wearing baggy hooded sweatshirts embroidered with USA across the chest, teens wearing pyjama pants and slippers as public clothing and a furious mother yelling at the British Airways clerk, speaking ridiculously slow in order to humiliate the worker, as if they did not understand English. The culture shock had begun, and my feet were still touching the sweet ground of her majesty.

The flight was enjoyable and felt quite short. I watched almost all of the different movies that were offered in our personal video screens and enjoyed the delicious Indian curry for lunch. The lighting outside was really interesting; we departed London at 12:30 and it was bright sun. We approached Iceland and the north pole and experienced a beautiful sunset for an hour, then landed in Denver where it was a sunny afternoon.

The passengers of our flight marched down the corridors of DIA towards the passport control. We were all immediately stopped by a short woman carrying a walkie talkie and roped off as a flight. Some passengers misunderstood the poor signage and were reprimanded loudly by the woman. The surrounding foreigners from my flight whispered to one another “I forgot how rude they are here.” After waiting for around 30 minutes in a roped off section, completely confused, our entire flight was able to proceed to passports where we were greeted by a police man shouting mens bathrooms over there, womens bathrooms over there, passport check straight ahead. The DIA workers were all wearing cowboy hats, it was quite odd.

I proceeded through the doors and found my family eagerly waiting for my arrival.