Banbury: City of Dreams

I am currently residing in Banbury, England. When I first got here I was so exhausted I hardly noticed that the cars were driving on the incorrect side of the street. My friends came to pick me up from the bus station. We began the trek to their house but sadly we lost a man on the journey. My faithful pink bag that my father had studiously replaced the wheels on, not two weeks beforehand, bit the dust.

We arrived at my Lettuce and Zeb's charming house. Lettuce wisely told me to stay awake for as long as possible as to avoid further jet lag. Try as I might, after I wolfed down the delicious bacon sandwich, my eyes began to droop. As I recall this happened the last time I visited them when they were living in Scotland.

Alas, jet lag one. Me: zip.

The bed where I fell into a bacon and jet lag coma. 

 The next day, Lettuce and I went to the park next to her subdivision. We went to read our respective books. And by read, I mean I was intently listening to all the English voices, as compelled as an anthropologist. The boys over at the football pitch (American: soccer field) were riding their bikes and slagging each other off (American: teasing each other). A 12ish year old boy rode by with one hand on the handle bars, the other attached to a cell phone. He was loudly yelling that he didn't want the "dirty money" the person on the other end of the phone was offering. This may be ethnocentric but English people have a hard time sounding intimidating. Even more so if they are on a bicycle and have not reached puberty.

It is fair to mention that my sinuses were having a difficult time adjusting to the mild climate and encountering Lettuce's two cats. Consequently I was sneezing every 7 seconds, hiding behind my sunglasses and shrinking from the small amount of English sun shining on me. Lettuce looked up from her book and told me I was pathetic.

 England might take some getting used to.

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any insult aimed at me rolls off like water off an ungainly, clumsy duck