"Every Car Ride it's Only Sad Songs on the Dial", Day 31

I have been here for a little over a month and I am not one bit homesick.

There have been a few instances where I have been certain for a split second that I’ve seen a familiar face from Canada. I cannot quite describe the moment that follows when I realize it is of course no one I know, but it is a bit unsettling. I have been here long enough to recognize people if I go take a walk down the high street or the coffee shop, but I associate their faces with London, not my home in Canada. I often wonder as I’m walking down the street what it would be like to see a friend from Canada here, in this place so far away and disconnected from my home. Maybe this is why I’m not homesick; there is nothing here to remind me of Canada, nothing remotely familiar. Instead, it is exciting and kind of liberating. I recently met a woman who used to live in Canada and went to high school at East York Collegiate, a school five minutes away from my house. The feeling I got when she told me this was pure excitement, a sort of relief even, and it was interesting that a complete stranger was able to act as a source of comfort. I realized afterwards this comfort came from the fact that she was familiarity in all the foreignness around me; she knows my neighbourhood, what it looks like, smells like and feels like.

When I first arrived here, I couldn’t listen to my ipod. It seemed that every song I played held some sort of memory or bought me back to an amazing day or night. It’s amazing that a single song can make my mood shift so suddenly and bring back feelings from a precise point in my life. Although I now welcome some of these songs because I take comfort in the memories they bring me, others still produce a little pang of sadness inside of my heart and have to be changed (I still can't make it through a whole Jacksoul song).

I will be able to drive in two weeks! It’s astounding how different the driving regulations are here…how is it that I can get behind a wheel (with an adult who has years of driving experience beside me of course) before having taken a theory or practical test? Lets hope I don’t destroy Samantha’s car the minute I get behind the wheel.

In exactly a week my parents and sister will be here. I can’t wait!

xx