We landed in Manchester in the rain, a beautiful soft rain usually found only when the ocean is nearby. Dennis Hill rescued us from the airport and apologized profusely for the grayness of the sky and the water coating everything. He seemed not to believe us when we told him that it was a welcome relief from the dryness that afflicted us at home.
Writing in a diary is of course new to me and I write as if writing a letter. The thought of committing my innermost feelings to papers that no one is expected to read seems alien to me. Already I have allowed Heather to read what I’ve put to paper. It would seem strange to me to try and keep secret what I have written.
The format of this travel diary is strange to me as well. How unusual to write to arbitrary lengths the feelings that that afflict us in a day.
I am writing in the middle of the night, unable to sleep after our transformation from Canadians at home to tourists abroad. What will we find here? I seek a connection the past I have studied, to the world I know lives and breathes beyond our isolated and ignorant doorstep but how can a change in location reveal the world I seek? Or is the isolation and ignorance buried inside of me? I looked around at the English country as we passed and I saw land, like any other, distinguished only by a change in the building materials for the houses and different colors for the street signs. But the air itself is different here, I can feel it on my tongue and it is strange to me, in its alien taste I find the first seed of hope.
Next Entry: Day 2
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