here is London

One of the funny things about not just living in, but growing up in, New York, is that it leaves you never wanting to visit any place just because it's in the movies. In New York, your life is the movies, and the movies get it wrong. Which isn't to say, by the way, that I haven't had my share of pop culture pilgrimages. After all, I went to Australia because Baz Luhrmann was once a whore and so was I.

But somehow, in spite of my moth life (short and about light from sources other than myself) in Sydney, the fact that this UK thing was going to be a big, emotional deal to me sort of escaped my notice until we were landing and I had "500 Miles" blasting on the cheap, tinny headphones Delta provided.

I almost started crying. Of course, that could also have been the not enough sleep, not enough food, and the oh-my-god-we're-going-to-die turbulence on the flight. Granted, I'm a big wimp about commercial air travel and the steward was probably just pissed at all the people who weren't following directions but "it is absolutely imperative you remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened for your own safety while we get through this" is not a reassuring message to broadcast over the PA system.

We took an endless Tube ride, most of it with a lovely puppy who was going home with his new human for the first time. He (the dog) had these blue, translucent eyes that reminded both Patty and I of Glenn Quinn.

Then we finally got to our destination, found the hotel and discovered it was waaaaaaaaaaaay to early to check in. So we left our luggage with the hotel and in hopes of some food and possibly a Citibank so I could get my financial situation straightened out, we decided to roam.

Whatever direction I had, had about Must Find Citibank Now had evaporated, and it's a beautiful unseasonably warm day here and I didn't want to get back in the tube to head to Canary Wharf (the only sure location of a Citibank I know about here), so instead we walked down to the Tower of London, accidentally detouring into the City at one point, which meant I started monologuing on men's suits (even here, I look at some of these men and I think I know more than you and it feels wicked and sly. And my god, there are some bold! pinstripes here. It's fabulous, makes me proud) and we had to keep checking our maps.

Two fellows stopped and asked "are you girls all right?" and somehow exhaustion makes me friendlier and fresher. "Oh, we don't even have enough of a plan to be lost, but thank you," I said and we all laughed and chatted for a moment.

I kept making us stop in places I thought had gluten-free things and then turned out not to: Starbucks, Pret, Eat. And, to be frank, I was getting a little discouraged, but then there was the Tower to see and high school boys in blazers with velvet collars and some fool working in the Tower had pointed a pair of crap speakers out one of the windows and was blasting some shit music.

We sat for a while to plan and then Patty said she felt sure that we could walk around to the other side of the Tower to head back to our hotel area that way and we'd get food on the way. Somehow, this brilliant plan lead to the most brilliant discovery (also Patty) EVER, which was St. Katherine's Market, where I bought three types of gluten-free fudge (including coconut ice) and had a delicious lunch of Sicilian-style friend risotto balls with hot pepper chutney and Patty had an amazing sandwich. The whole thing came to under 20 quid and we ate sitting by some big beautiful boats and having a number of fabulous chats with salespeople.

Now, we're in our room, which is simple and spartan but has beautiful light. Patty's asleep. The empty refrigerator is BEGGING me to find a grocery shop and get us some stuff, and church bells are ringing.

Everything here is a memory of lives not mine. Some, the lies of my upbringing; others the stories that infect my life and sometimes make it feel as if I am living it out of order. -- I shouldn't have ever even heard of Cardiff, and yet it matters so fucking much that I"m going there on Monday. More than that, how in the hell has Patty wound up spending 12 weeks there and nodding at me solemnly when I tell her this or that thing looks like a Dalek.

"You don't even like Doctor Who," I tell her.

"I've seen photos," she says, and then points out all the Doctor Who articles in the newspaper. The ubiquity, no matter how well explained to me, surprises me.

I saw a non-Tardis old wooden blue police box that was out somewhere for historical purposes, and I wonder what neighborhood Ianto would have lived in when working at Torchwood One. Meanwhile, discussions of a day trip always seem to lead to conversations about the architecture of Oxford University and His Dark Materials and its Jordan College. I may be a lot of things, but one hit wonder isn't among them. And yes, we do know Harry Potter was filmed there.

This -- the UK, London, and certainly Cardiff -- it turns out, is a place I very much want to have like me. I want it to put its hand on the small of my back and smile down at me and really see me, which may be why I'm such a chatty over-sharer with the folks at the fairs.

The thing is, they -- and so their city -- do see me. It's all celiac disease and air travel and ooooo, New York, which I guess they've seen in the movies themselves.

And I think, the UK likes me because this is hard, because I lost my stupid cash card on the way here, because my out of order relationship with this place is the first thing in ten years that's made me want to keep a diary in a leatherbound journal that no one can see because I don't know how to tell you how any of this feels without waving my hand and shrugging it off and saying tee-hee, when, trust me, there's absolutely no goddamn tee-hee about it.

When we went down to the river, I squinted across is and wondered about the end of the world. When we got on the tube, the first thing I did was crack some joke about V for Vendetta and then shut the hell up as we sped by a cluttered playground way out back in zone 5. Yeah, my fandom knows why the kids rattled me.

But all that aside, it's a bit weak, being an American anglophile. It's expected and boring. But I can't remember a time when I wasn't supposed to be here. This was home, that's what I learned from laying daffodils at the Shakespeare statue in Central Park for Miss Hew on Founder's Day before we all went back to our little red brick building in our two little lines and ate that awful pineapple cake and listened to the story about the British girls and the War and the boarding thing -- again. Without ever having visited this is where I learnt to spell. And to cry, and I feel like I should apologize for that, not to you, but to the whole country.

The view from our room is crap, but the light makes up for a lot. And London really sees me, and I've almost stopped worrying about how I look.

Patty's still asleep, but I've got me some groceries to find.