As a
relatively new faculty member at Northern Kentucky University, I took the
opportunity to teach a course during a five-week tour of England and Scotland.
My students and those of my colleagues from Western Kentucky University met at
the airport in Atlanta. As our flight had been delayed, we had only a few
minutes to race to British Airways. We literally ran to catch our jet. Panting
from the exertion, we sank into our seats. I was immediately impressed with the
decorum of the staff, as well as the English accents!
After the
longest flight in my life, the aircraft finally landed at Gatwick Airport.
Eventually, our group rode a bus (a coach)
to Bristol. There, we met the host families that would be housing us and
providing many of our meals for the next several days. I was assigned to a
gracious couple. He was an insurance agent; she was a nurse. They drove me to
their home in the suburbs.
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River Avon, Bristol, from Balloon
Courtesy Adrian Pingstone Through Wikimedia
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That evening,
while my inner clock struggled to catch up, the three of us visited the
Llandoger Trow, a public house, or pub. Tradition says that Daniel Defoe met
Alexander Selkirk, who inspired Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe. The pub inspired Robert Louis Stevenson when he
described the Admiral Benbow Inn in Treasure
Island. We sat in settles by a fireplace and talked at length.
I slept
like a rock that night but wanted to sleep more when my host awakened me. He
dropped me off at the city college, where I was to attend an early morning
orientation before the first day of touring. He said, “We will see you at our home
this evening.” Drowsy, I said my goodbyes, turned, and entered the college.
Almost immediately, I realized that I had no last name, no address, and no
telephone number for my host. I flew back to the sidewalk, but my host had
driven off. When I found the head of our tour, I was astounded to learn that he
had no list of our hosts!
Throughout
the day, I tried to pay attention to the sites we visited, but my brain was
churning. How was I to find my way to my host’s house that evening?
In the late
afternoon, we returned to the college. I stood on the sidewalk and considered
my options. I felt I had only one choice: namely, to board one of the buses
that lined up every few minutes across the street. I stepped onto the first
one, which soon pulled away from the curb. Like a hawk, I watched the buildings
that passed by, and they looked familiar from my half-asleep morning trip in my
host’s automobile. The bus circled a roundabout, and it looked familiar, too. On
and on I rode. After several miles, we approached another roundabout, and I
thought I remembered entering the same roundabout from a different direction.
At the first stop beyond the circle, I disembarked.
I strode
back to the roundabout, and, taking my life in my hands, I ran across the
center to find my way down the street that I thought I remembered. I walked a
few blocks and believed that I was remembering an intersection. I turned left
and walked another block or two.
I stood for
a long time while I looked at three houses, one of which I thought might belong
to my host. Eventually, I persuaded myself that I recognized the car in front
of one of them. Gathering my courage in the evening gloom, I rang the doorbell.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when my host appeared at the door.
“You’re
just in time for dinner,” he smiled, welcoming me inside. Immediately, I wrote
down his name, address, and phone number. He could hardly believe that I had
found my way to his house, and he said he never would have imagined that the
head of our tour would not have his contact information.
My first
experience in another country was finding my way “home.”
