Entry #1: Leaving Kirkby - Like Mother, Like Daughter - Downtown.

Two seats on a National Express bus direct to Birmingham were bought on a Monday by two Canadians, wide-eyed and eager to move on and get going with their next adventure. I tried desperately to grasp hold of the days in between, but they just seemed to fly by, and before I knew it I was staring Thursday in the face, suddenly not so eager to leave just yet.

It had been exactly two weeks and a day since our last adventure ended, and in that time we had unconsciously let ourselves fall into a rhythmic, leisurely daily routine in the small village of Kirkbymoorside. Every day started out the same way – Dave would rise before me, take a shower, and wait for the inevitable question that he was forced to face each morning: What are your plans for today? Dave never had any idea how to respond to my grandmother’s daily question, and with me, without exception, always still back in bed, he would always respond the same way: “Uhh…I’m not sure what our plans are…” This exchange undoubtedly frustrated both parties equally.

Most days we ended up doing nothing much, which suited both of us just fine. We were relieved of the pressures that dogged us every day of our trip to get up early and get a good day of seeing things and doing things in before nightfall. We no longer had to wonder where we would find our next meal, nor worry about train schedules or whether our feet would hold out for another day of walking. We spent the days playing computer games on our laptop, or furiously solving puzzles from our (call us nerdy if you want) Japanese logic puzzles book, and going on the infamous Swineherd lane walk through the “beware of bull” pasture with regularity. I began to find myself inexplicably intrigued by the going-ons on Neighbours, and Dave managed his new fantasy football (read: soccer) team with astute precision. The most anticipated event of the day, however, was always dinnertime, and despite how many times we had all gotten into each others’ way in the small flat throughout the day, at dinnertime we all came together, talked and laughed. Dinners were usually followed by even more anticipated desserts, such as hot rice pudding, stewed plums with custard, fruit crumble with cream. Of course, I can’t say that Dave looked forward to them as much as I did. It was as though, after three weeks of having to be adults out in the big wide world, we were back in the womb, with all our needs taken care of, with people other than each other to talk to, and we liked it quite a bit. The future lay ahead of us like a blank void, like some kind of abstract idea that would never actually be reality, so the days just kept coming and going, like a tide on a beach, with no end in sight.

Until there was an end in sight: Thursday. The big day. The day when we would head off again, with only each other, into the unknown. With already one bad experience in the back of our minds, we spent the car ride to York in our own silent worlds, with that same kind of nervous anticipation you get before you go on a rollercoaster or before you write a final exam, except much more palatable.

As I watched the rolling green hills sweep by alongside the car, my thoughts turned to a certain nineteen year old girl. I pictured her in a dress she had made herself and a guitar case slung over one shoulder, her face eager and bright. I realized that perhaps my vision of her was somewhat confused with that of Maria in The Sound of Music. Perhaps she didn’t look that way at all, but that’s how I like to think of her. At this ripe old age, a good three years younger than I am right now, she had left her family and her country to be a nanny in a place she had never been to before, Toronto, Canada. Her first attempt was not quite a success, and although she knew almost immediately that she could not stay on with this family, the decision to leave must have been a difficult one. It must have been even more difficult still to go back and have another go at it. She reminded me of this story last night as we talked over Skype. She ended up falling in love with the second family she was placed with and we hoped that maybe our second go of it would have similar results. It was her parents who were driving me now, to the beginning of my very own adventure, and I wondered if it brought back memories of when their daughter left home. How history seems to repeat itself through the generations.

We said our goodbyes at the bus station and we watched as their car pulled away into the busy York traffic. Our bus was late, which only added to the apprehension. We were a bit nervous as well about all the luggage we had – one oversized duffle bag on wheels, one overflowing expedition backpack, and two stuffed knapsacks carried our entire lives, and we hoped it would all fit on the bus. It did, and we found two seats towards the back, where we were entertained for the three hour trip by two young guys in the seats next to us who were determined to drink their own weight in alcohol before arriving in Birmingham. We were fascinated, in the way that makes you have to slow down on the highway as you pass the scene of a crash, especially since such activities on buses didn’t even enter the thoughts of most Canadians. We watched as they went through several cans of beer and a large bottle of rum mixed with Sprite, all before the clock had struck noon.

We arrived in Birmingham on schedule – our first clue was the Aston Villa Football Stadium we passed before entering the city – and sat with our faces pressed against the window, hoping for a better first impression of our new home than we got the last time we went through this process.

Walking into the bus station was a surreal experience – it was more like an airport terminal, with people everywhere, and the radio uncannily blaring out the old tune “Downtown”. Dave called our contact, Adrian, the head of the West Midlands division of TimePlan, and we soon found him amongst the throngs, followed him outside and burdened his car with all of our bags. “Travel light, I see,” he commented in his thick Irish accent. He has bright eyes, a round belly, a toothy smile. The kind of guy that seems to be continually preoccupied with about a million different ideas and projects going on in his mind. Eventually we all got into the car, after a brief delay when Dave tried to get into the front right hand door.

If you ever want to check to see if you are still alive, I would suggest going for a spin around the block with Adrian. Over the course of the next few days, it seemed that he would use any excuse to get out of the office and take us for a ride, pointing out buildings and streets as we flew by them, dodging down back alleys and wondering, as almost an afterthought, whether the road we were on was a one way street. We liked him immediately.

Overwhelmed at just finally being here, in the city where we would spend a year, we all decided it would be best to wait until tomorrow to go over everything, and Adrian gladly drove us to the guesthouse he had arranged for us. We somehow arrived alive. It was a little bit out of the main downtown area, but was ridiculously cheap, so we weren’t arguing. We were introduced to the hostess, and she and Adrian bemusedly watched as we struggled to lug all our bags, all at once, up the steep, narrow staircase, as though it were some kind of initiation ritual. Once up to our large room, the hostess was smiley but unforthcoming with any information, rules, or payment options for staying in the room. Curiously enough, however, she was wonderfully explicit in explaining the use of the special electric toilet in the washroom. This was in case we couldn’t read the large sign on the wall listing all the procedures you had to go through just to use the toilet.

That night, with a nervous energy, we walked back into the downtown to meet our city properly, not just as a blur from a car window. We have developed a theory over several years of traveling that the weather can make or break one’s first impressions of a city. It was cloudy and cold that day, but let me tell you, we knew right away that we liked it. We walked past sight after sight with smiles on our faces – The large central library, the Parthenon-inspired Town Hall (for Dave), street after street of nice looking restaurants, bars, and stores, shopping malls, and even a courtyard that had been converted into a beach, complete with imported sand, beach chairs, umbrellas, a large canvas picture of an ocean, and a large television broadcasting continuous BBC programming.

We dined that night at one of the many restaurants along Broad Street, where we had to get up from our table and order our meal right at the bar (this took us a while to catch on to as we dumbly sat at our table wondering why we weren’t being served). The cold wind blew in from the open patio door as we ate our meal, which was, to fulfill all stereotypes about Birmingham, curry with rice, naan bread and poppadums. We were happy, albeit freezing, and had re-found that adventurous spirit within us.