Tuesday 24 April 2012

Been So Long...

While making arrangements for our annual trip to the UK, it dawned on me that I've been away now for 22 years.

Apart from the fact that I don't know anyone on TV any more, (well, apart from the Coronation Street cast, that never seems to change), when I left London -

- Charing Cross Station was old and decrepit
- the Docklands was just being developed
- there was no London Eye
- I could still afford to travel on the Tube
- the Eurostar didn't exist
- message bikes were the only way to get documents to another office in a hurry
- the railway system was called British Rail


When I left Tyneside, ten years prior to that, -

- the Quayside still resembled something out of a Dickens novel
- the MetroCentre hadn't been built
- the Metro transport system wasn't around
- there was no ring road, so the A1 went straight through the middle of the city
- Whitley Bay wasn't quite the neglected dump it is now
- Northumbria University was The Poly, and nowhere near as fancy as it is now
- Newcastle University, on the other hand, was due for a major revamp even then
- there were only 5 bridges over the Tyne



Wow. Just wow!




8 comments:

  1. Wow indeed. I thought London had changed a lot in three years. It must seem like a completely alien country to you now!

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  2. I can second everything listed in that first list about London because I left in 1991.

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  3. And ONLY 5 bridges over the Tyne? Goodness.

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  4. I have been here in England for 22 years. I left the States when I was 24 so like you,(maybe) I am creeping up on being over her longer then I had lived in my 'home' country. Time flies.

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  5. I know. I never know who anyone is talking about in England these days!

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  6. But the more things change the more they stay the same. I find the Geordie people to be as unique and as interesting as ever. I get more intrigued by them (us) each time I visit.

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  7. It is strange, isn't it, how the 'home country' ticks along without us and we get more and more comfortable in the new country. I still don't know all the cultural cues that Bill grew up with and I probably never will. At the same time, I can't really talk about current ideas in the US and am happier chatting with bloggers about our childhoods. I could say that's a sign of age, but I'm going to say it's about being an expat!

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