When I first came to England, I was not happy about being uprooted from the place I'd grown up in an ocean away and placed in a cold, wet climate with almost none of the comforts of home. I was further vexed by part of this being my own fault; I had no choice when it came to leaving, but some limited choice over which part of the UK I was going to live in. I chose poorly and, as a result, I wasn't a very happy young man. My first memory of England was landing at Heathrow airport on a grey, rainy day in autumn. I can still recall seeing the miles and miles of identical brick houses stretching off into the smog and thinking, "I'd kill myself if I was told to live here." In retrospect, London was a very interesting place. I just didn't appreciate things like Greenwich park or the architecture at the time because I was busy taking note of everything I could use as a point against the place.
The food in Britain was the first I ever tasted that I consistently threw up. It turned out that I didn't have food poisoning, it really was meant to taste like that. Yes, people really did enjoy having their morning toast fried in grease and fat, with a side of blackened shit that could have been whisked out of a gutter in the walled city by a typhoon - mushrooms, would you bleedin' credit it. Meat was blasted or boiled or nuked while vegetables were treated with even worse contempt. Chicken was usually so dry you had to keep a glass of water on standby. I used to wonder how many people choked to death on it per year. Still, they seemed to eat and drink like they could no longer feel taste or pain and had little desire left to live, so it was difficult to imagine it doing a great deal of damage.
The people could make you throw up, too, just by talking. I remember that was really something. Just standing there listening to some unshaven lout in tracksuit bottoms detailing his latest sexual escapade - "phwoar, I was lookin' at f**kin' wall-to-wall minge, c*nt" - was usually enough. Hygiene and a lot of personal habits horrified me.
The west coast of Scotland was a long exercise in patience. The town of Helensburgh is a place that, despite its undeniably existent charms, I will likely always remember as being "soul-destroying". The thing about the west coast in particular is that you can't get things done. The roads can't stay open long enough due to landslides, accidents or weather. The people, when they're available, have to drive for miles and charge a lot to fix broken water pipes or leaking roofs. When the power goes off or you're snowed in, tough. We were lucky to have telephones and internet toward the end. They even got us a Sky box, which really kicked the boredom.
The first years I spent living in the UK instilled in me a great contempt for the place and almost everyone who lived there. I came to realize over time that if I didn't make a conscious change to my outlook, I faced spending the rest of my life as a miserable, whimpering misanthrope. I feel quite warm toward Britain and its strange idiosyncrasies now. I certainly don't hate it. The west coast in particular was rugged and beautiful and taught me a lot about appreciating what you have, whether that be electricity, warmth or transport. Holding people in contempt never made me happy anyway, it just made me friendless.
I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that the culture shock of coming to Britain forced a change in my attitudes and was consequently a great force for positive change in the quality of my life. Fancy a kebab?