Before coming on this trip to London, I had a much more closed-minded view of what life in England was like. All I knew about England had been taught to me during history courses in school and images that I had seen online. This led me to believe that Englishness corresponded with properness. I believed that Englishness meant that the people were almost stuck back in the times where Kings ruled, and people were still getting their heads chopped off.

On my first day in London, I was pretty much instantly proven wrong. Riding the tube from Heathrow to King’s Cross and then to Angel was enough to show me that England is definitely not a country stuck in time but one that very much encompasses the definition of modernity. Watching people quickly move on and off trains and run from station to station to get to where they needed to be was almost impressive. Once we reached the surface, it was more of the same. People would rush past in all directions whether they were on foot, in a taxi, or on a bike. While Englishness still very much holds the definition of “classical” in my mind, I have gained a new respect for the country’s modernity during my time here.