PROLOGUE [we meet our protagonist, a 21-year-old single caucasian male, cruising at 29,000 feet above the Atlantic, seat 52C]

The British Airways stewardess serving our aisle, Alex, is incredibly attractive but has a mouth full of teeth like Shane McGowan.  Seriously, I have heard the jokes about the British and bad teeth, but I'd always brushed it off the way I disregard most any ethnic stereotype.  But now here I am, not even seven hours removed from my home state, and these teeth have been staring me down the entire journey.  I am beginning to think that culture shock may be more jarring than I anticipated.

The trip has been relatively uneventful.  After four or five hours of attempting to sleep, I had finally decided I was fighting a losing battle.  I found myself perpetually in that state of sleep purgatory - some gray area between asleepness and awakeness in which you're not really able to enjoy the benefits of either.  Each time I thought I was about to break through the barrier I would be jarred awake by a moment of extreme turbulence, the kind that immediately brings to mind images from the first episode of Lost.  The elderly gentleman next to me (52B) has managed to be out the entire flight.  He was traveling back to the town in which he grew up to visit his sister.  An industrial town in "Middle England" which he described as being "like Pittsburgh."  Although he says he's lived in the US for more than half of his life now, he still looks like he could adorn the cover of The Great Big Book of Stereotypical Englishmen.  Across the aisle, 52D, is a younger man from Chandler going to his hometown in Norway to visit his parents.  Directly behind me, 53B and 53C, are two women, better known to me as my mother and sister.  They are not visiting family at all but rather flying to London to head on a Baltic cruise.  All are generally pleasant seatmates, although 53C keeps nudging my back while fumbling clumsily through her seat pocket.  

Did I tell you that I'm heading over to spend all summer here?  That I'll be living in some posh neighborhood and working for some important company?  It's strange, because as much as I've been anticipating this trip for the last several months, I don't find myself thinking about what lays ahead at all.  My mind is elsewhere - on the new David Sedaris book I'm reading, on the unparalleled genius of Animal Collective's Feels album (which I've listened to three times since takeoff), or on my stewardess' teeth, which I just can't seem to get past.  Of the variety of strangers or acquaintances to whom I've mentioned my summer plans, I've received several responses.  Some seem genuinetly excited for me, some react appropriately politely, and several have seemed indifferent or even perplexed.  I suppose I can understand some of that; the novelty of the big city that exists for me simply isn't there for everyone.  Many simply don't understand the appeal of spending thousands of dollars for the privledge of working for no money, a sentiment that I certainly see the logic in.  And if I ever came across someone from Britain who was coming to Arizona to work for free, I might react with similar bemusement.  Pretty much my entire motivation for coming here in the first place was my desire to not spend the summer in Arizona; the fact that it brought me to London was only a neat little bonus.  And I'm still not entirely convinced that this whole internship experience will be the bee's nees.  I guess I'll be able to tell you in a few weeks.  In the meantime, I'll be content to listen to Feels a few more times.

That's all I have now.  Hopefully in the future I'll have something more interesting to talk about.