4 1/2

My plane landed in Manchester on the evening of the 24th of September, 2002. The weather wasn't that bad, there were still remnants of the english summer which would fade away fast in the next few weeks. All my earthly possessions were packed into two suitcases that were at least 30 years old and barely survived the trip across the atlantic. When I got to the flat I would call home for the next year there was only one of the other 7 guys who were supposed to be there; he was a ducth guy called Frans. He told me he wasn't the only one who had arrived, there was also a chinese guy called Chen but his sightings were rare. Frans was therefore quite happy to see someone else in the flat and we decided to go out for a couple of pints to one of the adjacent pubs. I remember the first beer I tried here was Grolsch, a nice lager from Holland which Frans recommended. Over the next week or so the flat would eventually fill up with the rest of the guys; Pete (Panagiotis) from Greece but who had spent the previous 4 years in Chicago and 4 english guys: James, Dez, Chris and Sean. The 4 of us who weren't enlgish were all starting a postgrad degree and were all on our 20's, the english guys were all undergrads and they were all 18 so we simply decided to call them 'the kids'. It seems like it was a pretty strange mix of people and ages but we got along just fine...eventually since the first couple of weeks we couldn't understand what the fuck they were saying :D what with none of us never ever been exposed to truly english accents before.
It would take me a lot of time and space to write about that first year so I won't do it, I just wanted to reminisce a little bit about the first people I met here 4 and a half years ago. Oh, the memories!


James, Frans and Chris


Dez and Sean


Pete and Frans


Chen, yours truly, Sean


Man, 4 1/2 years already... that's 16.2% of my life. Sometimes you can't help and wonder what your life would be like if you'd never come here, how much have you changed because of it? To think the guys we called the kids are now the same age I was when I got here just makes feel plain old *sigh*