On Learning to Understand (and Love) British Culture

It was the kind of story that enchants me, it seems so unlikely, and so often happens.
—Margaret Drabble, The Garrick Year

The night I met my husband, I should have been in Paris. I had made the necessary plans. But you know how these things happen: a misread date in the calendar, the late realization of a prior commitment—in this case, a ball with a ticket too expensive to write off as a loss, and of course I know how ridiculous that sounds. I spent the week prior trying to sell my spot; no one would have it. So Paris was cancelled—delayed, I thought—and we met, and all the rest, and now I live in England, a country I thought I knew well, but which, it turns out, is as foreign to me as Bolivia or Slovenia or Mars.   

When I decided to move here three years ago, I had assumed London would be