I no longer recall — and my journals from the time do not record — exactly how or why I decided to go to England in the summer of 1993. That’s a rather significant decision. You’d think I would’ve written something about it, right? But, no, I was too preoccupied with girl troubles and trying to figure out what to do with my life. Just one more miscalculation of priorities for which I’d like to smack my younger self in the head.

Considering, however, that I went under the auspices of a Study Abroad program coordinated by my alma mater, the University of Utah, I would imagine that I probably saw a poster on campus and thought to myself, “hey, that’d be a fun growth experience.” (More likely I thought it would be a good way to put off my post-graduation entry into the real world of work and responsibility for another month, but it also really did look like it would be a fun growth experience.) It didn’t hurt that I’d long fantasized about seeing the world, especially the green island nation I’d been fascinated by ever since seeing my first middle-school glimpses of Dr. Who and Monty Python on PBS.

Whatever my reasons, somehow, at the tender age of 23, I found myself 10,000 miles from home, a sheltered only child truly on his own for the first time in his life, a student in Cambridge University’s International Summer School. I can recall the first evening I was there like it was last night, even though it was nearly 13 years in the past.

I sat in my spartan dormitory room in a 100-year-old college rooming house, my brain fuzzy from jet-lag and culture shock. I was exhausted, but I wasn’t ready to sleep. I wanted to absorb the details first. The furnishings around me were worn, but serviceable: a narrow bed with a thin, lumpy mattress; two chairs; a wooden desk. The room had once had a fireplace, but it was now bricked up and filled in with an electric space heater. Off to my right was a cupboard containing a sink and lighted by a bare bulb dangling on its cord, the kind you turned on by pulling a chain of little silver balls. The toilet and shower were down the hall. I’d left my door open, and from one of the other rooms, I could hear someone playing a guitar and softly singing a melancholy old Judy Collins tune.

I sat there listening and peering out the window at the deepening twilight, at the huge, lush trees on the other side of the street and at the sky that was still oddly, unexpectedly blue at nearly 10 PM. The air flowing in was mild and moist and smelled of damp stone, and I remember thinking, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”

Looking back now, I know that there would’ve been cheaper ways to visit England. Even though I’ve always been proud of telling people I attended Cambridge, if only for a month, I was pretty indifferent to the academic experience. For me, the ISS program was simply an excuse to get over there; I audited my classes, paying scant attention to the lectures while I planned which pubs I was going to hit that evening. But even if I didn’t get my tuition’s worth in terms of education, Cambridge was, for me, the ultimate travel experience because I feel like I really got to know the place instead of just stopping long enough to buy a shot glass. I lived in the same room for four whole weeks, long enough that by my third week there, I found I was annoyed with the day-trippers that crowded The Backs on Sunday afternoons. I shopped at the local grocery store, explored the residential streets far from the postcard attractions, got friendly with the bar maid and the man at the college’s front gate, ordered pizza from the Pakistani guy at the late-night delivery service. I mingled with students from other other US cities and other countries. Somehow I got myself adopted by a contingent of Spanish hippies and I befriended an ancient retiree from Florida. I learned the joys of punting and acquired a taste for Guinness extra stout. And that guy with the guitar and the love of folk music? He’s still one of my best friends, known around these parts as “Cranky Robert.”

A fun growth experience? Oh, hell, yeah. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. And I’ve finally gotten around to scanning in some photos from my time there so I can share it with all you folks in InternetLand. If you missed the link above, just click here.

I may not remember why I went, but I’m incredibly glad I did. And someday I’m going back…