familiarities

And then there was the time that I got off the train in Leicester and I knew that I had to walk right out of the station instead of left to get to the bus stop. And that because it was a Saturday the 31 bus would only run every half an hour instead of every 10 minutes so I knew I had time to walk down to Green Oasis on London Road to get a coffee before it came. And I knew that the coffee would be 1.20 and that it would come it a beige take-away cup and that I would have to switch hands while holding it because there was never any sleeves left. And I knew to press the stop button for Oadby Village sometime between the school sign that said 'Best A-Levels Results in the East Midlands' and the road that shared the same name of my Dad's hometown in Saskatchewan, otherwise it would be too late and the driver would go right past. And I knew that once I got off the bus at Oadby that it would only take 5 minutes to walk back to my room if I went past the gardens, and 7 minutes if I didn't. And I knew all of this because, somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, it had become like home.