Travelling to England, I expected to feel like an outsider. I have no experience with the British culture and although no language barrier exists, they definitely have a different manner of speaking. I’ve heard “Cheers” more this trip than I have in my entire life. But after my experiences in London this past week, I have come to realize that London isn’t exclusively that British. So many different groups of people come together in this one city, that no one person can ever be a complete outsider or insider all of the time.
Yesterday we watched a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well in Gujarati, an Indo-Aryan language. On my left sat a native Londoner who had been to countless Shakespeare performances at the Globe Theater. This performance of All’s Well marked her first ever experience with Shakespeare in a foreign language. Here in London, I felt like just as much a foreigner as a native Londoner. Throughout the performance, people on my right laughed at points that the woman on my left and I did not find all that amusing. This group of people, some travelers and some who live here, all spoke Gujrati. 
I had other experiences with the great diversity of London besides this adaption of All’s Well that End’s Well that also left me feeling somewhat like a foreigner. For lunch one day a group of us ate at a Turkish restaurant called Tas. I have eaten Turkish food before, so I had a general idea of what to expect. One other group of Americans clearly did not have the same exposure that I did, as they stared at their food in confusion when the waiter brought it to their table. A third table, clearly regulars of the restaurant, knew what they wanted without even looking at the menu. While these two experiences were somewhat foreign to me, they wouldn’t necessarily have been any less foreign to a “Londoner.”
Besides these moments of unfamiliarity, I’ve also had other experiences throughout my trip where I fit in extremely well and things felt familiar. For example, in America people rarely automatically spell my name correctly; most assume the more frequent spellings “Hailey” or “Haley.” But throughout my time in England no person has spelled my name wrong. I find it so funny that in America I have never had a Starbucks barrista spell my name the right way and in England not one has spelled my name incorrectly. An even weirder example of my feeling like an insider in this foreign country occurred at a comedy club one night. The table next to us asked where we were from and when I said New Jersey, we discovered that they live in the town next to me. Two people from square mile towns in Northern New Jersey sat next to each other at a random comedy club in the heart of London. While we reminisced about our rival high schools, it didn’t seem like we were the foreigners at all. The people around us certainly felt unfamiliar with the anecdotes we found all too familiar.
Throughout my time in England I have been an insider, outsider, and everything in between. But I think that anyone experiencing this place can feel that way because of its immense diversity as a place. At times I may be more of an insider than a native Londoner and other times I may simply be the clueless American.