What Am I doing in London

After my two-year Mormon mission, I return to Brazil, trying to get my life going, but I'm feeling pretty lost about what to do next. When that happens, my first instinct is: I need to travel and find myself.

I save some money, make some phone calls, and get a flight to Lyon, France, a place I had lived before when I was 15 to learn French, and again head back to France to brush up on my language skills.

But this time, I add a twist. I plan to study for a month and then backpack around Europe for another.

When I start classes at this French school, as always, I make friends with the students who kick off at the same time as me.

We're a diverse bunch, all in our early twenties, and some still in their teens. There's an American boy, two Greek girls, my new best friend Francesca from Italy, a dude from Bali, and another two guys from Japan. A gal from England called Lily, two Brazilian dudes (including yours truly), three Colombians, and about eight Koreans.

For some reason, Koreans are all about learning French. They'd pick it over English to learn as a second language, at least back in 2017.

Some of us are very tight, always hanging out after class, hitting up museums and parties on weekends. And with 4 Latinos in the group, there's definitely some serious flirting happening.

Lily, the British girl, and I start getting closer. First, she asks me to help her study French, and then we go out to museums or walk around the city together. We spend a bunch of alone time together, but I'm not planning to do anything. I know I'm about to go on an adventure, and I don't want to get attached.

She does ask me out on a date, so I accept, and let me tell you, this date couldn't have screamed more "French."

The romance is off the charts. We have dinner she made herself at her top-floor apartment overlooking the city. We cruise around town on one bike as the sun sets, with me pedaling and her in the basket, and then we grab gelato by the river. Seriously, it feels like a scene straight out of a movie.

We're sitting there chatting, and she hits me with some pretty odd questions for a first date, like how many girls I'd kissed before. I tell her I've had a pretty standard Brazilian teenage "love" life, kissing quite a large number of girls. I mean, my first kiss was with my neighbor at 12 years old, haha.

So I ask her the same questions, and she quickly responds: "same, same. And me and my ex-boyfriend, wow, we were wild!"

I find that conversation a bit odd. I've never been hit with those questions on a date before. For some reason, I feel like she's trying to impress me. She's 18 though, so I figure it's just insecurity.

So naturally, I lean in for a kiss, and as I'm getting close to her lips, she quickly turns her face away, which catches me off guard.

"Everything okay?"

She says yes and it was just reflex. “Should we go to your house?” I am still very much recent from being a missionary, and going to the house could only mean one thing, and I don't want to do anything. I'm very much thinking "sex only after marriage."

I tell her we could just stay there, but she says she isn't used to kissing in public. I tell her that's France, everyone kisses in public!

I kiss her and something is odd. Her kiss is not flowing naturally; it feels very rigid, a bit too dry, too much teeth, and where is the tongue?

Turns out, it's her first kiss. I can just tell. What was she doing with her "wild boyfriend?"

I just don't say anything; I know I'm gonna take off in about a week, so we keep things cool. But the day before I leave France, she calls me and asks if I want to visit London.

She knows the city isn't in my plans, and she would love to have me over at her place and show me around.

Well, a promise of free accommodation in London. Plus, having a local guide in London? I could manage some dry kisses for a few days.

A week later, I book a bus from Paris to London. And let me tell you, it is quite an experience that I still don't know if everyone should have one day, or it is a totally no.

Imagine this: you get on a bus, and just that by itself is an experience. A bus full of French and British people; the smell fight is insane. There is so much body odor, mixed with cologne that it makes you higher than drugs probably.

And then when you get to the edge of the country, the bus goes inside a cargo train thing that goes inside a tunnel that is inside the earth underwater. You are literally trapped!

When I get to the station, she is there, like a scene out of The Notebook, waiting for her soldier to return home. She hands me an extra Oyster card, so I don't have to pay for transportation.

Thank goodness, 'cause those rides were about $6 each. That for 4 days alone would have blown my budget for the month.

We make it to her place, in one of the posh neighborhoods in South London. The street looks like something straight out of a Mr. Bean episode. Inside, I'm greeted by her parents, who don't really stop doing what they were doing to say hi, let's just say, are a bit cold.

We head straight into the city to tour around. That night, we have dinner with her parents, and let me tell you, it's a bit awkward. They're super formal, asking us about France and how we met.

I finish my shepherd's pie, and they're still only halfway through. I'm itching to wrap up that conversation and just go up to my room; the energy is off.

Later that night, Lily and I are in her room, planning out the next day, when her mother walks in and says, "Hi kids, I just wanted to give you these to make sure you're both safe. We don't want any accidents!" handing us condoms.

Did this British lady just give us condoms and say "no accidents?" Lily quickly says, "Oh mom, it's okay. Sam is Mormon, and we won't be doing anything." The mom stares at me for like 3 seconds, looks me up and down and says "Sure." leaves the condoms, and walks out.

The next day, after touring the city again, I ask her to have dinner in the city. I really want to avoid dinner with her parents again. We come, and her parents are sitting on the couch watching TV. We try to walk straight past them to our rooms, but the mom says:

"Lily come, you both watch TV with us!" The tone of her voice is definitely not asking but demanding.

We sit down and watch some kind of British Jeopardy show. Not even five minutes into the show, they mute the TV, both turn to us, and her dad asks, "So, Sam, what's the plan after this trip?"

I tell him I'm probably going to finish my Europe tour and apply to go to university somewhere. I'm still figuring it out.

Then her mom chimes in, "In your home country?"

I reply, "No, anywhere I get accepted."

She says, "So, mainly in your home country, where you want to live after, right!?"

It's not so much a question as it is a statement. I say, "Sure, but I'm open to going anywhere else too, maybe Europe, the US."

Then her mom kinda twitches her head, looking a little uncomfortable, and insists: "Go anywhere to study? But definitely with the purpose of eventually going back to your country Brazil, right?"

Why did she emphasize the word Brazil? I think. She really hammers the whole "go back to your country" thing. I still don't want to comply with what they're saying and say:

"I don't know. I can see myself living in Europe or the USA."

Lily jumps in and says: "See mom, he wants to live here!" That is not what I said but ok I guess.

Her mother starts to look irritated and replies: "But why would you want to leave your country, where they speak your language, your home, your parents?"

Sam: I don't know, 'cause I enjoy other countries too. Lily's mother: But isn't Brazil so far away, wouldn't you miss your family.

That was it, I had no more energy to be in that endless conversation. I got her point; she wanted me to go back to my country.

Sam: "Sure, yes, I will probably go back to my country."

She quickly turns to Lily and says, "See, Lily, he's going back to Brazil."

Then her dad drops this: "And like he said, he's a church boy and is going back to his country to start a family there and with a girl of the same race as him."

What on earth did I just hear? What was even happening? I make it to my room, and strangely enough, my father calls me that night to catch up. My dad with an outside and I definitely more mature point of view pointed out what the situation was looking like: She is obsessed with you, she probably told her parents she is in love with you and she wants to be with you.

They are very nervous because you are a stranger guy, from a third world country, "dating" their 18-year-old girl. And probably all they have envisioned for her is changing because she wants to be with you.

I had no idea that was what was happening. I thought I was just visiting London with my summer fling.

That same night, she invites me for a walk around the neighborhood. We end up on a trail behind her house. Then she drops a bombshell: she's considering bailing on the fancy British art school university she got into and applying to the same college one I'm looking at, just so we can be together.

Hold on. I didn't even know where I was going to apply to. She said it didn't matter as long as we were together.

Right on that dark forest, behind her house, we both alone, I get the chills. If this girl is so in love with me, her parents are so desperate for that to end, my dramatic brain quickly thought of the movie "Get Out" where the rich white people kill the black boyfriend. Her parents to make her love madness stop, would kill me and hide the body somewhere in the woods, haha So dramatic, but I feel that way.

The next day, bags all set, I let them know I have to hit the road. Her parents practically usher me out the door asking no questions why I was leaving; it was like their plan had worked out.

Lily walks me to the station crying the whole time, wondering why I was leaving so soon, we still had 2 days left. I don't even answer, give her a kiss, the Oyster card, turn around, and get on that first subway, not even knowing what station I was getting out. But I was getting out of that town.

Now 7 years later I look back and think that whole situation was so dramatic and funny. Of course, now it would have been totally different. I would have ended that situationship right after giving her the first kiss and knew she was lying about it. But overall, a funny way to remember London.