Why I Love Great Britain and the British - Part 1

The reasons I'm an Anglophile make a list a mile long.  But because I'm currently on a research trip in England, I feel I need to write a series of posts on the subject.  Just to say how happy I am to be here.

History:  from Ethelred the Unready to Queen Elizabeth.  The Tower of London to the London Eye.  Occupation by hostile forces (the Romans) to occupying foreign lands (half the globe).  Monarchy, civil war, plague, fire, famine, the Blitz - the British have survived it all. 

Culture: Performance art from Shakespeare to Monty Python.  Music - composers like Henry VIII himself to Vaughan Williams, John Lennon through John Lydon and Adele.  Architecture - Warwick Castle and St. Paul's Cathedral and the Battersea Power Station.  Poetry from Chaucer to Ted Hughes.  Actors - Shakespeare and Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet and Clive Owen and...too many to list.  The written word - Swift and Austen and JK Rowling.

Food:  No one comes to Britain for the food, right?  What about fish and chips?  A real English curry?  Cadbury's chocolate?  High tea?

Beauty:  Cornwall.  The Peak District.  The Scottish highlands.  The Kentish hop fields.  Edinburgh and Bath and iconic English villages.

I love Britain.  Of course, I love America, too.  I would have a list a mile long describing that, too (The Grand Canyon, Tennessee Williams, the Golden Gate Bridge...)  At the moment, I'm just happy to be here.  I've already had fish and chips.  Now I need culture.  And chocolate.