Being in England for me is like coming across a creature you’ve only seen in dreams, or perhaps only online. Everything feels vaguely familiar. The hills and plant life look like those of home, so when I don’t look far into the distance as we roll along the motorways of the English countryside, I feel like I am home. I’ve also lived certain aspects of British living from books I’ve read, as many of us probably have: “loos” and “lifts”, great halls, double decker buses, trains rolling across British fields.

But of course, “visions are seldom all they seem”. I think that when visions manifest themselves in reality, the small details reveal themselves—even the ugly details. Much like how I imagine Tinder dating is like, places, like people, are rarely encapsulated sufficiently in photos and lines of text.

I came to the motherland of my academic discipline and my strongest language fully aware of the men (and, I suppose, women) who left this very land to conquer, collect, and colonize lands like the home from which I came. From my first glimpse at English land from above, as my plane landed at Gatwick airport, I looked down at the parcelled grid of farmland, remembering instantly that British colonizers forced that method of farming upon the Indigenous peoples of North America, whose method of farming the settlers ignored or disregarded.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling excited about finally being in the Old World. I was excited to touchdown on a continent I’d never been to, to get to know a country and culture I’ve only known secondhand, represented with purpose (à la Tinder). With the nagging thought that I was arriving in the region of the world from which North America’s original colonizers came, I continued on my British adventures anyway.

This feeling of dissonance didn’t go away; in fact, as we explored the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (already a problematic label on its own) and the Pitt Rivers Museum within it, I found myself and my experiences at odds with my values. Spanning all floors of the Pitt Rivers Museum—a large room with upper level floors overlooking the main floor below—was a Haida Gwaii totem pole, overlooking the maze of glass cases housing all kinds of archaeological artifacts, including masks, clothing, toys, weapons, and so on, of the Haida Gwaii people.

I wondered at a sign overlooking the room describing the totem pole as something that was “discouraged” by the missionaries who settled in North America, and sent totem poles and other similar meaningful pieces to be ogled at in the Old World—as I myself was doing at that moment—where the impression of Indigenous peoples becomes that of the Dead or Vanishing Indian. As I admired cases of various dolls, coins, or bows and arrows, I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the placement of cultural artifacts from the distant past beside the cultural treasures of the strong, living peoples of today.

At this point in the Tinder date, England seems to be saying somewhat problematic things, but not so offensive that it ruins the whole date; given the fact that England is so aesthetically pleasing, some potentially dubious comments can be disregarded at this point.

But then, England doesn’t hold the door open. As my awed eyes looked up at buildings from the past, admiring the unique architecture, my tired legs strolled along Oxford’s narrow walkways and unevenly paved streets, climbed up and down stairs or superfluous steps. All this difficulty, for those in wheelchairs and such, for the purpose of preserving old beauty.

Despite all this, I am captivated by the old beauty. This world is resilient, built by brick and stone and weathered by time. I am intrigued by its longevity, tradition, and I hunger for the thoughts born into people who walked these streets.

Despite its faults, England is still beautiful. England is very human. Stunning, awe inspiring, but equally fallible, and simultaneously so… containing multitudes, as humans do, and in more ways than one.