Remember when you turned 16? For me, it was a magical number—all the Disney princesses were 16—plus, I could finally legally drive. 18 rolled around, the official age of adulthood, when I could legally sign myself in and out of school, sign release forms, or whatever else. 21…Americans all remember 21, the last big birthday of our youth, where all the strict guidelines of what we can and can’t legally do are lifted and we’re able to fully participate in all of society’s rules. Then comes 22.

I just turned 22, and for the first birthday ever, I didn’t feel any different on my birthday.

I woke up, saw that I had about 800 Facebook notifications of people (many that I hadn’t talked to in years) wishing me a happy birthday, and went about my day. It just seems like I’ve hit my last ‘growing up’ birthday and now have moved on to adult aged land. It’s like, okay, I’ve hit 22, time to be a grown up. Which is scary beyond belief!

I did have a nice birthday, though. I am amazed to report that the quality of Tex-Mex food over here is…surprisingly good. One of my friends works at this Mexican food place, and I begrudgingly agreed to have my birthday dinner at her restaurant. Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE Mexican food. It’s one of the things I miss the most about home. I love it so much, in fact, that I assumed that the food would be terrible here and didn’t want to have to sit through a horrible rendition of familiar, homey, comfort food. But it was delicious! It wasn’t as good as Texas, but then what is, right? Still, it felt like home, with enchiladas and margaritas and guacamole. Yum. It was delicious!

In addition to my birthday celebrations this past weekend, I had the opportunity to observe the Valentine’s Day goings-on of my friends and neighbors here in the United Kingdom and I have to say, it seems like a much bigger deal in Texas and the rest of the United States. I don’t think it’s Valentine’s Day in particular that is a bigger deal back home, but all commercial holidays. None of my friends, that I know of, did anything at all for Valentine’s Day; only a few even did a special dinner with their significant other. None of my single friends passed out cards or candy, and storefronts were noticeably lacking in the pink and red hearts display cases normally seen in overabundance back home. In Texas, Valentine’s Day was celebrated by all my friends, single and taken alike—one of my friends is even sending me a Valentine’s Day package all the way from home! It seems to me that the United States is way more into the commercial side of holidays, the buying gifts and decorating and all the wonderfully cheesy stuff that we love so much, whereas over here, it just wasn’t that big of a deal. Remembering back, it was the same with Halloween, and even Christmas; holidays are more obviously and more ostentatiously celebrated in the States than in Edinburgh.

I think that this is also reflected in the general cultures of the two countries that I have called home at one point. Americans tend to be more open, brasher, more in your face, and generally ‘bigger’ in personality than the British. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just very different than the polite, more refined, more personal characters of our friends across the pond. One of the biggest thing I’ve noticed in the past few weeks is that on British television shows, the host always consoles the losing team or individual, saying things like, “You just didn’t get the right questions,” or “You tried your best, well done.” The tone is so different than back home, where at times, winning is so much more important than the process to get there.

So there you go. Not yet a week as a 22 year old, and already I’m seeing new things about my home of six months. Maybe I am growing up—but 23 is still a year away. And besides, I won’t really be a grown up till at least 25, right? We’ll just have to see.