Straight up Milbank until it turns into Whitehall. Pass Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and then continue right on to Trafalgar Square. I repeated the directions under my breath a few more times before closing the student travel guide I had bought four years earlier when I dreamt of traveling this independently. Straight up Milbank until it turns into Whitehall—I memorized the directions in parts as I moved from one sight to another, hoping to get as far as the National Gallery and British Museum. Straight up Milbank until it turns into—Or not.

As Milbank turned into Whitehall, I came face to face with several police officers directing crowds of tourists around barricades to surrounding streets or narrow stretches of sidewalk. I had heard on the news while leaving my friend’s dorm that morning that Britain had just elected a new Prime Minister. So, as I wound my way around the maze of barricades, I assumed they were there because the PM was about to arrive at 10 Downing Street. Excited to see a bit of British government, a distant idea from high school history classes turned physical reality here in the heart of London, I parked myself between a few reporters and their camera crews and some students who looked just as curious as I surely did. Since I was alone and eager to make new acquaintances, I introduced myself to the other students and we each offered our best guesses at what might be happening—was the Prime Minister coming, would we see the Queen? Luckily, a real Londoner overheard our wild speculations and explained that there was about to be a parade in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of VE Day.

Well that certainly had not crossed my mind. The search results that my memory displayed when I thought “VE Day” included photographs of couples kissing in Times Square. As far as World War II related anniversaries went, Pearl Harbor Day was the closest my American brain could come to understanding what VE Day meant. If I pushed beyond the memory of World War II, I could imagine memorials in honor of 9/11 or Independence Day celebrations, but no kind of recent recognition of a war finally won.

And so, I clung to the barriers as Londoners and tourists crowded together—my plans for the day completely forgotten. As the Royal Guard marched in, I balanced on my toes to take in the scene. Two tall men to my right pointed out members of the royal family and the reporter in front of me announced the arriving members of government. At last, the mass of strangers broke out in a round of applause as World War II veterans joined the scene. Small British flags and parade programs were passed around, and I gladly accepted both—knowing that no one would recognize me to remind me of my own nationality, and wanting very much to look like a Brit in the midst of so much national pride.

Joining in the national anthem, I imagined myself a European of the 1940s—or at least the grandchild of one. I listened in awe as Winston Churchill’s grandson read an excerpt of his grandfather’s original victory speech, and watched as members of the royal family—descendants of the people who had led their country through that dark patch of history—laid wreaths of remembrance. Though they spoke my language, there was something just different enough about these people. A bus had nearly run over my toes earlier that day when I looked the wrong way while crossing the street, and I quickly learned that if I wanted to comprehend what England meant for the English or what World War II meant to Europe, I needed to look right and then left, pretend that Randolph Churchill was just another countryman, suspend my own identity, and wave a flag that was not my own.

Taking in the people around me, I noticed a solitary man a few rows behind me holding a handwritten sign that read, Thank you heroes of WW2 who defeated Nazism. At first glance, his sign reminded me of the pick-up trucks back home that sported yellow “God bless our troops” bumper stickers. But, remembering where I was, I realized that he had probably lived through the Blitz, had maybe even survived a concentration camp or fought in the war himself. Nazis weren’t villains from The Sound of Music here, but actual men who dropped bombs on English homes. As the national anthem came to a close, an elderly couple in the crowd called out to him, thanking him for holding up the sign. The man nodded humbly. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. If only for just that moment, where Milbank turns into Whitehall, I gave myself over to a different culture and shared in its solidarity.