核心问题
I had expected to be near my objective by now, but everything still seemed alien to me. (New Concept English, Book 3, L. 57)
had expected 在这里是什么意思?
词典解答
had expected to do 表示“原以为……”，含有事实并非如此的意思。上句的意思是：我原以为此时我已接近目的地，但是这里的一切我都觉得很陌生。再如：
Sophie had half expected to find her grandfather asleep at this hour and was excited to see the house twinkling with lights. (Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code) 索菲原本猜想祖父可能已经睡下了，当她看到屋里还闪烁着灯光时非常兴奋。（《达·芬奇密码》）更详细的情形，请见 mean 。