cheers, london

So.  I realize that you’re probably supposed to write some sentimental post about your semester abroad within, say, ten days of finishing said semester, but in my case that just didn’t happen.  But this is my blog, so I’m the boss and I make the rules.  Also, I’m choosing to rebel against my habitual rule-following tendencies.  That means that you can look at this post as one that displays an absence of punctuality or the presence of personal growth.  I pick option B.  

It’s been one month.

And here I am in my new house at school, with J-Term in full swing (or as much as you can consider a month as low-key as interim in “swing”) and a new routine taking form.  What once consisted of the rooftops of charming English flats, squished together and stretching for blocks and blocks, the view from my window has since been replaced by a brown and white suburban house that was probably built in the eighties, sitting on a spacious and snow-covered yard.  Quite a swap, huh?

When people ask me about my semester, I sometimes get a bit tongue-tied.  Actually, a lot of times.  I don’t quite know how to put to words what this semester was to me.  (Which is silly, really, considering I am now two hundred words deep in this post.)  It’s not because I don’t have anything to say.  It’s because I have a lot to say.  A million billion thoughts twirling about my brain that sometimes meet difficulty when attempting to exit through my mouth in a single file line.  

Do you miss it?  Of course.  I deeply miss it.  With a worried ache that wonders when I’ll get to go back again.  In fact I might need to swear off all forms of social media for a spell, because with all you other folks hopping on your own study abroad trips, the travel withdrawal is coming in hot.  I’m happy to be back.  I love to be surrounded by the people I love most on this planet.  I miss London and I’m happy to be home.  There’s no “but” between the two.  I am both, inconsequentially and uncompromisingly.  

People also like to ask if I came back with an accent and I must kindly reply with a no.  I wish.  But come to think of it, even as I write this now I’m saying the words in my head in an English accent.  And that’s the truth.

On the flight home, I was determined to find a clever way to sum up my trip in one final London post.  But then Brad Pitt was saving the world from rabies in World War Z and I was officially distracted for the remainder of the flight.  The problem is you can’t exactly “sum up” an experience like this.  It’s a million things all at once.  And since I just can’t get London off my mind, here are a few of those million things.

What London Taught Me.

1. There’s always another train.  Don’t worry so much.  Things work out.  Even if it takes four trains and four hours to get to a place that’s only an hour and a half away… Ask me about our trip to the White Cliffs of Dover the second to last week in London.  Trust me.  You’ll get there when you get there.
2. Seek adventure.  You don’t have to get on a plane to find it (although that certainly helps).  Let an adventurous spirit draw you into the unknown.  
3. You can grow up, but you don’t have to grow old.  In Kensington Gardens, there’s a famous Peter Pan statue that always caught my eye.  As the old familiar days of bedtime stories taught us, Peter forever rebelled against a foe far worse than Captain Hook: growing up.  The real enemy, I think, is growing old.  Losing a youthful spirit.  Because let’s be real, if it weren’t for growing up, my parents wouldn’t have let me set foot on that plane in the first place.  We have to grow up.  And it’s good to grow up.  It means new opportunities and adventures, new battles to conquer and new things to learn.  But we must never grow old.  Because growing old means outgrowing a sense of wonderment that keeps the magic in the world.  After all, “The creative adult is the child that survived.”
4. Mind the Gap.  Between the train and the platform.  Between continents.  Between people’s thinking.  Between ways of living.  Understand that not everyone thinks the way you do, talks the way you do, hopes for what you hope for, cries over what you cry over, or even eats the way you do.  Appreciate and try to understand differences.
5. Keep learning.  One of my favourite parts of London is that it is covered with (nerd alert) museums.  How come museums were a fundamental component of elementary education, but didn’t make the cut anywhere beyond eighth grade?  What a travesty.  Here’s a story for free: Back in the days when Tweety Bird themed birthdays were a thing, my mom used to read me a book by James Mayhew called Katie’s Picture Show.  In the story, a little girl named Katie takes a trip to the National Gallery with her grandmother.  She wanders off and finds herself sucked into multiple paintings throughout the afternoon, in which she proceeds to nonchalantly chat with the characters in the paintings.  In those days I used to introduce myself to every stranger in Cub Foods, so I can only imagine I would do the same given the situation.  Anyways, the book is based off of real paintings that actually hang in the National Gallery.  And I know it’s true because I went and found them all there the last week I was in London.  How cool is that?  Talk about stories come to life.
6. Be a lion.  I wish I could say I always lived by that motto on this trip, but that would be a lie.  In Trafalgar Square there are four massive statues of the king of the jungle.  I realize they are, indeed, motionless slabs of rock, but I’d like to think that they’d hold their ground just as much if they were alive.  I’ve never heard of a lion that would crumble in fear.  Lions don’t back down.  And neither should you or I.
7. Throw yourself to the wolves every now and then.  Get out of your comfort zone, even if it’s terrifying.  Nothing beats the little voice inside your head squealing, “I did it,” when you’ve conquered something that once terrified you, or the aha! moment when you’ve finally got it.  Whatever it is.
8. There is beauty in the most unlikely places.  One of my favourite days all semester long was back in October, when Maddy and I took the tube to Shoreditch to find a vintage shop we saw in a book.  Emerging from the Underground, the area seemed less than promising at first glance.  Industrial.  Lackluster.  Drenched in rain.  Turning a corner and proceeding in the direction of the shop, we ended up finding the absolute cutest shopping area and our new favourite spot to eat.  Keep your eyes open.
9. Understand the value of money.  Appreciate it.  Do not obsess.  Yes, it’s important, but it is simply a commodity.  A weekend in Rome can’t be measured in euros.  An afternoon by the sea spent trekking to cliff tops can’t be assessed in pounds.  Money is simply a means of making memories.  Hold it loosely.  And having lived through a semester of abroad expenses, I join Destiny’s Child in proudly singing, “I’m a survivor.”  Flex on these haters. 
10. Don’t wait around for the perfect opportunity.  (Except el oh el at myself and how long I’ve been waiting around to write this…)  “Let’s just figure it out tomorrow” is the ultimate omen when it comes to booking flights, hostels, and making plans in general.  I’ve come to find that the perfect opportunity does not exist; most of the time you’ve just got to go for it.  So come along now, spit-spot.
11. See the good in the bad bits.  Because there are bad bits.  In the spirit of honesty, I will disclose that there were indeed days when I wished with all my might that I were not in London.  (Absurd, but true.)  So instead of wasting a day living in London (or, you know, a day living) I had to learn to see the goodness.  Because it’s always there, even if it’s hard to see sometimes.
12. Walk like a royal.  Know your worth.  Kate Middleton doesn’t have to wear a crown for everyone to know how fab she is.  It’s quite understood.  This doesn’t mean be snotty.  Carry yourself in a way that shows you know who you are and what you’re capable of.
13. Look at things from different perspectives.  I can tell you that looking at the city from high up in the Eye is quite different from the view from Westminster Bridge, just two minutes’ walk from there.  My dear old dad so wisely reminded me the other day that it’s an incredible gift to be able to truly see things from another’s point of view, yet also very hard to come by.  In this case, trying is what counts.
14. Take a walk.  Be it down the crowded High Street, through the picturesque Hampstead Heath, the all-familiar Hyde Park, or up the White Cliffs of Dover.  A breath of fresh air, with limbs moving and heart beating, cures all.  
15. You can’t read the map to your life.  It’s not like the Tube where after a few weeks you’re a seasoned pro and know exactly where to go.  The sooner you (I) come to this conclusion, the better.
16. Live in possibility.  If spending nearly four months exploring Europe would not lead a person to that resolution, then I don’t know what would.  
17. Erase expectations.  This was the word of advice I received most often in the months leading up to my departure.  This isn’t meant to be cynical advice to set the bar low so you’ll always be pleasantly surprised, but simply a wish to keep an open mind and an open heart.
18. You don’t know the answers.  You probably don’t even know the questions.  See No. 19 for assistance in this predicament.
19. The human soul is not meant to dwell in one place for too long.  This I truly never understood until I moved to Kensington.  I always thought, “I just love Minnesota so much I can’t imagine living anywhere else!”  Well, silly, that’s because you’ve barely ever left the country.  Learning the lay of a different land taps into the resilient nature of the human being.  It moulds an individual to become one who can thrive in unfamiliar realms.  As if that would never come in handy…
20. Don’t be boring.  Just don’t.  This is London’s best quality, in my opinion.  London is exploding with hidden treasures.  You could never run out of things to do there.  And there is always more than meets the eye.

Well, London.  Until we meet again.  Cheers.

{ here's a few snapshots of my last couple weeks across the pond }

The lovely river town of Hampton.

The White Cliffs of Dover.

At Cambridge University.

Covent Garden at Christmastime.

St. Paul's Cathedral.

The National Gallery.

The Eye.

Window display of the lovely J.Crew on Regent Street.

Oxford Circus.

Sunset outside my window. OKAY.

Abbey Road.

The one and only.

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FYI: For those of you who thought this was fun, I’m going to keep this whole blogging thing going and just see what happens.  Because I thought it was fun.  I probably will not continue alerting all of Facebook when I do, though.  So stay tuned here.  And even if no one reads it, I’ll just write into the nothingness and that’s fine by me.

the middle

Since I’ve been AWOL for the better part of October and now feel as if I’ve left my poor blog like a baby in a hot car, I’ll sum up the past three weeks with two words: life happens.  These past few weeks have kept me as busy as Grand Central Station at Christmas.  Also midterms.  Those happen, too.  Which is probably why writing and processing my own thoughts and happenings after so many hours spent writing and processing fancy academic things was just so not in the cards for me for awhile.  The aftermath left my mind reduced to goo.  Fortunately, my good friends Jess, Nick, Winston, and Schmidt from the hit television comedy series New Girl have recently brought me back from the dead with their incomparable wit and comic genius.  After a few hours spent in front of my computer with those great people, I suppose it is time to communicate with the rest of you real people.

One of the best things that happened this month was that one of my oldest and best friends on God’s green earth got to join me in London for a week.  How many people get to say that??  To put my excitement for Maddy’s arrival in perspective, I confess that I burst into tears the moment she walked through the gate at Heathrow.  And these were not pretty tears that would make Brooke Davis proud.  They were tears of the gaspy, snorty, quick-blow-your-nose variety.  (In my defense, I had just witnessed some sweet teenage boy’s reunion with his mother, and it was very moving, let me tell you.)  Long story short, that same week just so happened to be the week that everyone’s family planned a visit.  Since my parents won’t be making the trek this semester, having Maddy here during unofficial parents’ week truly could not have been better timing.  I mean she was listed as my mother on Facebook for a while in the tenth grade, back when it was cool and clever to list all your friends as your family members on Facebook.  That definitely counts for something.

Quickly sensing our week of fun was about to fly right by, Maddy and I set out to take advantage of each day and crammed in as much activity as we could manage.  We made the absolutely necessary first stop in Westminster to visit Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the House of Parliament, and a series of red telephone booths.  Confession: this was my first time actually going to Big Ben since being here.  Shameful, I know.  We also didn’t realize we were standing literally right beneath it for a good five minutes until the bells started ringing.  (I think it’s time to come to grips with the fact that I am more “book smart” than “street smart.”)  Needless to say, this spot, surrounded by a few of the most well recognized landmarks in all of London, is also, in my humble opinion, one of the most captivating views in the city.

Westminster Bridge.

What’s funny is that probably 80% of the things Maddy and I did when she visited were new experiences for both of us.  We saluted the Queen’s men at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  We taste-tested our way through the Borough Market, one of the many delightful markets that dot the map of the city (and one of my personal favorites at that).  We wandered aimlessly through the department store of all department stores, Harrods, absolutely awestruck and trying our best to keep our eyeballs inside our heads at all times.  We even made friends with the night manager at a local convenience store who gave us free candy.  I remain unsure as to whether I should be proud or ashamed that we made candy runs so often that week that he knows each of us by name.

The Queen's Guards.  Doin' their thang.

One day while I was in class, I gave my guest her own homework.  I had her dig through my super cute and nifty London guidebook from Anthropologie (which I regret to say I had barely been using to its full potential) and pick a neighborhood for us to go explore.  And so, we hopped on the tube and ventured to an area called Shoreditch (which is pronounced more like shortage and less like shore-ditch… because in England pronouncing a word the way it’s actually spelled would be too easy).  Our intention was to find some hole-in-the-wall vintage shop we saw in the book, but instead we stumbled upon a million other things that made us want to jump up and down with glee.  Things like darling shops with window displays decorated to perfection (and a blessed sign on the door declaring, “SALE”), an indoor/outdoor marketplace, and a series of cheap and healthy restaurants that were making us drool.  We perused the shops, found a couple gems to take home, and eventually settled on a lunch place called Leon.  The food was so tasty and the atmosphere so charming that we simply had to return for Round Two just three days later.

Welcome to Shoreditch.

Nothing says "cutest dang shops" like exposed brick

All smiles for the gluten-free goodness.

In between the new things, I did get the chance to show Maddy a few of my favorite routine things, namely Hillsong Church, my regular Starbucks on High Street, and a cozy pub down the road from my dorm.  It’s like they always say: sometimes the simple things are the absolute best things.  Things like thousands of voices belting out praises to God or a warm cup of coffee on a chilly afternoon or late night pub chats over strawberry ice cream.  Nothing beats a longtime friend with whom you can simply sit and talk and be.  When you find a friend like that, hold them as tight as you can.  Remember when you were little and you got to hold your brand spankin’ new baby sister in the hospital and your mom said, “Be gentle, sweetie, don’t squeeze,” but all you really wanted to do to that sweet little baby was squeeze her tight?  Well in this case, all bets are off.  This is your permission to squeeze.  These are those rare people who have seen you at your worst and wouldn’t dare hold that against you.  They have also seen you at your best and will remind you who you are and what you are capable of when you need it most.  They are not afraid to deliver a little bit of tough love or a healthy dose of reality when needed.  These are the friendships that keep us sane.  So squeeze ‘em tight.

Sadly, the day came when I had to send Maddy on her way back to the land of the free and the home of the brave, and this left me feeling just a teensy bit homesick.  This was, after all, the exact halfway point on my big, exciting, sometimes scary semester away.  Halfway.  A bit more than halfway now, actually.  Even as I type that I think it must be a typo.  Sometimes I look at the next seven weeks and think, That’s it??  That’s all the time I have left here?  Then on other days, when I am a bit less enchanted by the glamorousness of being “abroad” and a bit more enticed by the comfortableness of being, say, in my own bed at home, I scroll through my iCal aghast, and think, That’s it??  I’m only halfway through?  Then I put down my phone and eat my own words.  “Be here now.”  Right-o, mate.  I’ll get right on that.

It’s almost as if those words transcended upon us all at the same time.  And by us I mean my group of friends here and I.  (Shameless plug that I do, indeed, have friends here besides fictional television characters.)  After all of our friends and family left and each of us had our own sad, sulky, Celine Dion “All By Myself” moment, we looked at each other with conviction and said, “It’s go time.”  (Those were actually the words spoken, yes.)  Enough with the funny business.  It is time to take advantage of time before time takes advantage of us.  After an inspiring conversation with a woman in Starbucks, who is harnessing her inner Julia Roberts and going all Eat, Pray, Love on Europe, and her London-native friend, we made a London Bucket List.  It’s a list we’ve been promising ourselves we would make for awhile.  Now that it’s actually a thing, we have no excuse but to absolutely exhaust every item on it.  That is because it really is go time, and in every sense of the word.  It’s go time with school, because now comes the actual writing papers and taking tests part we’ve all been squeezing our eyes shut to in hopes that it might go away.  It’s go time at the gym, because those gym memberships were not free and our personal trainer friend Adrian is probably hardcore judging us for being seemingly more committed to our Lulu ensembles than to the workouts themselves.  (Adrian, if you’re reading this, I am sorry for missing abs class again, and I promise I will come back.) 

Most importantly, though, it’s go time in London.  Talking to the two women in Starbucks gave us about a million and one ideas of things to do in London.  And with the vast pool of knowledge from the many different guidebooks each of us brought to London, collectively we could probably rule the world.  (Knowledge is power.  I love books.)  Yes, we live in a lovely area that has so much to offer, but there are so many more neighborhoods with so much more to offer all over London.  Way more than you can count on all of your fingers and toes.  Wouldn’t it be a pity if we missed out on them?

Fueled by newfound enthusiasm, we packed this last weekend to the gills with Bucket List items and other productive things.  For our Modern Popular Music class, Abby and I went to a blues concert at a bar in Soho called Ain’t Nothing But the Blues on Thursday night.  If you’ve ever met me, you know that “edgy” and “hipster” are not among the most commonly used adjectives to describe my persona.  So yes, we did feel a tad bit out of place.  Also, I think the guy next to me was smoking a joint.  I think.  This did not, however, keep us from having a fantastic time in a very new environment.  The singer reminded me of a Caucasian, slightly edgier female version of Little Richard.  (For those of you who are not currently enrolled in COM5105 Modern Popular Music and/or proficient in your knowledge of R&B artists of the sixties, you may recognize Little Richard as the guy with wild hair who sings the Rubber Ducky song on Sesame Street.)  To say this lady knew her way around an electric keyboard would be an understatement.  Yes, Abs and I were engaging in local culture and tapping our toes with the best of ‘em at the blues bar, sans drugs/tobacco. 

It doesn’t hurt that the weather has been uncharacteristically glorious this week.  The sun shined so bright and the air was so full of fall that it would be a crime not to spend as much time outside as possible.  On Friday, we went back to the Borough Market, because nothing says “October” like an outdoor market and freshly baked apple crisp.  On Saturday, we took the tube to a sweet little suburb called Hampstead and wandered through Hampstead Heath.  Hampstead Heath is a huge nature area that makes you feel like you’re deep in the English countryside when in reality you’re only about forty-five minutes outside of Central London.  The Heath was the most perfect fix for our autumn appetites.  The winding paths take you through hills and valleys, near ponds and trees, and (the best part) to a vast overlooking field that presents the most stunning view of the town, sprinkled with colorful treetops.  Not even a spendy, trendy DSLR camera can do this view justice.  I think I said, “You guys, this is SO beautiful,” approximately eighteen times in the time we were there.

October and London markets make a great pair.

Hampstead Heath.  Doesn't this just scream Pride & Prejudice?

The next morning, we set our alarm clocks early again and took a trip to Vauxhall City Farm for Halloween Opening Day.  We were told this is the closest thing we’ll get to a pumpkin patch experience here in London.  There weren’t really any pumpkins, but there were babies and animals and baby animals, so we were happy.  I got up close and personal with an alpaca, and I also saw a rabbit that rivaled the size of my dog.  Deciding we had made enough farmyard friends for the day, we strolled along the Thames River from Vauxhall toward the London Eye, where we had a nice lunch before heading back to Kensington.  Riding high on a successful weekend and feeling rather ambitious, Abby and I went home and booked a trip to Ireland!  Just another day in the life, huh?  In other news, I had a chocolate chip cookie that changed my life.  I’d chock that up to a successful day. 

Man of the coop.

In another life, this guy would have made a great Emperor Kuzco.

This miniature pony is riding high at the top of my Christmas List.

Oh, London, could I ever be finished with you?  Even if I spent a lifetime here, I doubt I would ever say I did all there was to do, saw all there was to see, and went everywhere there was to go.  Having lived here for weeks now, I’ve become quite accustomed to the city, but it somehow still feels just as new as when we first became acquainted.  I’m still uncovering new places and learning the ropes, and I think I still will be up until the day I leave.  London’s like this.  Right when you think you’ve got her all figured out, she does something to surprise you.  She refuses to be put in a box and she never fails to throw something new at you when you least expect it.  A new restaurant when you thought all the good food was too expensive.  A new view that leaves you speechless just when you thought the city was just tall buildings and busy streets.  A new experience when you so ignorantly thought you’d done it all.  This general understanding that you will never figure London out keeps you on your feet.  And it keeps you hungry for more.

I am over halfway done with my semester abroad.  Eight weeks down, seven more to go.  And you know what I’ve learned these past few weeks?  I have only scratched the surface.  They say when you’re in the middle of something rarely do you truly understand the magnitude of it.  Or, in another sense, rarely do you understand that it is truly a blip on the radar of life.  So here I sit, in the middle, and I think I can finally say I am starting to understand that concept.  There is so much more to be done here.  And if the past three weeks have taught me anything, it is to start now, do it now, and do it all.