I know what you’re thinking, Jess, you’re writing these posts pretty fast. You’re right, I am writing these pretty fast, but why might you ask? This has been a project I have been thinking of and dreaming of for the last ten years minimum, probably longer. Once I started jotting things down, it was like a well over flowing, waiting to be written down. Yes this will slow over time, but for now the excitement is still there, as I continue sharing my travel life so far.

This goes back to 2009, we have jumped ahead in time yet again. There was another trip in there that hasn’t been covered, but I’m unsure if I wish to share that one. It was a personal family journey at a time when things were cattywampus in our lives. Maybe, when I can properly go back to this destination and give a story of a less raw time, I will. For now you’ll just have to trust me, it was a national place, and we can leave it there for now.

In the 2008/2009 school year I was in college, and I had seriously considered the idea of studying abroad. I don’t remember exactly when I started going into the study abroad office at my university and started poking around. One thing I know for sure, I knew without a doubt what country I wanted to go to. So I picked up a few different brochures from that specific country and went back to my dorm room and looked into them.

When I started this process I was settled on going for the fall semester of 2009. When I told my mum this she said, ‘you’re going the whole year.’ I was scared of this, and didn’t think I was very capable of doing so. Before this study abroad year, I was infinitely more shy and reserved, outside of my family and friends. During those pre study abroad years, those were really the only people who saw my true personality come out. Even then I warmed up to university life very slowly. So for me to consider this, moving halfway across the world for even a semester was daunting, but also exciting. My mum continued to push for me to go for a year. She convinced me pretty easily enough because lets face it, this time she was totally right. I’d be kicking myself if I had only stayed for one semester.

Of the brochures that I brought back to my college dorm I only applied to one. EuroLearn, which after having done some research I can’t find it under that name, or the company anymore. They had the option of either one semester or two. I think there were a few countries you could chose from, but the one I wanted was there so that’s what mattered to me. I’m pretty sure that I applied at the very beginning of the spring semester of 2009, to make sure I applied before the deadline. April 10th 2009 is when I got my acceptance letter, that I had been accepted to study for the 2009/2010 year at Kingston University in Kingston Upon Thames, England. That’s right, my life long dream of going to England was finally coming true!

Then the mad dash to get all my passport documents completed, my visa completed, housing figured out, students loans figured out. It was a lot to do in a short amount of time, but we managed it. I got my passport in May, had to fill out applications to the local British Consulate, which is in Chicago before sending in my passport. Had to get my flights figure out beforehand, accept the dormitory accommodation vs finding a host family. The scariest part was my visa being at the consulate a really long time. Through preparing for this post, I actually found my tickets. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8:50pm on the night of September 14th, my passport arrived back home after the consulate, September 14th, in the afternoon. Talk about a nail-biter! I remember being so frantic and worried about having to change my flight, how much money that would cost my parents, and how far back my flight would have to be pushed. Booking flights for the next day can be a real pain, and be so insanely expensive! My passport came back in the nick of time though, so no worry there.

Then it was the long journey on the plane. I got a direct flight from MSP to London Heathrow. A standard flight takes eight hours. I had never been on a flight that long before. The most I had ever done was three hours or so, this would be completely different. I was too excited to sleep, which in hindsight, I really should have made myself sleep more. I maybe got an hour or two tops if even that. I remember I was running on adrenaline those first few days.

As I said earlier in this post, I was a very shy and reserved person. I had a difficult time adjusting to living in the college dorms and I didn’t like far from my parents house when I was at my home university. But this, I was thousands of miles away. I’ll admit, I did not handle those first couple of weeks very well. I had panic attacks at night, hardly ate, would call my family back at home constantly. I would ask for people back home to pray for me as I was not adjusting well, and also praying for sleep and to get through this on my own. I had gotten there like a week before everyone else did. I got special permission to move in four days before the dorms opened, which looking back wasn’t a good idea. It was isolating, and made me more on edge those first couple weeks. But once people started moving in, and I came to terms with I have to pick myself up by my bootstraps and just go with it, things got a lot easier. I grew so much in the those first few weeks, that when I came back to the US, I was a different person. I was so much more confident. I had survived those first couple weeks where I was I scared out of my mind from being so far away from home. I moved half way across the world, navigated a new school that was ten times the population size of my old one. I met people from all over the world, and went to places I had never dreamed of. But first, I had to get through those first weeks.

My accommodation was cozy, but had everything I needed. There were six of us in our floor and block. We each had out own bedrooms and ‘pods’ which were the bathrooms. It was a little bigger than a typical airplane bathroom but it was fine, especially when it was just my own. The kitchen was a shared community space between the five of us. I remember not having too many traffic jams. It was mostly just me and one other girl who used it. Most of the people in our block were first years that went out and partied a lot, and one girl almost always went home for the weekend to her parents, and otherwise kept to herself most of the time. One guy got licked out pretty soon after as I don’t remember more than one interaction with him. But everyone else stayed put. We had one flatmate outing to a restaurant shortly before the Christmas holidays, but after that I only really talked to the one girl every so often when I saw her in the kitchen.

Most of the friends I made were outside of the dorms, and most of them not fellow Americans like myself. There was one, and we still chat every once in a while, and then she introduced me to some people, and I found a couple people in various clubs. The freshers fair was where you were able to sign up for clubs, this was the week before classes started, and I’m glad I went. At the time I picked out two clubs, a ju-jitsu club as I had done martial arts back at home when I was younger and wanted to get back into it, and an anime club, as I used to go to anime conventions with my sisters and friends often. The anime club didn’t last too long, I think I went to a handful of meetings. Most of the people in there were, well… Awkward guys that fit the stereotypical anime nerd type but exemplified. Now I knew a lot of those anime nerds back in the states and were friends with them, there’s nothing wrong with it, this was on a whole new level that was off-putting. But, I did end up with two friends from it, and one of them I still talk to all these years later, and has become one of my best friends. So, it was worth it in the end. Ju-jitsu didn’t last long but that was I think a combination of cultural differences and the lack of girls in the club. I was pinned down one too many times by awkward overly sweating guys who didn’t talk for my liking and so I quit after slowly decreasing the amount of times I showed up. By the end of the first semester I wasn’t going there anymore.

I even met my first boyfriend while studying in England. We got set up my that fellow American friend I mentioned. It was a good first relationship, and ran its course over a few years. I think every college aged girl dreams of meeting some guy in a foreign country and hitting it off. The books that bookstores carry tell me this is very common. The new relationship and the other friends that I made definitely kept me busy, and soon I wasn’t even thinking of being homesick. The time really did fly, and I had so many unique experiences I will treasure forever.

One thing about being an exchange student in the program I was in, we needed to take a British Life and Culture class. I chose to do mine the spring semester, but they had a field trip they offered all of us American exchange kids to go on, once in the fall, and once in the spring. I went both times, and am so glad I did. I got to meet others who hadn’t been there all that long either. I think they did this two weeks into our time there, which was a great time. That was the first time I traveled outside of my little university area. We went to Brighton and it was fantastic. The Royal Pavilion was something else. You wouldn’t expect that architecture in South England, but it was super cool. It was a palace that was built as a beach retreat for the eventual King George IV in the 1820’s it was finished. We took the tour inside and it was definitely something else, Indian architecture on the outside and completely different on the inside, I think there was a strong Asian influence in the inside if I remember correctly. Super cool, and definitely worth checking out.

My first journey into London was after this, about a month after I had moved there. It was first time using the train. I met with a friend and we wandered around. It was so much fun, and we had an absolute great time. It was the first of many times I would go into Central London, I’ve lost count, as I still have loads of tickets from my times that year, and all the years after that I have come back. England, has always been one of my favorite places to visit, and it all started back when I moved there for a year.

I made the conscious decision since I was there for the whole year to stay in England the first semester. I think in the end that served me really well, as I was able to fully immerse myself more in where I was. True, I didn’t go too far that first semester, but the trips to Brighton, the countless ones into Central London, Richmond, Hampton Court Palace, and places nearby. Hampton Court Palace was funny, a first date where we gate crashed through the back gate of the garden accidentally. Got around to the front, and being the broke college kids we were decided not to go into the palace… I also remember the Christmas markets both in Kingston, and in London. The smells, and sights, and the general atmosphere, I miss it so much. I still have a Christmas ornament, and a hat I bought from those markets before I flew home for Christmas.

I also got into the local sports. I started watching them with the boyfriend as he was a big Arsenal fan. And it was definitely fun to learn about the team and watch. I was always and still am a huge Minnesota Vikings fan. I’ve always liked sports, so it was a natural progression. It was the first place I ever drank. I was 20 when the semester began which as we all know the drinking age in England is 18. I never really drank much, but it was nice to try things, and discover that I liked ciders. Also after those first few weeks I got back to eating regularly, and found new things that I really enjoyed. The first time I had proper fish and chips, the first time I just got chips as I sat on Brighton beach and watched the birds and heard the sound of the channel, I was still unsure about the fish aspect when I was in Brighton. But I eventually tried it and loved it. Or the first Sunday roast I had, I know we went to the slug and lettuce and would get a carvery every once in a while and it was so good. The first time I had Indian food my mind was absolutely blown with the flavor, they really know how to do it right in England.

By the time I was a month in I had really hit my stride, I even hosted a Thanksgiving dinner the weekend after Thanksgiving, and had a couple people over. It was by that time I was dreading going home for a month for the Christmas holidays. Its funny how your perspective changes, isn’t? But I think why that happened, is because I went through such a tough time at the beginning. I had always been so close to home my whole life, and didn’t venture out a lot. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone like this, but knowing I had the full support of my family back home made me stronger, and overcome my fears. I have out of my shell, I became the more confident and extroverted person that was hiding as a kid. I tell my husband this now that I was a shy and quiet person, and he doesn’t believe me. My study abroad was such a pivotal point for me. I prayed often, especially for sleep, and to be looked after and taken care of those first few weeks, and I grew stronger in faith as well.

By the time I came home for the Christmas holidays, I had a wealth of memories and experiences I couldn’t wait to show my family and friends through pictures, gifts, and story telling. And I was so happy I listened to my mum and did the two semesters instead of one. I forgot to mention I also ran into one of my favorite Harry Potter actors completely randomly at a restaurant. I’ll attach the picture of who I ran into as well as a few others if I can. Next time will be semester two, and trust me, I did get out a lot more and do a bunch of cool things and see places I had never dreamed of. Until next time!

First trip to the Royal Pavilion in Brighton

I Met Tom Felton!