By rlubitz
Alas! I am here in London after boring everyone for three weeks writing about vanities like watching TV on your computer sans pants and panicking about leaving Taco Bell.
Leaving the country for three months didn’t really hit me until my friends started sobbing at Whole Foods. It’s organic! But also humiliating
But I am here and they didn’t remove me from their country (so far) and I finally feel like a real adult person. Getting here was tough, harder than I thought it was because I had what I think was the most talkative airplane seatmate. Was he the air marshal? Probably. Actually…yes. Most definitely.
After sweating profusely while lugging my bag up SIX FLIGHTS of stairs in the London Tube and bursting out laughing at myself the entire time, I got to where I was supposed to be. My dorm is in the middle of Downtown London, in a place called Bloomsbury for all the culturally numb like myself. It’s lovely and perfect for what I want to do here which is walk with my iPod for hours and never hit a wall of ugly. So far, that is exactly what I have done in addition to chugging coffee like it’s my job and eating the occasional pastry to feel elegant.
So about this jetlag thing….it doesn’t play. It doesn’t play with you at all. It slapped me in the face while I was throwing my monstrous bag up the fifth flight of stairs. Your eyes die and all you can think of is bed. You just want bed to be right on the side of the street. Or bed on the bench you just passed. Or bed in the Burger King you totally contemplated going in for a nap. By the time I got situated in my room I had been awake for over 24 hours and then there was a bed. What happened then was my body screaming at me to just let go and pass out until the world stopped spinning.
Nothing compares to the rage of a woman who has just taken an accidental four-hour nap.
So I awoke, sweating because that’s what homo sapiens do, in a yellow room with green carpet in…where? Where was I? I had no idea. I laid there, sleepy-eyed still and grabbed my phone. No message and it said ‘No Service’ at the top left so my phone wasn’t working and then……oh yes, I was in London. I looked out my window to see construction and then brick buildings and then the sun and then it hit me that landscapes had changed.
How I’ve solved this whole complete exhaustion thing is by drinking lattes on lattes on lattes and looking sad all the time but also waking up whenever I hear a British accent because they’re just lovely and still unexpected.
We lucky international students at UCL had to attend an international orientation where we learned the obvious that is--human beings are pretty great.
Sure, some of us are really horrible but most of us are pretty great and funny and sweet. There were Australians and Frenchmen and lovely people everywhere for three days. Some were in my dorm, living on the pipe dream that they were going to make home cooked meals every night and since they cooked for me, I demanded we become friends.
I’m in a freshman dorm on campus that takes me back to the days of Thurston and filth and party fliers slipped under your door. I miss freshmen year for everything I learned but also not because caring so much about social events was indeed exhausting.
So far in this city, I’ve gone out to cafes and had some great Spaghetti Bolognese and Japanese curry and legal spirits and seen Degas and Van Gogh and Monet. What I want to do each day is to be outright independent and ambitious in my sightseeing. I’ve seen Big Ben and all his friends but to see them with the Smiths playing in your ears when the sun is setting is something you’ll remember forever. Seeing them from the window of a bus is something different.
There will be classes one week from now which can put a cloud over all the fun but I’m actually looking forward to learning something from a book and a professor again. Studying abroad forces you to learn your lessons on the streets but the school you attend forces you to learn your lessons from scholars.
I’ll be taking a class on the evolution of Britain’s Working Class and the Enlightenment and other depressing historical periods. After working so much this summer, I’m actually excited to find myself losing my mind at a coffee shop and having maybe a weekend trip to Rome to get me through it.
I haven’t exactly started studying abroad yet and that will add an entirely new facet to my experience here but as of now, I’m just enjoying the London life with all its wit and beauty and significance there really isn’t a place I’d rather be than right here.