By agoudsward
My first few hours in London have been a whirlwind. It's a unique experience landing, for the first time, an ocean away from home on a completely different continent with about 40 minutes of sleep under your belt.
Everything should be, and truly was exciting from riding the train past the post-card worthy thatched roof houses in the English countryside and riding The Underground for the first time to eating my first meal of fish and chips.
By agoudsward
This time next week I will finally be in London. I will finally be able to use this space to write about my actual study abroad experience (instead of speculating about what it will be like or writing about my dull preparation.) Next week, I will finally be able to offer impressions of England, my thoughts on traveling alone thousands of miles across an ocean and what's it has been like to live in a foreign country (at least for a night or two).
But at this point it's all still theoretical, almost imaginary. Big Ben, Tower Bridge, UCL, my soon-to-be dorm room, all still seem like another world, a world that I've always wanted to visit, but that still feels inaccessible in a certain way.
By agoudsward
This week, as most of my friends packed up and headed back to school, it suddenly started to seem real that I was about to do something very different. It was no longer a dream or a vision, in a few weeks I would actually be living in London. Choosing to study abroad wasn't an easy decision for me. Even though it was always something I knew I wanted to make part of my college experience, last spring, the end of my sophomore year, I finally began to feel like I found my place at GW. For a few weeks I agonized over whether I wanted to leave my friends, Washington D.C. and taking classes in my major. In the end, the pull of experiencing something new was too strong. I knew I might never get a chance to live abroad again in my life.