Well here I am. Writing my last blog entry of my year abroad on my last night in Londontown. Technically I’m a bit outside the city, sitting in an airport hotel because I have an insanely early flight tomorrow morning. Perk? Its direct. Over the past month I have thought about posting another blog only to follow the thought with “but I’ve done nothing interesting and I’m really, really tired right now.” In short, it has been exhausting. From April 3rd until April 15th or so I was drowning in exams and pre-exam papers and finishing up the last of my book lists and writing assignments. At the same time everyone on my program and I were doing our best to soak up the last bits of London, the city by day and by night, as we could. It was a mad rush to get all our work done and spend as little time actually doing the work so we could do the last little bit of London exploration that remained on our to-do lists. The semester culminated in a wonderful tea-time farewell excursion near Green Park (“alight here for Buckingham Palace”) at a fancy schmancy teahouse/teastore. It was sad and scrumptious. Lucky for me, Priya had arrived from Seattle and was out in Cambridge crashing with some friends until I finished finals. We had an apartment subletting situation lined up in Dalston with another girl from my program. Now let me try to describe Dalston for you because I don’t think just saying “gritty” really explains it. Yes, I know I come from a white female privileged background with higher education as the standard and a bright future not so far out in front of me. But can I still tell you about the meth addict haggling us for money at the bus stop a block from our apartment with a bloody needle hospital instrument taped to her neck and a hospital band around her wrist, saying she needed money to get home, and then our second spotting of her a day later in our back alley talking to hmmm you decide who her conversation partner was. How about the fruit and vegetable market down the back alley from us where Priya would get semi-ripe mango and blackberries? I think there were about 4 1-pound shops between our walk from our apartment to the nearest train stop which was, by the way, no longer an underground station but an overground one. This was east London for real. Not even would the hipsters often venture this far north in attempt to prove their super significant street cred. It is a mainly Turkish and African neighborhood with kebab shops and two night clubs just a few blocks from our apartment, and a plethora of patterns, characters, and stands of all items (edible and non) lining Kingsland Road. Perhaps our apartment is inexpensive for London, but it was still weighty on the non-working student budget. But we were safe and lucky to find this place. So much better than staying in hostels, so much better than couchsurfing with my 4-months worth of luggage. It may have taken us almost an hour to get anywhere, but it was absolutely perfect for what we needed. We even got a cat to take care of!
We went to the Brick Lane markets, blues dancing, put on my last slam poetry open mic performance, visited the National Gallery, two trips to the Southbank Center, an interpretive dance performance, wonderful dinners, saw two musicals (Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables) and one play (Clybourn Park), Hyde Park, Kenwood Estate, its gardens and its Rembrandts and Vermeers, walked along the Thames to see Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster, a trip to my favorite blues club “Ain’t Nothing But the Blues” in Soho, stuffed ourselves with falafel and “chips,” visited the Victoria and Albert collection, Thai food, pierced my nose (maybe twice), the Courtauld Institute to say good-bye to my favorite Manet, wondered about how all that stuff at the British Museum from the rest of the world arrived in London, spent hours riding the tube and the buses (and waiting for them all to arrive!), explored my favorite markets in Camden, spent the day on the rocky beach of Brighton and received a reverse soccer-tan on my calves, bussed it out to Stonehenge and spent the long ride in deep conversation, laughed so much I was constantly hungry, crossed Abbey Road for the third time with pit-stop at platform 9 and 3/4, worked on my coupon card towards my free coffee at the beloved Café Nero (oh I shall miss you), ate the last of my disgusting Tesco 1 pound cheese and onion sandwiches, completed souvenir and present shopping, unsuccessfully tried to fight off some sort of cold and allergy combination of nastiness (think snot-machine), and then proceeded to write the longest list based paragraph in one sentence I have ever written. And that is where you find me.
Trying to imagine myself back in America, whether it be Chicago or Tacoma, is nearly impossible for me. I try to focus on all the people I have missed and am terribly excited to see because being back in America is one of the most depressing pieces of reality that is forcing me to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. I’m not quite sure how London has changed me but I do feel more sure of who I am. This has been an incredible year, living in both Milan and in London, traveling around and seeing as much of Europe as I possibly could. I don’t know what to quite say about it right now, this point of transition, in this somewhat limbo state on the night before I return. Yes I am more adventurous, outgoing, independent, and capable of handling myself in a strange location with minimal communication options (whether it be stranded in an airport or just unsure of how to navigate night-buses home). I don’t think I quite know where this year has truly left me. But here I am, wherever it is, better equipped for whatever life throws at me next.
