Ending Entry

Strange to think I’ve been home for about four days now. It is strange I think because I’ve just been gone for all this time. I’ve looked back at my old blog entries form back in January and I remember just how unsure I was about all of this.

I would have never predicted the countless ways that I have developed myself and on so many levels. I read my blog especially from France and I become very satisfied by this.

Okay, so I’ve fulfilled the fantasy; I’ve traveled to Europe. I now have to decide what I’m going to do about it. I could very well leave it all alone and move on to a life stuck in the states and be happy about it as so many others I know are happy about it. They are truly happy as well. There is no hollowness to the satisfaction they feel in having gone to Europe just the one time. I don’t think they should feel any hollowness either. However, could I experience their same satisfaction? The trouble is I just don’t think so.

Which brings me to my next mission. How am I going to get back? I love the States. They are my home. But Europe is like a really good friend. You don’t just leave friends and forget to keep in contact with them. So I’ll have to leave this entry with something of a cliffhanger, annoying as it may be. Maybe it is better this way though. Travels shouldn’t be just a story but a chapter of one’s life story. That’s at least what this feels like the ending of one chapter and the creaky beginning of another. I hope to one day show up with more chapters like this hoping that this chapter analogy isn’t so cheesy you’ll just give up on me. In the meantime, I hope to find many other travel blogs that can give me some inspiration.

Closing In For Departure (and another lovely time(s) in London)

I am very much amazed at how much I'm doing here in Britain in a very short amount of time. Last week's trip for my studies was to the Lake District which I LOVE. It reminded me of the Appalachian mountains as in picturing the exact same thing but in only hill size. It is still all green and rocky with streams and lakes everywhere. On ground level, the cottages and gardens look like something out of a Beatrix Potter book. Well, she did kind of live there though...

I went on a hike every day, an activity easily done with a great variety of terrain and views. However, in England, you can be twenty and legally end every hike with a trip to a pub for hot hard cider, a hot toddy, or just about anything that is hot and has alcohol in it, not that I was in it for the alcohol. It can be very cold up there and something needs to bring heat back into one's cheeks after scaling steep hills in cold rain all day. This is yet another place in Europe that I would love to return to again.

It is also bizarre that at this time, I'm less than I week from returning home; about four days in fact. I'm happy. I'm quiet. I miss France a bit. I also miss the States. Mostly I miss my family and my dog. I still can't really complain when my biggest problem is only figuring out how to balance the weight of all my things between three bags!

My past two weekends have essentially been in London, a city so complex and a worthy rival to Paris in all ways as an internationally hailed city. I've fallen in love with a part of town not well covered in guidebooks called Camden Town. It is a place so colorful and different filled with different people that I just took a lot of pictures, lacking adequate words for it all.





Of course, I've been in the more "traditional" areas as well. In fact, a highlight of my Fourth of July was at the British Museum while also wearing my most American t-shirt featuring not only Wonder Woman but also Bat Girl and Super Girl. I would have also taken pictures of the Rosetta Stone (epic experience it was, to the point where all my nerd senses were on overload) but the glass is super reflective and not to mention there was the MOB surrounding it. Otherwise....wonderful, just wonderful visit.





I end with me having finally found Platform 9 3/4. Another good day in London-town!