As I write this, I’m sitting in an Uber on the way to London’s King’s Cross railway station, the beginning of my 10 days of travel through the U.K. for fall break. My mom is flying over, landing soon in Ireland for her connecting flight that’ll bring her to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we’ll spend the first two days of the break together.
I am so excited to see her after two months abroad. Of course I knew being an ocean away would make me miss her and the rest of my family and friends a little more than I normally do –– they are only a three or four hour drive from Drew –– but I didn’t realize just how happy I’d be for her to visit. I didn’t realize just how much I’d be facetiming my friends back at Drew. I didn’t realize just how much I missed easy coffee orders at Dunkin Donuts where they actually give me options for the size of my coffee instead of handing me a teacup of americano and charging me four U.S. dollars for it.
London is amazing, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to being home in just over a month. That being said, I know for a fact that when I get home there will be many times where I’ll miss London.
I’ll miss being able to do something new everyday when I’m back in the monotony of Madison. We’ve seen a different play, gone to at least one new museum and explored different sections of the city every week. As much as I hate the tube and the constant film of sweat that lingers even if I’ve been off of it for hours, I’m going to miss it. The people in London aren’t even friendly, but I’m going to miss them too. Because I know when I leave I’ll romanticize everything about the time I’ve spent here –– the realities of soggy shoes, pathetic laundry machines and ridiculously expensive drinks (and everything else really) will surely slip my mind.
For these next 10 days I’m going to try to have as much fun as possible, fill my mind with as many more good memories as I can, because November is (I’m positive) going to be filled with all work and minimal play as our bank accounts have dwindled beyond repair and the class workload that has been ridiculously light up until this point will pile on at suffocating levels.
And when December 1 comes, I just hope I’ve managed to do everything I can to not regret the time I’ve been abroad.
