Goodbye, London

It’s my last night in London.

I’m sat here in my flat on Brendon street, nestled behind Edgware Road, thinking through everything I brought to London, and making sure everything is packed and my bags are, hopefully, underweight. Praying all stages of travelling goes according to plan, and dreading the feeling of having to wake up at 3:30 in the morning.

London changed my life. I rode The Eye last night with my flatmate, Tara, and I started tearing up. Through this entire experience I thought this experience wasn’t *all that.* I felt isolated, confused, lost, scared, and totally unlike myself. I was lost and trapped and this bustling city was driving me into the ground.

But being on top of London, looking down and being able to name nearly every section and certain buildings, I felt so proud of myself. I conquered a foreign city. I learned a new transportation city, had a rough map sketched into my brain, gave directions to tourists… I lived London. I think back to that romanticized version of London I thought I was going to be experiencing. And on the Eye, that’s the version I saw… the lights from Southbank twinkling in the black water of the Thames, the double-decker busses, zooming in and out of traffic, their headlights forming a glow on the bridges. London is beautiful. But it’s so much more than the postcard. You learn to love it for what it is – a Global city.

Study abroad is a difficult concept to comprehend. You literally take a very small segment of your life and plop it somewhere else, putting your “real” life on hold for a few months. Then, you’re forced to create an entirely new version of you, existing out of a suitcase and a backpack. You meet a lot of temporary people in study abroad. Professors, classmates, administration – people you’ll never see again. The feeling of temporary is inescapable. But you learn to adjust to this temporary life. You learn to embrace the “Do it while you can” mindset.

Coming here, for the first time in my life, I was absolutely terrified. I had no idea what to expect. Travelling with one of my best friends made it survivable. I remember our faces when we sat down on our giant plane in Chicago, bunkering down for the flight. We were so scared… but we’re new people. We’ve experienced so much. We’ve learned so much, I don’t even know where to begin.

And London, it’s because of you.

Thank you, London, for your aggravatingly aggressive rush hour, being smashed against doors and railings on trains.

Thank you, London, for making me feel like I’ve been playing a real-life version of Frogger for the past 3 and a half months.

Thank you, London, for your angry glares at my “loud” American voice on the train.

Thank you, London, for your ninja Spring, growing and sprouting beautiful fountains of colors in your gardens overnight,

Thank you, London, for your no-leash laws in parks, where dogs of every shape and size bound and toddle around, always making me giggle.

Thank you, London, for your delicious cookie section, and enlightening me on the genius idea of dunkin’ a biscuit in your cuppa. (Hail Digestives.)

Thank you, London, for your beautiful architecture and your rich deep history, spanning further than I could ever imagine.

Thank you, London, for teaching me more about myself than I would have ever been able to learn in my comfort zone.

Thank you, London, for making me feel like a braver, stronger, better person. 

Thank you, London.

And for now, goodbye.

Love endlessly,

Abby