After my fall semester in Nagoya ended, I returned to California to spend the holidays with my friends and family. At first, I really did not want to come back to the USA. Instead, I wanted to spend the holidays in Japan and experience them from a different point of view. But after two short weeks spent at home, I’m glad I did go home. My parents picked me up from the airport and it didn’t feel like I hadn’t seen them for the past four months.
After 27 hours of air travel with 3 lay-overs, I arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport disoriented and a little confused. Being sleep-deprived, I’d lost track of time and space – I still thought I was in Paris Charles de Gaulle, where I spent my last few days in France. Hearing English and Christmas music added to my confusion because I was still used to hearing foreign murmurings and only catching a few words I understood.
Funny that the title is “Wrapping things up” because I definitely did not wrap anything up literally because I was too cheap and poor to buy presents for everyone. Thanks France for being expensive.
I’ve been home for about two weeks now and it’s is unbelievable to think that my time abroad has already come and gone. I honestly had the most amazing time and am so grateful for the opportunities that I was given. While I was abroad I got to see Cambridge, Stratford-Upon-Avon, London, Oxford, Copenhagen, Dublin, the Cliffs of Moher, and Paris. I met the most amazing people, both in my program, and at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford.
December sixth has come and gone and, as crazy as it feels, our time at Oxford has ended. Crazy because it’s over and crazy because it even happened in the first place. I can’t tell if I will miss it like crazy when I get home or if I won’t–simply for the fact that won’t be able to believe that it all happened. I spend three months running around England, studying with amazing students and tutors, buying hummus wraps and coffee at Pret a Manger. No, that doesn’t happen.
I work for my school’s newspaper, The Bowdoin Orient. Before arriving in Europe, all us editors-at-large (plus the EIC from last year, currently in Sicily) planned to meet up somewhere. We originally wanted to go to Berlin (too many timing conflicts), then Vienna (flights too expensive for most of us), before deciding on Lisbon for Thanksgiving. Our friends had told us it was their favorite trip while abroad last year, and it’s up there for me as well.
The second I got off of the train in Paris I could tell that we weren’t in England anymore. Sure Paris and London are international cities, just like NYC or any other big American city, which means that there are certain universal similarities between them which may not reflect the culture of the country they are in. And I admit that I spent only one full day in Paris, and have seen no more of France than what I saw during that day.
I think that London will be one of the aspects of my study abroad experience that I miss most when I am back in America. There is so much to do all of the time, the public transportation is so reliable and good and fun, and I just always felt safe and free while I was exploring there. So despite all of the amazing places that I visited during my post-study abroad travel week, our one-night layover in London stands out as one of my favorite parts.
As I sit down to write this post, it is December 31, 2014, and I am at my gate at the San Francisco airport waiting to board from San Francisco to Cleveland, Ohio. After spending 5 days in sunny California with my mom, sister, new step-dad, and step-brother, I am bound for home, and then, Dublin, Ireland. I will be leaving my friends, family, home college, and home country, to study at Trinity College Dublin for almost five months. Reflecting on my year in 2014, it was filled with much change.
The holiday season is coming to a close. This means for me that the endless preparation for studying abroad in Paris and questions from relatives on how excited I am to leave are coming an end. I have mixed emotions about leaving the US for France.