I was so excited to go overseas. I had been to Budapest, Hungary in 2018 for a missions trip during which we held an English camp for Hungarian students. This trip was going to be completely different! This wouldn’t be with a lot of students I already knew, but with mostly new faces and unfamiliar land. However, I’d always wanted to go to England. I’m a big BBC fan, which tends to separate me from the usual Gossip Girl lovers. BBC drama series often focus on World War II time periods, showing the struggles of civilians during the war. Anyways, I love accents, and I was mostly excited to pretend to be British. We’ll see how that continues to play out. I hope to convince at least five to ten Brits that I am from their land. I’ll be visiting France too, and I’m hoping to use my French knowledge from about eight years of classes.
Preparation for this trip, and we’ll soon see how helpful it was, included calling and talking with several people who had been abroad before, like my sister. She’s been to Colombia, Morocco, and more, and she told me that on one of her trips, she packed for two months in a backpack. She said, “Pack for two weeks,” as my trip is about four. Well, this was music to my ears, for I did not want to check a bag. And so, the packing commenced, with a lot of mom’s help. In one of these pictures, you’ll see that while everyone else waited for their unnecessarily heavy bags, I sat and relaxed.
I also decided to read all of my books for my classes before I left the States. I tend to be an anxious person already, and this step of getting ahead helped qualm a few nerves. Speaking of ~nerves~, I was very anxious for the plane ride. I love flying, absolutely do, but the getting there and being around a ton of people with two new COVID variants, and not even knowing if you’re on the right plane…my mind is very skilled at creating pretend scenarios. If it can happen, it will. Well, this plane trip went well. I was seated by wonderful people and was able to sleep a good bit. Now, I am in Oxford, sleeping well and already adjusting nicely to the jet lag (which was my greatest fear). The breakfast was lovely, with hash browns, sausage, bacon, beans, toast, fruit, croissants and other breads, pancakes (mmm), coffee, water, orange juice and more. I’ll see you again soon for my next post.
