As I get closer and closer to my departure, I find myself more and more nervous. Generously, I would say I got about 4 hours. Non-consecutively, of course. I tend to be an anxious person anyway, but for some reason I thought that the idea of leaving the country for an entire month wouldn’t bother me. Well-reasoned, I know. But regardless, I feel like I’m about to bounce off the walls of my apartment as I watch the clock and count down the minutes until I can drive to the airport and get on my flight across the ocean.
As a history major, going on a study abroad program with the history department, I find myself pondering how this same trip across the Atlantic has evolved over time. When my ancestors made the months-long voyage across the ocean from England to North America, then an assortment of colonies, it was the beginning of a grueling, nauseating journey where the only thing one could see was the endless water and the clouds above the horizon. I, on the other hand, will be tens of thousands of feet above the water, watching a movie, a TV Show, or perhaps reading a book before I drift comfortably off to sleep in a climate-controlled cabin, awaking after a mere 11 hours on a whole new continent.
My only real question, then, is if my family worked so hard and went through so much toil just to find opportunity in a new land, why would I want to go back to England of all places? Gross!
Happy early fourth of July, and safe travels to my fellow Summer II travelers.
