And Now, To English Matters!

Now that the "About Me" post is done, here is everything I can think of that I've done/experienced related to the trip!

I've always wanted to go to England, but even more, I've always wanted to live in England for an extended period of time. During my college search, I even wanted to apply to colleges in England! My parents weren't too supportive of that venture, for obvious reasons. They cut me a deal that if I got a 1570 on my SATs, I could go. Obviously, that didn't happen because I am not a super genius. So studying abroad is literally a dream come true!!

When it came to choosing a school at which to study, I made it a lot harder than it needed to be. I essentially wanted to pick up Saint Vincent and plop it in England. So I did A LOT of research: not just on the schools that were connected to Saint Vincent, but on basically every school I could find a URL for: Durham, Cambridge, and Oxford, just to name-drop. I did more research and discovered that each university had colleges within it (as they do in the States). However, the average "college" had about 700 kids. So a "college" was too small, but a university was wayyy too big! I ended up taking what I thought was the lazy way out, and applied to Saint Mary's University College. But the more I looked into it, the better and better the school got! Close enough to London to get the basics, yet far enough away to not be in a dreaded city school; Catholic (hard to find in an Anglican country!), and only about double the size of Saint Vincent. Up until a few days ago, the size difference really intimidated me, until my parents informed me that I had applied to schools for undergrad that were even larger. If I felt comfortable enough in those schools, I see no problem with adjusting to the size of SMUC!

What. Else.

Already purchased plane tickets. Can't wait to finally experience the mythical "jet lag!!"

Easily one of the best parts of this trip: I'm (kind of) going with friends! Two of my best friends from college are also going abroad next semester! Abby (*cough* here's her sweet blog!) is going to Spain, and Bernadette is going to Rome! Are we meeting up, you ask?

HECK YES WE ARE!!!!!

Another tip for European traveling: flights are DIRT. CHEAP. I'm literally planning on flying to Rome for about $50. And all three of us are going to meet in the middle(-ish) in PAREEEEEEE!!! Thank you, Eurostar!!!

Abby and Bernadette aren't my only visitors! I begged and pleaded with my parents to skip the summer vacation, and to visit me in London... and they agreed! Dad is already planning super fun things to do in London and Paris! I know it'll be nice to see them when they arrive about 1/3rd of the way through my trip of a lifetime!

However, I already know that the hardest part about being away for three months will hands-down be my relationship with Aaron; not because it's holding me down, but because it's really the only thing that keeps me together. Summer's bad enough, when we only see each other 1-2 times a month. Going 3.5 months with only Skype? Ouch.

However, this trip, college, life in general -- it's ALL about attitude. If I have a positive attitude (which I usually do have... to a fault!), then everything should go smoothly!

I think that's it for right now, regarding trip prep. Thanks for reading!

1 Thing I Learned Today: It's probably a bad idea to pack bedding. Something to ponder and solve in the next month!