Abroad Chronicles, VIII: OXFORD

After spending all of February at Keele, in the middle of March we finally ventured out and took a day trip to Oxford with the university's student support services. We didn't get nearly enough time in this little city but I'm ever grateful for the hours I did have.

Oxford is a college town, obviously, and it felt like one. Our first stop was Christ Church College, where they filmed some of Harry Potter. It felt a little like Hogwarts, to be honest.

England in bloom

CHILLIN at HOGWARTS

These are THE STAIRS from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone!!!!

(blurry) proof I have friends

Day trips are often difficult to describe. We have to see so much in a short amount of time, bound to the laws of transit, that very often the experiences slip through the cracks. Also, at this point in the day - after Christ Church College - I was growing weary, so my memory is hazy until after lunch.

We did get a little turned around, ended up too far from the city's center and re-routed ourselves to find a place to eat on High Street. We ended up first in a candy shop and later in a pub for food. Besides Christ Church College, I wanted to see the Bodleian Library and Blackwell's bookshop, but the library was closed and I spent my remaining time in this little city in the bookstore.

I hope to someday go back to Oxford and properly explore it, be it this later this spring or the next time I find myself here in England.

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March On

Oftentimes, my weeks here are so filled - with homework, classes, socializing, reading, sleeping - that I'm not able to reflect as much as I'd like. February was a cold gray blip in time and for the first time since arriving here, I didn't leave this area once. I forget that I'm here, in England, away from home, that I do not go to Keele, that these humans I've befriended will be departing from me too soon. Maybe I'll be departing from them, since I'm leaving first. Ninety-three days feels like nothing and yet June feels so very far from here, where I am lying in the dark, putting off going to sleep of all things.

Today was the first day in a few weeks where I felt abundantly homesick. Here, I always am missing home, but not in an all day every day kind of thing, but today it resurfaced and I wanted to see my mom and dad and siblings and niece and nephews and my dog and my house. I want to take the people I have there and bring them here, wish I could double and be in two places at once.

England is a strange, funny place. I find something new to like every day and is blooming as spring comes. So thankful I am for having winter here, where it is mild and windy and wet instead of snowy and freezing. A few weeks ago I went on a walk around our campus because I had never really seen it since the fall was odd and the winter was cold. I feel like I wasn't here at all last semester.


Here, the clock changes later and Mother's Day is next weekend. The water is different and the sun is a stranger and flowers are sprouting everywhere. I can hear people all day in their rooms, singing and laughing and talking and wonder if they can hear me, too. My sense of style is stalling in the year I was born and there are less days until my birthday than I have been in England. I miss writing and have forgotten its simple pleasures and wish someone would lend me their characters so I could reignite that passion.

Already, I have read twenty books and I am writing this so I can sleep tonight. I am learning things about myself because I am a living cliché. I wonder what made me want to come here and am ever grateful for the perseverance that has brought me here, made me stay when it wasn't what I expected, that made me fall in love with this funny little place. I absolutely hate goodbyes but I love hello agains even more, and know now in March that I will be using that love to power through my goodbyes.

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WHAT I'VE LEARNED: 2014 in review

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 8 AM in a single bed in a condo in Florida. As I write this, I am in a single bed, but in my dormitory in England. In between these two spaces, a new year has risen, or so says the calendar. At however many feet over the Atlantic, when it was midnight in America and past midnight in England, everything was transient and surreal.

That's sort of how I feel about 2014 in general: transient and surreal. In the span of 2014, I have lived in three places: Bowling Green, Avon Lake, and Keele, England. Each of these places I have called home, each place I have left and will leave and my life will continue this way until I graduate in 2016 (minus England), bouncing back and forth between two places that have contributed to me growing up. This year, I have learned to appreciate the surreal and transient nature of travel. One morning, I was in England. By the evening, I was in Tampa, Florida. Throughout all the travel of the past year - from NYC to Florida to Indianapolis to England - it has struck me nearly every single time that I am one fortunate individual to see so much of the world.

Spent the day with family; Tiffin, OH | Aug 2014

Me, Shanna and Rachel in Times Square | Jan 2014

Poolside view, Orlando, FL | Mar 2014

Parade the Circle; Cleveland, OH | Jun 2014

Me, Shanna & Rachel at the Children's Museum; Indianapolis, IN | Aug 2014

I think travel is a great privilege. Even within Ohio - and Cleveland itself - there is so much to see. From the rural plains to the Cleveland metropolis, there is much to do, much to see. This year, I learned to appreciate where I came from, and more importantly, who I came from. I became closer with my family, spending many Monday nights with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and niece eating dinner, drinking tea and sharing many, many stories (and laughs). I understood homesickness in a completely different way. When I'm at BGSU, my mom is literally a phone call away - when I miss her or my dad or my brothers or my dog, I can call her and ask if I can come home, or if she can come see me. But here, in England, I am so far from my family that many days pass when I don't even get to call my mom, due to the time difference or clashing schedules. Though I miss my family every day (every minute of every day), I know they are with me and that it is only with their love and support that I am even able to be abroad at all.

My little home; Keele, England | Oct 2014

Travel has taught me a lot (as it teaches any person who encounters a lot of travel). This blog isn't one that is going to tell its three readers that leaving home is the only way you can learn things about yourself. You can learn about yourself from anywhere. I have been studying abroad for months, now, and don't feel like I've learned anything about myself that I didn't already know. Like, I hate when people hang out without me, but I also love my time alone. I'm tricky and complex like that. Also, that I can only really rely on myself in most situations and always have a plan. It's hard for me to make friends, nearly impossible to garner the courage to talk to someone first, and I love to make people laugh. I put a lot of pressure on myself academically and will procrastinate as long as possible.

I think that studying abroad has forced me to be aware of these things inside myself, but I think that I knew these things in Ohio and have been forced and will continue to be forced to recognize both my flaws and my strengths.

Galway, Ireland | Oct 2014

But a lot of this year taught me about people, and how they live and act and how these people see me. A lot of my friendships changed over the course of the year. Some grew stronger, some were brand new, some ended, some grew distant. I don't think I've ever had a friend I regretted knowing, and I wish I were more patient with my friends and less sensitive about little things. I've grown up so much this year, I think, especially in terms of my patience and impatience, but I still have a ways to go. I wish I weren't jealous and needy and distant and sensitive and sarcastic sometimes but I understand now that friends can and will love you through your moods. Or they should. (And more often than not, they do.)

Candid Mags girls reunited; London, England | Nov 2014

Just a few of my friends abroad; Keele, England | Nov 2014

This was a year of family, friends, travel, learning, and books. This year, I read 70 books, which to me seems like not a lot but it is quite a lot of books and I am looking forward to all the new things I will read in this year. My goal is 100 in 2015 and it feels feasible. I hope that this year bodes well for me, for reading and writing and all the rest.

Sunset; Longboat Key, FL | Dec 2014

All my best and all my love in 2015.

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Abroad Chronicles, VI: DUBLIN

In typing up this post, I realize I never talked about my first visit to Ireland this year, all the way back in October, to Galway, for one of my best friends from high school's 21st birthday celebration. So far, in our six-year-long friendship, I have been able to celebrate her birthday with her every year. Talk about good timing, especially in college/study abroad. Someone must be looking out for us.

But that is not the point of this post, and the point is actually: I went to Ireland (again)! Dublin, this time, to be specific, with a few of my friends from Keele. On a sunny Saturday morning, we rose early and got in a taxi and then a bus and then finally made it to the Manchester airport, which, BTW, is annoying to travel to because in order to get to the terminal you need (especially for Ryanair flights/international travel in general) you have to walk three hundred thousand miles. Regardless, despite my crankiness and tiredness, we made it to the airport, and then to Dublin, though that was doubtful for a bit - we reached Dublin within 45 minutes of takeoff only to begin descending and ascend again. Couldn't understand the pilot, but assumed that they weren't landing because there was no room on the road or something or whatever, anyways, I was reading The Bone Season, so I didn't mind at all.

As a city, Dublin is very fascinating. The city centre, where our hostel was, along with a bunch of other tourist attractions, didn't feel very city-like. It certainly didn't feel very Irish, not like Galway did, but it was a nice place to be, apart from the extreme amount of tourists. Me, included, I guess. I can't imagine living in such a touristy place. That night, we hung around the hostel and explored Trinity College, Grafton Street, and Temple Bar.

On Sunday, we went to an American-style diner (of course) called Eddie Rocket's, and then set off for our final destination, the Guinness Storehouse, intending to stop at tourist sights along the way.

As always, enjoy the sheer amount of photos you are about to be subjected to:

Grafton Street

Dublin City Hall

Horse girl forever

Christ Church Cathedral, AKA one of the many cathedrals I thought was St. Patrick's on the walk there

The REAL St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Park

Memorial to W.B. Yeats

This is my favorite photo I have taken so far

View of Dublin from the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse

Grafton Street at night

Trinity College

The location of brunch/lunch

John's Lane Church

A random churchyard/graveyard spotted on the walk to the Guinness Storehouse

Who in their right mind wants chips with lasagne? 

Blurry Christmas trees or no Christmas trees

Finally, something I can relate to

Magnificat: Worldwide

Hi, Mom!

That concludes my European travels for the semester. Internationally, however, in just one (!!!) short day I will be flying across the Atlantic ocean to be reunited not only with American food, but my wonderful, loving, and generous family. How blessed I am to have had such a wonderful experience and so many more trips like this to look forward to in the coming six months. It's been a crazy semester - look out soon for a post in summary of it all - but I am so certain this year abroad has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

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