The “Why Are You Still There?”
Most people who go abroad for fall quarter usually come back in the same calendar year. Then again, most people who go abroad for one quarter miss out on the opportunity to be absorbed in and by their foreign city. When I finally go back to the states, which I definitely can’t wait for, I get to actually call London “my old stomping grounds.” I’ll get to say, “Yeah, I lived in London for a year,” and never again in my life will living in London be so easy to accomplish as it has been this year. Why is that such a big deal? To find out, you’ll either have to try it out, or keep reading NBN’s study abroad blogs ;-). That emoticon came from my inner sorority girl. Not like that justifies anything.
Holidays
Ever spent Christmas alone? Okay, not alone, but with 3 people, 2 of whom you met the week before? It’s weird. Not in a bad way; more like a “man, home is so much better at this Christmas-thing than London is” kinda way. I can’t say it was that bad though, since 1.) the people were pretty chill, and 2.) both food and Die Hard were involved. I should also mention that my cousin and I killed a massive bottle of Bailey’s.
New Year’s, however, was beyond awesome. Incomprehensibly brilliant. My friend Mike from back home came to London for winter break, but we decided that London wasn’t cool enough for the New Year’s we were looking for. So we went to Dublin. And my God did we see Dublin at its best! Just imagine New Year’s Eve in Temple Bar: pints a-clinking, folks a-singing and the air of good times being soaked in by all. You meet people, you have a few drinks, you meet more people, you have even more drinks… before you know it, you’re running around City Centre hitting on 29-year-old MILFs.
School
If you read any of my blog posts last quarter, you know that I don’t work here. Then again, those who know me at all know that I never work regardless of my continental status. But guess what folks: I might have to study this quarter. Ludicrous, I know, but this time around I’m being taught by these crazy, psychopathic former-KGB types that will throw me in a Gulag if I even blink too long. Last term was all about writing 2,000 word papers of poli sci bullshit and getting by. This term is all about a Northwestern-style attrition method of studying; beating your brain on that financial economics textbook until you can’t tell it apart from your international trade in Eastern Europe textbook, all for that one exam in May. One. In May. Looks like my 5-day weekends just got one day shorter…
Existentialist Explorations and Other Forays into the Unknown…
I spent last term doing my best not to embrace the Londoner inside me. Why? No idea. Thoughts of Evanston and my family and friends won the mental battle last term. Spending all those weekends in all those awesome places (Munich for Oktoberfest, Italy for all that is Italian and Amsterdam for… croquettes?) made London seem kinda lame. By the time December rolled around, I had already begun plotting my escape.
I was walking through Camden (the veritable Belmont of London, but a more bodacious version of it) last weekend when I decided I was being an idiot. Somewhere amongst the dodgy pot dealers and bohemian trinket vendors, the shisha-filled air and the oddly cheap chow mein, I realized that when I go back to the States, I’m going to miss the feeling that is London.
When you finally blend in here, when you drop that goddamn “OMG I’m in Europe!” look that most American’s invariably adopt once here, you pick up this London attitude: a swagger derived from being surrounded by the most glorious elements this Earth has to offer. It’s a mania, whose most obvious symptom is a total inability to stop feasting in all the revelry to be had, not only in London, but in life itself.
I don’t mean to coddle some hackneyed cliche with all that. I’m surprised to find myself actually believing all that nonsense. It’s a beautiful insanity, really. Then again, this could also be the product of the Irish coffee, the Florentine wine, the German beer, etc., etc., etc…
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