Goodbye London =(

Can’t believe I am already leaving London. I can believe that I stopped blogging =P I was surprised how well I was keeping up with it, and then I started to think that I should work on my essays rather than write in my blog. Ended up not being worth it because my laptop’s hard drive went and had to rewrite the progress I made on my essays. I ended up buying a little netbook because it was twenty more pounds than it would take to fix my old one. It was such a stressful mess, but I got through it. 

I’m really going to miss London, I got so used to it. Not going to miss the bloody pound though! By living in London, I actually got to experience living in the city. It was not as architecturally beautiful as I hoped.  There are so many modern/lame buildings. They just didn’t rebuild that well after the fire and the wars. Not going to miss the crowds, that’s for sure! Regardless, I absolutely loved being in a place that was surrounded by so many cultures and had so many things going on constantly. There are so many different areas in London; if you come as a tourist- you don’t see them. Like the beauty of Greenwich, hipster Camden, laid back lifestyle in Brick lane, and of course the student hub of New Cross =)

I really enjoyed studying at Goldsmiths (in New Cross), I grew more there then my whole time at Cal combined. My classes always took field trips and I went to the theater multiple times a week. I was constantly encouraged to have an opinion and to participate in discussion. Goldsmiths was basically the type of school I should have gone to in the states- No ‘Greek’ organizations, no sports, and lots of open minds.  

I wish my mum (or anyone else) could have visited. So many of the other abroad student’s parents came, and they didn’t enjoy having them here as much as I would have. I remember one kid saying ‘my parents are coming to visit for a week; I have no idea what we are going to do.’ Like really?! Ugh =(

No worries though, because I discovered couch surfing! Made a lot of friends through that! Got to go on a canal boat, drive an English car, and plenty of other shenanigans that other surfers love to do too!

When I was leaving, I got a strange kind of homesickness- not for my real home, but my new second home- London =) There was still some things that I wanted to do while I was there, but the stress and extra work from my damn laptop made fitting everything in pretty challenging. No worries, because London hasn’t seen the last of me =P

Packing was a pretty daunting task without my mummy! =( I gave away a lot of the stuff that I had to get to live (pots, pans, duvet, kitchen stuff) to my fellow surfers in London! Then shipped a bunch of my stuff home like I always planned, but it was still a pain. On a ‘Eurostar’ train now to Brussels! =)