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It seems strange knowing that we’ve been in England for exactly 1 month.(Well, 1 month and 2 days because my mystery disease left me bereft of any sort of writing skills until now.) But excluding the two days, its amazing to think of how significantly our lives have changed after only 30 days.
In September, we had only computer generated maps and information garnered from the internet as a preview to what was in store for us. We came over-prepared, but that was more out of boredom and eagerness to get going (and my tendancy to over-prepare for everything…just in case).
And now, here we are, one month later, thoroughly integrated and immersed in English culture. The things we saw only via GoogleEarth or in pictures have become part of our daily lives. Ormskirk is no longer a mystery town, Liverpool no longer just in the movies. It’s hard to remember that sometimes. When I go into Liverpool, I have a crazy desire to buy everything and to snap billions of photos–and then, suddenly, it will hit me all over again that we live here, that we (albeit temporarily) are a part of this place. We belong here.
This has already been such a grand adventure that its hard to find words to accurately describe the feeling. In 30 days we’ve seen places I’ve only ever dreamed of seeing, met amazing people, had wonderful (and lousy) expereiences and learned a great deal not only about England, but about ourselves.
I’ve learned that I can, actually, fend for myself–Perhaps its the knowledge that in a few months I’ll be back at home being told what to do, but for now, this new found freedom isn’t the great danger I thought it would be, but instead a learning experience in living in the real world without parental control. There are decisions that must be made, some basic and trivial (what kind of soap do you buy when you don’t know anything about English brands of soap?) and others more serious, but so far, I feel as though we have done a fairly decent and responsible job of surviving on our own.
I’ve learned the importance of patience, especially when dealing with cultural differences. Just because something is different doesn’t make it “wrong”–it just makes it different. For instance, I spent 10 minutes in the store recently trying to describe exactly what I wanted when I said I needed “Kleenex”. After an conversation that led to a rather interesting game of charades, finally a light went on in the (very patient) employee’s head and she said “oh, you mean you want tissues”. There are times when these differences can be stressful, but accepting them as facts of life and trying my best to assimilate to English culture has proven to be the best (and easiest) way of settling in here.
I’ve learned that the English schooling system is very different from the American one. Not better or worse, just different. For a few days, I was very uncomfortable in class because no one raises their hands, they just speak up whenever they have something to add, which is something I still feel awkward about doing, but I am getting used to. Classes meeting only one day a week is something that has taken getting used to –but I am NOT complaining about! Minor details, like the paper sizes (A4 versus 8×11) and types of binders (2 hole vs 3 hole) have been minor differences that just serve as a reminder that we are in another country and another culture. Other things, like how early everything closes here, have become bigger issues, especially when we’re used to 24 hour Wal-Marts being ten minutes away. This has taken some adjusting to get used to, specifically our eating habits, which have changed drastically thanks to the early hours of the caffeterias and the prevelance of late-night delivery places (which still close around 2 AM and stop delivering around 1). Remembering to take these things into account when planning our days is sometimes stressful, but if anything, its taught us to become more flexible and to work with what we have availiable (Thank god for learning to cook this summer).
But most of all, I learned that I am lucky. I am so very, very lucky. Lucky for accidentally discovering Edge Hill that fateful day of surfing online, lucky to be here,lucky to have met the other amazing American students and lucky that we have been so warmly welcomed not only on campus but just in general.
I suppose the most obvious part of this entire expierience is how lucky I am to be here with Abby. (Here’s the part where Abby will get mad because I’m being cheesy.) One of the greatest pleausures of traveling abroad has been making new friends and to meet new people, something that I will greatly miss when we get home. However, there is something reassuring about knowing that I am here with my best friend, someone who postpones a trip to London because I was too sick to go, someone who brought me shortbread when I felt too crappy to get out of bed and who is there to listen to me complain and get mad when I sing showtunes too loudly. Not only do I have this amazing opportunity to travel and to experience the world, but I get to share that experience with my best friend. Things like this are things that you don’t take lightly, which is why I will continue to be extrordinarily grateful to the forces that brought us here. Call it luck or fate or destiny or whatever, all I know is that in 20 years I will be able to say that for one glorious year of my life, I spent my time traveling through Europe with my best friend.
Thanks for coming with me, Abby.
4:30 AM in a London Train Station. We had decided, on a whim, to try and make it to Munich in time for the last weekend of Octoberfest. No suitcases, no plans, just the knowledge that Oktoberfest was going on and we were missing it.
Chalk this one up to a learning experience.
London was cold. Chill, crisp and properly wintery. It felt almost as if London was so concerned with being punctual that even the seasons changed earlier then nessessary, just to enure the proper protocol was achieved.
We were holed up in a little alcove trying to stay warm, waiting for 4:30 when the Eurorail office was supposed to open. When we arrived, it was closed and we discovered we were stuck for the night in London. We made froends with 3 hot guys from Spain who asked us out on dates, Thomas, the Harry Potter look-alike from France, and a posse of station assistants who were more than eager to assist to wide-eyed and helpless midwestern girls.
Already it had been an adveture of the proper sort. We’d arrived in Liverpool and asked the ticket lady how to get to Munich.
“You want to go WHERE?”
“….Munich?”
” NOT FROM HERE, YOU’RE NOT!!”
From behind the glass, it had a funny mechanical ring to it, but the woman’s incredulous look made it incredibly obvious that we were A: unprepared for this journey, B: in for a great adventure, and C: very, very screwed. It turns out that we wouldn’t be able to get a train to Munich that weekend, let alone get one back. There was an impending train strike that was interfering with schedules and most things were booked (keep this in mind, this is important later on). We decided to change our plans and head to Amsterdam instead.
Why would 4 American college students want to go to Amsterdam?
The archetecture, of course.
Back at the airport, Abby, Will and Mike lay on the black flagstone while my stomach churned. How were going to get there? I had been inadvertantly placed in charge, a position I took very seriously. I was trying very, very hard not to screw up.
The best part about England, and Europe in general is that there if you go with a good attitude, a willingness to work through language barriers and a smile, you can usually make friends and find out what you need to know. It was no different at the station in London. A maitenance man named Ali took us under his wing and made sure to tell us all about the joys of Amsterdam and how much we were going to like it there. (Of course, he spent most of him time explaining the finer nuances of the red light district, of which none of us had any interest, but it was kind of him to take the time to explain how things worked in the interest of making our time there more enjoyable. It’s moments like this–when comeplete strangers offer you advice just to make your stay a little better or take the time to adivse you how to do things a little cheaper or a little faster that my belief in the greater good of humanity is reenforced.
After a long night in freezing temperatures, we finally got our tickets and were on our way. We would leave London and go to Brussels, from Brussels to Amesterdam. Two long train rides later, we were there.
Amsterdam is like a seedy night club that just kept growing, until the city around it finally sighed and shifted aside to give this shrine to revelry and merriment some room of its own. The smell of the city settled into every stitch of clothing, every pore–it took three washings to get the smells out of my sweater, even more for my hair. Amsterdam sticks with you.
The trip was a glorious, eye-opening, wallet-shrinking experience I will probably never repeat. It was too crazy, too party-oriented. England, with its ordered process and friendly people seemed far away from the smokey grey dinge of Amsterdam. I was homesick–for Ormskirk.
If England was the standard, the pristine norm to which I had grown accustomed, then grunge covered Amsterdam and the smelly train were the opposite ends of the spectrum.
Every inch of the city was covered in graffiti, every window tinged with soot and grime, everything left to sit for just a day too long. There were flashes of bright glass and steel, places where the last layers of old paint had been banished in the hopes of making progress, but I was want to see the final result. Even the sun–the bright, glorious sun, which I hadn’t seen for the better part of a week could not ease the vauge sense of disatisfacction that I felt. Where was Manchester’s friendly bustle, Liverpool’s mesmorizing rythm? All that surrounded me was grime and grey. I was too tired, homesick for a real bed, real food and greatly regretting the gusto with which I’d laid my Visa down.
However, all of this was made up for by the waffles. I love Amsterdam waffles, and the (estimated) twelve I ate in the day we spent there helped make everything a little bit more bearable.
I always feel guilty commenting on other cultures. Perhaps I just happened to run into the wrong people, or arrived on a bad day, or any number of reasons why I might have been met with a bad experience. All this aside, the worst part of the trip were the unsympathetic train agents who stared at me blankly and rolled their eyes at the stupid Americans who had gotten their tickets screwed up.
Ah, the ticket debacle. This is really a tale of its own, the most heroic thing I’ve done as of yet. Back in London, when we decided to try and get to Amsterdam instead of being stuck in Munich, we were assured we had been sold open ended tickets and that we could take any train back that we wanted. However, the guy at the station messed up, booked us for the first train out, and when we arrived at the station at 1:53 PM, we were informed that our train had left at 8:07, all the trains were full for the rest of the day, and that because of the train strike the next availiable train was in 2 week’s time.
We were given the run around by 3 separate ticket agents, first told there was nothing they could do, then told we could pay about 100 Euros a piece to be put on standby, then told all the trains were full and that it wouldn’t matter, we would have to find an alternate route back. We were exhausted, cold, hungry, broke and terrified.
It was at this moment, stranded in Belgium with four years of high school french that I barely remembered, without funding or phone that I realized the seriousness of our situations. Then I did something I rarely do. I turned into my mother. Never in my life have I been so glad for what my mom has taught me, and never so glad that she was 2000 miles away.
It was also the moment I remembered I was a theatre maajor who could cry on cue.
An hour later, we were seated in First Class on the train to London.
We arrived safely–albeit hungry, cranky and exhausted–back at Edge Hill that night at 11:00.
That, my friends, was an excellent adventure.
