....and down.

So now that I'm back home, over my jet lag and starting to settle back in to the 100-degree Texas heat, I guess it's time for me to write my last post and call this experience officially over. As much as I'd rather not, here's a wrap-up of my last days overseas, proof positive that yes, it is done...and so real life returns.

After taking my IB final on Friday morning, I spent part of a beautiful afternoon at St. Paul's Cathedral, climbing all 252 steps to the top of the dome! What a view....gave a really great perspective of how big London really is. Despite just reminding me of that song from Mary Poppins ("feed the birds...tuppins a bag"--anyone??), St. Paul's is a gorgeous church in a really pretty part of the city, right across the Millennium Bridge from the Tate Modern.

Zara and I spent Thursday afternoon at the Tate's "Global Cities" exhibit--something else that gave an amazing perspective of this city (and several others: Cairo, Mexico City, Mumbai, Istanbul...) in terms of population distribution, growth rate, ethnicity, layout, etc. Very illustrative and incredibly interesting.

After returning from St. Paul's, Shu and I spent about an hour saying goodbye to Kensington Gardens in an oh-so-fitting way....wine and pastries, of course! The "pastries" were really cupcakes--a thoughtful gift from a friend--but they still count and in fact were pretty amazing. The weather was perfect (definitely got lucky for our last couple of weeks in this respect!) and it was the best way to spend the best part of the afternoon...lazing in the sun on towels in the grass, sipping on white French wine and licking icing off our fingers, no objective but people watching while enjoying the scenery and each other's company.

Then it was off to the EUSA-hosted goodbye party at a bar a few tube stops to the west. As nobody else had other plans, this was quite a way to spend the evening: with our entire houseful of new friends, food, drink, dancing and general merriment. Though the place stayed open till 2 a.m. (an incredible rarity...most close at 11!), some friends and I caught the tube home before it closed to start packing, hang out, and embark on our last adventure: staying up to watch the sunrise before catching our flights out.

When we first arrived in London, the sun was rising at about 3:30 a.m. and setting after 11 p.m. Strangely enough--and very illustrative of the length of time we spent there--on the day we left it rose at 5:45 and was beginning to set around 8:30. crazy!! So it actually was a bit of a feat to stay up, but definitely worth it to see those colors wrapping around the tops of old buildings, as the city started to come to life below our fifth-floor "balcony" viewing point.

After this, it wasn't long until I had to leave the flat at 6:30 to make my 10:20 flight out of Gatwick. I thought I'd have plenty of time, but only arrived about 20 minutes prior to boarding. Given many options for heading to the airport, I decided to play big girl and take the tube to Victoria Station and a train from there by myself...meaning I'd have to lug all my luggage on my own. Luckily, good friends and nice people we usually available to offer their assistance--definitely wouldn't have made it otherwise!

Fourteen hours and two plane rides later, I was in the back of my parent's car drinking a big Bill Miller's sweet tea and eating chicken strips and fries (NOT CHIPS!!). oooh man I never thought fried grease could taste so good--or so much like home. As much as I'll miss being in London, it was definitely time to come home. And after all is said and done, it's not so much the place that I'll miss--the tube brake dust in my nose at night, the countless foreign accents, the dogs and children running free in the beautiful parks, even the incomparable pastries I can do without. It's just the experience of being in a completely new place surrounded by completely new and unfamiliar things, being forced to acclimate or not survive. OK, so maybe "survival" is too strong a term, but it's true: if you never let yourself really live in and try to understand your new surroundings, you're not getting the full experience. That's something I learned--foreign cultures (even one as close to our own as Britain!) are "strange" by definition, but also provide an incredible opportunity for learning. Every little thing is new and exciting, so the whole experience has this sense of enchantment....as in, what am I going to see/hear/find/eat/learn today?? There's really no telling.....

A new goal of mine is to keep this attitude and "sense of enchantment" even returning home--as corny as it sounds, I know. If you think about it, every single experience at home is literally just as new as the things I saw this summer in London--I mean nothing can be an exact repetition, right? London was exciting because it was new, but there's no reason I can't be equally as excited about everyday life!! Believe me, I'm planning on it.....

Almost the end?

No, this isn't my "the end" post.....but its pretty close, which for me is pretty strange. It truly seems just like yesterday when all the people I've become such good friends with were strangers, when there was no work to do and we were all naive tourists. I don't think I'll realize how long ago that really was until I get home and the amount of time I've been gone starts to set in. In the grand scheme of things two months isn't all that long, but when you pick up your whole life and move it to another continent across the ocean, the normal grind of "daily life" at home can start to seem very foreign. The really important things that will start to happen at home next week (band, moving in to my apartment, etc.)....right now it still hasn't set in that they actually will be happening next week. I expect what I'm doing right now to just keep going, and I'm afraid I won't realize that it can't until I land at DFW.

whew.....enough of that! Today is my last day of work at Ethical Corporation--or here in London at least. My bosses have said they hope I can continue working remotely once I leave, so I feel like this is a definite possibility that I'm incredibly excited about! If you've read my earlier posts, there's nothing bad I can say about this company or my time here....I'm really going to miss this.

I'm really going to miss lots of things about this whole experience, but despite this feeling I'm completely ready to come home. I don't know why, but I came to the realization a while ago that I wasn't ready to leave then--too much left to see and do--but that I would be when the time came. Well, I've seen and done all those things (and more!), the time has come and now I'm ready.

As for the "seen and done" part: since I turned in some major class projects last week, there's just been too much going on! I can't actually write about it all, so a list will have to do....

• Thursday: a late opening at the Museum of London. This was medieval-themed with a hog roast, period musicians, a table of authentic objects that you could pick up and talk with the curators about, and a private tour of the museum
• Friday: after class we visited the Natural History museum (great dinosaur exhibit!), went to eat Indian food on Brick Lane (this is very near where I work--same tube stop), played around "downtown" (near the Tate Modern, Globe, Millennium Bridge & St. Paul's), ate Chinese food in Soho and went on a historic Ale Trail that we almost finished...to be continued. :)
• Saturday: got up very early to go queue to buy last-minute tickets to Wicked at the Apollo Victoria, visited the British Library's "Sacred" exhibit of books and artifacts plus lots of history about Christianity, Islam and Judaism; spent the afternoon at Regent Park for the innocent (smoothie company--like Naked) village fete (reminded me of the Folklife Festival, county-fair style with more free stuff), and went to see Wicked! Absolutely amazing musical--best I've seen here, and that's saying something---and afterward we met all the stars as they were leaving the theatre! Then I immediately downloaded the soundtrack, which has been in my head ever since and is not leaving any time soon. :)
  
• Sunday: I went to church in the morning, visited the Tate Modern for about 45 minutes before I realized that I don't get modern art (though I did enjoy a few Pollocks, a Matisse and a Monet), then headed out on a train to the countryside to "Go Ape!" I can safely say this was one of the most enjoyable experiences of the trip...it was basically a ropes course in the treetops with ziplines, ladders, and all kinds of obstacles to get you from platform to platform. The coolest part was that after a little educational session, you sign your life away and are basically unsupervised--a lot of responsibility to make sure you know what you're doing!! An amazing excursion.
  
• Monday: finished the Ale Trail by visiting the last pub after work, eating dinner and earning my T-shirt, which I really wanted to wear to work this week but have refrained from doing.
• Tuesday: apparently was boring, as I have nothing to write about here
• Wednesday: the 30th annual Great British Beer Festival was happening at Earl's Court--this is a two-week long event where tons of breweries set up inside this gigantic venue and serve beer you'd never be able to get in one place. I thought this was hilarious, as it reminded me of a convention--like TMEA or some home and garden expo--but for beer. Of course it was. :) Really fun evening!

And now today! Last day of work, class at around 6, and then we're celebrating a few birthdays in the house this weekend so I expect some major festivities......which should be very conducive to everyone taking a final tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. :) After Friday, I'm basically out---as my flight leaves Gatwick for home at 10 a.m. Crazy!!!