Wofford College - Study Abroad

"Are you sad to leave London?"

  

  

    Until I returned from London to my hometown of Gainesville, Georgia, there was one question that "adults" would ask that always topped my "most hated questions" list: "So Sarah, what do you think you'd like to do after you graduate?" Most of my friends hate this question for one simple reason: they don't have an answer. But I have an answer -- it's just an answer most adults don't like to hear.
    My answer takes many forms. Sometimes, when I don't feel like stepping straight into the ring of fire, I mumble elusively, "Oh, I'm going to go to grad school." I don't say which and I don't say for what, and I hope pointlessly that they won't ask.
    Other times, I go for humor. "Well, Mrs. (Insert Last Name Here), I'm thinking about trying to whole 'move to New York, live out of a cardboard box and try unsuccessfully to make the New York Times Bestseller List' method." I usually don't get smiles in return.
    And sometimes, I'm struck by a fit of honesty: "To be frank, I really just want to write. I'm going to go to whatever grad school I can get into in New York -- just to be there -- and I'm going to write. No sir, not for a newspaper. No, not a magazine. I think I'll try my hand at novels. I know, not the smartest plan... I know, especially in this economy... Oh! I'm sorry -- I think I hear my mom calling me way over there at the opposite end of the room..."

  But lately, that question has been the equivalent to reciting my two's times tables. Now I'm doing calculus before I've even learned long division. The question I get now is harder to answer that I've ever imagined and it's not because of the questioner's reaction; it's because of mine.
    The first time I was asked it, I don't think I gave any noticeable indications of my reaction. I didn't drop the glass I was holding, no tears rose at the back of my eyes, I didn't even consider hiding my feelings with a comedic response. Instead, when the question was voiced -- "Are you sad about leaving London?" -- I gripped my glass a little tighter, I glanced down at my shoes and then I looked up and responsed in a tone that was a bit too serious, "Yes... I really am."

    I developed better answers. Once I heard the question, I was prepared to face it again. At first it was a gradual admission: "Yes, I really do miss it. Just living there for three months... it really became my home." As I said this, pictures of London flew through my brain like a movie in fast forward mode: the room I stayed in with my unmade bed, Michaela trying to climb one of the lion statues in Trafalgar Square, people swaying as the bus slams on its brakes, a scene from my favorite play when the actor crumbles to the floor.
    Soon, the question wasn't even a blow. Soon, I could recognize that leaving London wasn't about coming back home and being sad; it was about coming back home -- back to the familiar -- and seeing it in an unfamiliar light. Soon, I could smile and reply, "Yeah, of course I'm sad to leave London. But, at the same time, it's made me realize so much about this place I've lived all my life."
    I've noticed how slow I eat now because meals in Europe aren't just about eating -- they're more about conversation. I can see the different ways in which clothes function in the South and London: in Georgia, people dress for comfort, while London is centered around fashion -- clothes are a means of expression. Fast food in the states means scarfing a hamburger in your car; in London, it means eating a sandwich as you walk back to work.
    But more than anything, living in London has made realize so much about myself. Yes, I could say, I'm sad to leave London because leaving London meant leaving a part of myself that was only just awakened. The part of myself that I could never locate while I'm living in a small city in the South, the part I think, I hope, will come back to me if I ever do make it to New York.
    Yes, I'm sad to leave London. I'm sad that this experience I'll never get to have again has ended. But I'm not really sad. The only reason I could actually be sad is if I never got to go.

A day in the life of a London traveller...

 

As the train pulls up, I hold back my sigh of frustration. People are packed into each carriage like a deck of cards in its box -- except a few stray cards from another deck have found their way inside, forcing the cards to strain against the box. Individuals fill up the aisles, as well as the middle and end spaces in each carriage: many backs are pressed up against the doors, which open slower than usual. A few people squeeze through the mass of bodies to stumble off the train. We, the eager boarders, wait somewhat impatiently. I step onto the train and try to force my body -- including the large lump on my back, my backpack -- inside. It doesn't fit. I step back grudgingly and watch as another person jumps in my place. The train pulls away. I stand back behind the yellow line, as the voice over the intercom instructs, and watch as the train departs. I'll have to catch the next one.

A typical morning at the South Kensington tube station.

I'm luckier when the next train pulls in: the end of one carriage stops in front of me, which is less crowded than the middle doors that everyone runs to. Thinking this time -- I usually don't bring my backpack with me -- I slide it off my back and hold it as I step inside the train. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle -- no side or door to lean against or pole that I can reach to keep my body from lurching forward. I place my backpack between my legs and pray that I don't end up in the arms of the man in front of me: he doesn't look quite awake yet.

I glance around me, but already know what I'm going to see. Men and women of all ages surround me, all seemingly lost in their own minds. Many have thin white cords poking out from their jackets, leading up to their ears: some iPod listeners stare straight ahead quietly, others bob their head, a few even hum or sing under their breath... until someone clears their throat.

Other people are immersed in broadsheets -- newspapers -- or books. Just in case I did space out and forget what time it was -- I've been known to do it -- I would know exactly the time of day just by glancing around the carriage. It's morning because no one has freesheets yet: the London Lite or the London Paper. These newspapers, given out for free by overly eager paper boys at the entrance of the tube, don't come out until late afternoon. Take the tube at 4:30 p.m. and you'll find yourself surrounded by business men and women completely immersed in their freesheet: their own guide to celebrity gossip. And, don't be fooled, just because someone doesn't have a freesheet in their hand, it doesn't mean they aren't reading over the shoulder of the person next to them... or waiting like a hawk for someone to set theirs down so they can snatch it up.

But it's morning, I'm sure of it, because I see a few copies of the Metro in my fellow travellers' hands -- the morning freesheet. I try to catch a glance past the crowded bodies to the station we pull up to: I can't see it, but I know it's not Green Park, the one I'm waiting for. That's not where I get off; my stop, Holborn, is four more stops away. But, there are many people who do get off at this station, so it's my one hope for getting a seat -- or at least getting escaping from the ring of bodies around me to the side of the train. Green Park comes: like I expect, people file out, leaving some -- not sufficient -- room in the carriage. I quickly move to the side of the carriage before the train is filled again with new boarders. Leaning back against the train, my travels are a little easier for the next four stops: my body isn't swaying dangerously against everyone around me.

We arrive at Holborn and file out of the train, going down the stairs and down a hall full of advertisements. Posters line the wall advertising for movies, plays and museums. I glance at them and smile, knowing that in less than a week I'll be back home -- a place where I can afford to see a movie. Once we get to the escalator, two lines emerge: one to stand on the right side of the escalator, the other to walk, well run really, up the left. I'm not late today so I choose the right hand side and watch as people dash by to my left. I suppress a laugh when one sweating man in a suit trips in mid-run: you have to be nimble to make it up the escalator gracefully.

The outside air hits my face in a furious rush as the escalator nears the top. Though the cold usually cripples me, I welcome this harsh breeze; after the foggy windows of the subway, it's a relief. Swipping my oyster card over the sensor, I walk through the doors as they open and towards the tube exit -- "way out" as it's labeled here. I'm almost out when a huffing man runs into me, causing me to stagger and make a small gasp. When I look up, he's already run by with a fleeting "Sorry, miss," thrown over his shoulder. I should be mad, but I smile instead. Sure, the tube isn't glamorous, even compared to my dangerously feeble Chevy Cavalier at home. But right now, I'd rather be taking the tube in London, then in a car driving anywhere else -- especially if it's on the right side of the road.

My own British family

When I signed up to stay with a British family for a weekend, I had high hopes. I expected everything: a hot meal or two that didn't come out of a microwave -- like mine usual do -- a plethora of new British phrases and, most importantly, a bed with springs that don't cut off my circulation.
    I was estastic when I learned I would stay with a family in Lincolnshire, which is an area of countryside in the Northern part of England. It was exactly what I wanted: one weekend away to see a part of Britain that didn't include an overwhelming number of buildings, underground stations or outfits in display windows that cost more than my entire wardrobe. I packed my backpack with as many layers as possible, as my host mum advised me to do, and left with the content idea that maybe wherever I was going had more sheep than people.
    Even though I expected everything, the everything I got wasn't what I expected.
    At the train station, I met Caroline, my host mother. Though I had left the train with a dozen nervous queries, they evaporated when I recognized that there was nothing I could fear in this woman. She had round glasses and an easy smile. When I went to the right side of the car -- thinking it was the passenger's side, as it would be in America -- babbling on about how I couldn't remember the last time I rode in a car, she simply tapped my arm and smiled, "Wrong side."
    Later I met her foster children: two boys named Dan, 17, and Ashley, 13. Like my brother Robert, who is also 17, Dan is obsessed with his Xbox. More than that, they both tell the kind of funny jokes you hate, but you have to laugh at. The way he teased Ashley reminded me of the way Robert -- lovingly I'm sure -- tells me I'm his favorite big brother. I couldn't help but smirk as I watched their mini-fights.
    Likewise, I couldn't help but think of Ashley as my temporary replacement for my littlest brother Lee. I don't think he knew how to react to me at first: he didn't speak to me much, and when he did, he abruptly told me I couldn't be American because I wasn't a gamer. Later, when I refused a snack, he said, "You aren't like any other Americans I've met. They ate all the time."
    He started to warm up to me though. When he played the old shoulder tap trick -- where you tap the shoulder furthest from you of the person beside you -- I simply turned around and smiled at him, "You know, we do that in America, too." By the end of the weekend, he didn't mind letting my inexperienced fingers hold his playstation controller. Besides, half of the entertainment of playing with me was watching my three lives disappear before I even figured out how to aim my gun.
    My favorite was Roxy. A family friend of Caroline's, she was on a vacation from boarding school and came to stay for the weekend. A replica my 14-year-old Jordan, I fought a losing battle all weekend trying not to call her the wrong name. Like Jordan, she has entered the stage that no teenage girl can be blamed for: she was self-conscious and just wanted people to like her.
    Mortified when Caroline let her borrow a coat that hung like a deflated hot air balloon over her tiny frame, Roxy tried to convince her that her light jacket would suffice in below freezing temperatures. She got up early to straighten her hair and spent many precious minutes on her make-up, applying mascara with an ease I still can't master. Yet, just like Jordan, she is hardly a barbie doll. Smart and funny, she kept up with the boys' banter and rolled her eyes at me every now and then as if to say, "Why do we even listen to these guys?"
    And Caroline had no problem treating me like a daughter. Whether she was asking what I'd like her to make for dinner or yelling from the room below me to be careful with the water when I was taking a shower, I knew I momentarily had become one of her children. As if it were only a question of tying a knot betweeen two pieces of thread, she gladly bound me to the long string of people she already cares for. When I left, I fumbled with my words: there was no way I could express my gratitude.
    I went to Lincolnshire wanting a home and all of its simple amenities. I never thought I'd get there and find the most real kind of home: family.

The election from across the pond

 
  It was a time for change. No, I'm not referring to the campaign slogan of our new president, Barack Obama. I don't mean the historical nature of this election. It's not even the switch from a Republican to a Democratic president that I'm getting at. I'm talking about experiencing the election as a student overseas.
    As long as I've known what voting is, I'm pictured voting in my first presidential election: I would wait in a long line, cast my ballot and go home to watch the results, feeling that I finally had been given a chance to affect America. But there was no line, no voting station, no home. Instead there was an envelope that marked "Absentee Ballot," a mail box and a concert hall providing drinks, hot dogs and a huge screen to watch the election live.
    But that wasn't the only change. The political shift was mind-boggling. Because I'm from Georgia and I attend Wofford, I'm used to living in "red states" -- largely conservative areas. And though I've known for the past two months that Britain is a much more liberal country than the United States, nothing made it clearer than the assumption that every Brit I spoke with had: that I was an Obama supporter. In their minds, McCain wasn't even an option.
    Yet, perhaps the biggest difference for me was watching the election process through the eyes of the British press. I couldn't help but laugh as the BBC anchor called our electoral college a "rather strange system," and explained how the actual results wouldn't be known for weeks: "the results tonight are only projections." Like trying to interpret a cryptic message, the anchors explained to the audience repeatedly that even though the popular vote would be close, the candidate can actually win by a large number if he gains the electoral votes of certain states. And everyone -- both the press and the Brits I spoke with at the election party -- insisted that this election would impact the world.
    And, watching the action from Britain, we were always just a step behind the states. For some states, like Georgia and New Mexico, BBC told us which way a United States news station had already projected the vote, reminding us that they didn't have their results confirmed yet. Not to mention the five hour time difference: for the first time I was truly frustrated with the gap of time between the countries. It was midnight before we got any results at all, four in the morning before we knew who the 44th president would be and five a.m. before I was home and able to sleep.
    Though it was an uphill battle -- fighting fatigue and nerves throughout the evening -- it was one of my best nights in London. I came to Europe with the idea that I was wearing a scarlet letter: the A standing for my nationality as a dreadful American, coming from a country that everyone hated in some way or another. But last night, I wasn't ashamed to admit my roots. Instead of consciously trying not to say "y'all," I reclaimed my Southern accent. I was proud to be American and spoke about the elections with Brits and Americans alike -- forming a kind of bond with other Americans overseas in the same position.
    Not that it wasn't bittersweet. I felt a slight pang as one Londoner leaned over and asked, "Do you wish you were home right now?" At that moment, I did terribly. I noticed to how my friend Michaela who's from Chicago watched Grant Park fill with people, a homesick look on her face. She told me she wished she could be there. But if we hadn't been there -- if we hadn't shared one seat for five hours, our backs aching, crowded by people from every angle -- we would have never known just how much this election meant to them, too: our host country.
    Suddenly, it wasn't just our future as Americans I was thinking about; it was our future as British people, Europeans, world citizens. That's the change I mean: a complete alteration in the way you think. And that's what being abroad is all about, isn't it? Realizing that when you flip the other side of the coin, there's a whole other world outside your home. Luckily, you're all on the same coin.

A night in Iepers, Belgium

As the rain came down harder, more people in our group grumbled. When we arrived in Iepers, Belgium for our class trip, the sky above us opened up, began to spill out its contents and it hadn't run out of supplies yet.

The rain hardly fazed us when we first arrived. We were too busy hunting for authentic Belgian waffles and making ourselves sick from all the chocolates we ate. But as night began to fall, we all noticed as the puddles grew larger and as the cold wind grew sharper and cut through our jackets. The weather was miserable, and we were in no mood for learning.

Despite our need to be inside, warm and maybe sipping a Belgian hot chocolate, we were at the Menin Gate Memorial. Though we had visited early in the day and learned its significance -- it holds the names of 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies were never recovered in World War I -- we couldn't quite understand why we were back, especially in this weather.

We had already visited the In Flanders Field Museum, located in the middle of Iepers main square. There, we not only found the rest of John McCrae's moving poem, but we learned what the war really was, especially in Ieper. Here, in this Belgian town, British and German troops -- along with some French, Canadian and New Zealand soldiers -- had fought perpetual battles in the muddy fields. If they didn't perish in the battle or disappear into the mud, they lived the life of the trenches, a condition that wasn't much more favorable.

As wrong as it was, all these soldiers' sufferings slipped out of our heads as we suffered ourselves in the rain. It was only when I almost slipped in a mud puddle myself that I realized how fitting it was -- that we should be in Iepers on such a terrible night. While we had umbrellas and jackets to cover ourselves, these soldiers just sank lower in the trenches and prayed the rain would stop. While we knew that we had a home to return to -- either our hostel, back to London or back to America -- they didn't know if they would ever return to the place they considered home. In fact, some of them suspected they would never see that beloved place again.

And it wasn't just those soldiers that suffered. Those who knew them suffered as they waited for their boys to come home, or at least for their bodies to be discovered.

We finally realized that we hadn't just returned to the Menin Gate for another look around, but we had come to witness "The Last Post" -- a ceremony that has taken place every night at 8:00 p.m. in Iepers since the year 1928. Even tonight, a night in which no one could want to venture outside, hundreds of people came to witness this ceremony. Family members or fellow school mates of lost soldiers came to remember their brothers. They all brought red poppy wreaths as a tribute to the soldiers; the poppy became a symbol during the war of the soldiers -- to some it represents courage, to others, suffering. Local officials sounded their bugles and the crowd grew silent, watching as each group walked forward and placed their wreath against the Menin Gate.

The rain continued to fall during the ceremony. Even though we were under the Menin Gate, water fell through the three large holes at the top. But, even as a shivered, I was glad it rained in Iepers. If nothing else, our group got the tiniest taste of what these young men suffered.

How to Measure the Wait

You can measure the wait in different ways.

You can measure it in deadlines: the dates by which you must turn in applications, recommendations and essays. The forms are easy. You just fill in the space with an answer. Though the demanded answers get harder after "name" and "address" you know somebody has to know the answer: mostly likely your study abroad director or academic adviser, or, if all else fails, Mom.

Essays prove more difficult. Instead of a single line there's a blank page before you and it demands to be inscribed. With what? That's the problem. Only you can answer the question before you: Why do you want to go to London? You sit down, strum the keyboard idly until you realize the point of the essay: they want to make sure that you actually think about why you want to travel across the Atlantic for three and a half months before allowing you to do so. So you do.

That's one way you wait: you endure essay after form and form after essay, hopscotching from date to date before finally landing on that final deadline -- the day you leave.

You can also measure the wait in moments. You can count the number of times you'll lay across your sixteen year old brother's bed with your legs splayed and watch some crude show with him that you’d never watch otherwise. Or, you can guess how many more times you'll witness the exasperated look your mother gets when she finds out you still haven't started packing –- a look she'll later apologize for with a defeated sigh, as if she's been trying to get the wind to blow in the other direction, and a mumbled "I love you." You can even try to determine how many more car rides, movies or meals you’ll have with friends before the day arrives.

Before you know it, they'll be no more moments to count. When the wait is up, the only moments left will be the ones you experience once you step off the plane onto foreign terrain.

You can measure the wait in expectations. You can try to imagine your life in London. Will you take a liking to fish and chips and start drinking tea? Is it possible that your slight Southern accent -- which is especially prominent when you're nervous, as you'll certainly be many times in London -- may disappear and you'll replace it with a soft British accent instead? Or, will half the fun be borrowing words from British dialect and laughing at the way you butcher their pronunciation? Will you feel different as an American when you examine your country with a sea put between your home and you?

The wait almost disappears as your imagination runs away with wonderings about the future abroad. When you imagine it, you're halfway there.

Perhaps the most sensible way to measure the wait is time. There’s nothing more concrete than knowing you'll board your plane in Atlanta at 6:40 p.m. on September 2nd.

Yet, time is anything but concrete. Time is simultaneously fast and slow. Time fluidly moves, then abruptly halts. You can take one day at a time, and yet you imagine all those days lumped together like a street full of traffic lights you wish you could just bypass. Time flies when you're having fun -- but isn't that just when it should stand still? And even if you try not to measure your wait with time, you can’t help but arrive in London and think, "It’s about time."