#studyabroad2k18

I asked this man for a ghost story and when he was telling me he hit all the signs that people do when they tell ghost stories. He was over describing the events that led up to the supernatural experience. When he got to the supernatural experience, he started to speed up a little and stutter. It wasn’t too noticeable, but you could definitely hear it if you focused in on it. At the very end of the story, he was being overly positive and saying that this happened and he was “110%” positive. After the recording he asked me if I was spiritual and asked if I believed him.

On July 2nd, Eliese and I went to the Tate Museum. We got around fairly easy for being by ourselves, which I was very happy about. We saw a Picasso and a Monet piece. Eliese and I just sat there for both in amazement. Eventually we left to go to the play The Jungle, at The Playhouse. The play was very good. I wasn’t expecting much after Leave Taking, but The Jungle restored my faith in plays again. After the play, Max, Susanna, Carly, and I stayed back to meet one of the actors who plays in It’s the End of the Fucking World and Black Mirror. That was one of the best nights ever.

There were many learning moments throughout this trip. My very first learning moment here was figuring out the conversion of the pound to the US dollar. I learned that for every pound that I spend it is equal to one dollar and thirty-three cents, which was difficult to get at first. Once I understood the conversion, I was able to budget the trip better. I also thought about how it must be more difficult to come here from any other country besides America or ones that use the Euro, because the pound is worth so much. The next big learning moment I had was the medicine here. I had really bad allergies when I got here and didn’t think to bring allergy medicine. I went to Boots to get allergy medicine, but there was no normal allergy medicine there, just some generic Boots medicine. I eventually found one that would work, because I had to read all the ingredients. If I hadn’t been able to speak English then I would have been out of luck. I also learned how to get around the city of London, which to me is a big accomplishment. I don’t normally pick up directions or figuring out how to get from place to place very well. I finally got the hang of the tube the second week we were here and I never felt more proud of myself before. I got myself and a small group of people to Camden town and to SoHo without any help. The way people are around here and the little things they do differently from Americans was very hard to get used to as well. Like how they like to stop randomly in the middle of a walkway or how they are very quiet talkers, which I am not, or how they say “take-away” instead of “take-out” or “to-go”. None of these are major issues, but in order to fit in a little bit you needed to learn these little things they do, which I have. The hard part now will be to stop doing it once I get back to the States. The majority of my learning moments were me getting used to the way things are done around here, but this one is not like that and is probably the biggest learning moment I have had all trip. This trip I learned so much more about who I am as a person, than I have doing anything else in my life. I wont go into what I found out, but this trip, the classes, these people have shown me who I truly am and that is what I am thankful for the most.

“But we’re the greatest- they’ll hang us in the Louvre. Down the back, but who cares, still the Louvre” Evening stroll around Paris tonight with my homegirl @lordemusic #studyabroad2k18 (at Musee du Lourve Paris)