I have been in London for six days now and I can without a doubt say this is the craziest thing I have ever done in my exceedingly short life. For six days, I have walked around a city I know little to nothing about with a group of people I know just as well.
Obviously, it’s had its ups and downs. I didn’t expect to be nearly as homesick as I am. The first morning I woke up in London my first thought was "What the hell have you done! Go home right now, go back to Bing everyone you know is there. Go!"
The second morning it was less of a roar and more of a whisper. There’s a certain kind of anxiety one feels when they are in another country.
No one tells you about the anxiety but it sure is there. It’s there when you go grocery shopping on your own for the first time and don’t even know what you need to make legit meals or when you have to compare and understand different phone services. You are in charge of everything and if you screw up it’s all on you.
Being a real adult is not nearly as fun as television makes it seem. I didn’t realize just how much I would miss crappy ole Binghamton. I actually miss having Sodexo on hand, even if it was alarmingly nauseating. I think what I miss most is having my people around me.
In these first few days, I’ve come to many realizations, one of them being you can have other friends but it is important to know the difference between regular friends and "your people." The ones who know that you shouldn’t be allowed to eat ice cream because bad things happen or know to avoid certain topics because you are ridiculously insecure about them. Your people are the ones who know you best, who look out for you and being far away from them is really difficult.
Despite that, I realize that I love what this city has to offer me. Despite being from New York City, I have walked more than ever. I walk places 30 minutes away without even blinking. It’s sort of crazy how different things are here. For example in clubs, men actually dance instead of awkwardly holding walls up, also the pedestrian’s right of way is not really a custom here.
But despite all these little differences there are always parts of the city that are the same. Just two days ago I found a Chinatown and Soho, it reminded me of home and I loved it. There’s a sort of comfort in knowing that every city is basically the same, in creating traditions in new places with new people. My new flatmates (fancy British word for people who live with you in an apartment) like to end our nights tindering together because there’s no better way to spend time with one another than awkwardly flirting with boys on an app.
I think that the point of studying abroad is to leave your comfort zone. I have to actively tell myself to leave the flat, to face a direction and just walk. I don’t have an end goal for this trip but I know that by the end of it something will be different and I’m excited to see what.
