It's weird to think that, about a week ago, I was sitting in a lovely little pub in London, England, staring out the window at the marvelous city before me... and now I sit on my couch in a new apartment remembering. It is both a blessing and a curse to be able to travel abroad. I was lucky enough to visit a new city, but then I became attached to this place where I was only temporary. You have the luck to meet new people and explore an entirely different culture, but then you also must return to normal life after the trip is over.

I was able to go on this trip thanks to a program through my university called spring term. Basically, every student here at UIndy has to take a spring term class after the regular semester has finished at least once before graduation. You can choose to either take a class at school or travel abroad for about a week or so and have class beforehand. I obviously chose the latter, as I couldn't pass up the opportunity to travel to a city I had idolized for years.

I've always loved the idea of London as a city. I grew up watching many British programs like Monty Python, Doctor Who and Sherlock. These all gave me a taste of British culture that made me yearn to visit London and see what it was really like, especially as I started watching YouTube videos from content creators who either were British or living in London. You could say I became quite a bit of an anglophile during high school, where I dreamed of escaping the United States for something better.

So, when I was given the opportunity to go to London, I jumped at it. The program was also called "The Business and Culture of British Sport," which made it that much better because sports is one of my other passions in life. I was ready for the experience of a lifetime, but I don't really think I was quite ready for what I actually got while in London.

The week I spent there went by far too quickly for me to really comprehend. Between the planned activities of learning about the history of London, including walking tours of every major place you can think of, the sport facility tours, and the meals, I was living in the amazing world that was the city of London. It also made those times I just got to choose what I wanted to do that much sweeter. I spent quite a bit of my free time just walking the city and exploring some of the smaller things London had to offer.

There is something about walking through the streets of a city centuries old that you can't really even begin to comprehend it. That was one of the main things that left me in awe in London. It also captured my heart, as I am a sucker for history. I spent as much time as I could going into local stores and restaurants and trying in vain to soak in as much of London as I could in that incredibly short week.

There are so many things I did there that I will never forget. From seeing a Shakespeare play at the home of Shakespeare, the Globe, in the groundlings area to sitting in a Sherlock Holmes-themed pub drinking a nice pint of in-house brewed ale, I loved every minute of it. It's hard for me to truly put into words what I experienced while in London, but I think I know the best thing that came out of this trip abroad.

At our last meal, a professor from the other school that joined us on the tour read some quotes about traveling. This was the one that stuck with me the most: "Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller." Ibn Battura. Going to London has grown my experience of being a storyteller. I now have hundreds of new stories to share about that time I went to a foreign country and experienced its people. I have this incredible gift of stories that I can now share with the world, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

I can't wait until I can travel internationally again to gain more insight into how other parts of the world live and become an even better storyteller as well.