Monday, November 30, 2009

Day 100!

I had an exciting few days in London this past weekend.  Went to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Saturday, which was a highlight of my life so far.  Sunday was spent at all the East End markets-- Spitalfields and Brick Lane and all that.  They were marvelous.  I found soap and souvenirs for much cheaper than I can find in Copenhagen, and the selection was massive and completely unique.  Unlike anything I've ever been to, except maybe the Wicker Park Craftacular held in Chicago every September.

London is a magical city.  Literally.  I can't wait for the pictures friends took of me at King's Cross Station to crop up online (they have a Platform 9 3/4 in honor of Harry Potter).  It was tremendous to see people my age (and a little older and a little younger) queuing up to take photos of themselves at the gate.

I may have said this about other cities, but honestly, London does trump them all in terms of how lovely it would be to live there.  Paris was achingly beautiful and Prague was bohemia personified; Berlin was punky and strange and Florence was chock-full of art and vistas-- but there is something so comfortable about being in a gigantic metropolis where you actually speak the language!  My god!  It was such a relief.

I'm grateful for every place I've been able to visit this semester, and going back to Oberlin will probably feel smaller than ever come February, but I'm pretty ready to go home.  By no means does this entail wishing my last days abroad away, but it's the holiday season now, and it was a little hard to miss my family's Thanksgiving for the first time ever and my little sister's 17th birthday.

Today, November 30, is -- if I counted correctly -- my 100th day here!  Well, not here (I think I've traveled outside of Copenhagen for almost a month total), but away from the US and everything familiar.  In just 19 days I'll be home in Chicago.  That is a bizarre realization, and kind of surreal.  I'm not sure I can tackle it except in abstraction for the moment.

1 comment:

  1. I agree 100% on London! I really loved it, it's just about the only place I think I would consider living in (although still only for a short period of time, I think). Big + English-speaking is super-awesome.

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