Three Weeks Before Departure

Busy! I have an intense schedule. I live in the borough of Islington near the Angel tube station.

Monday – 8am – 11am class with CEA in Russel Square

Tuesday – OFF but Wednesdays the maids come in to clean and we have to have everything stripped Wednesday morning before we leave. My flat mates and I (I lucked out with them!) We cleaned off all surfaces Tuesday night and stripped everything but our beds.

Wednesday – Wednesday morning I’d have to get up a half hour early so I could strip my pillows, bed, and duvet cover off for the maids to replace. If I was vigilant on Tuesday nights, I could just grab my things and go after this. I had a 9am class at LSBU near the Elephant & Castle tube station in south London. I would race home to eat breakfast around noon/1 and then head to CEA school for photography class in Russel square at 3pm.

Thursday – OFF (my flatmates had Fridays off but I didn’t so they often left to travel on Thursdays and I had to wait until after class the next day to leave).

Friday – 9am class at LSBU until noon.

Weekends were off. I often left after classes on Fridays to travel once I had been in London for more than a month and knew my schedule and limits.

Things I have noticed about London.

1.       Not a lot of Americans travel in London. This city is incredibly diverse but Americans must be scarce because they think nothing of Australians, Mexicans, or any other Europeans but were shocked to hear an American accent.

2.       Lingo! There are so many differences that are just similar enough to confuse. A caravan is a 5^th wheel. A tank top is a vest and a vest is a waistcoat. We call vests waistcoats only when worn during weddings, right? So many random harmless (kind of fun) misunderstandings. Puddings are any desserts and they don’t have pudding.

3.       Things I’m missing. Cream cheese, yogurt (they have yoghurt that is all greek..nothing sweet), jello, white granulated sugar, cottage cheese, Walmart (easy access catch all for items you may ever need), and cucumbers (they have English ones and pickles for the same reason).

4.       Things I love: Camembert cheese, teaTeaTEA, clotted cream, and can we talk about black currants for a moment. History lesson about the states: We previously thought that black currants had a fungus that would destroy trees. We eradicated them and made them illegal!? Not so in the U.K. It is everywhere and glorious! I miss the black currant Ribena drink soooooo much.

5.       Socially the English are extremely reserved in comparison to most Americans that I am used to. I have travelled extensively throughout the U.S. and I have never encountered the kind of introversion that I had in the U.K. I embraced it and used it to my advantage. I had to learn how to engage them in conversation and do so successfully. Give them an inch and most would find a way to ignore and move away from me without acknowledging I had said a single thing.

I am an extremely bubbly, smiley, and extroverted person. I say good morning, constantly smile throughout my walks, and I’m fearless when it comes to asking questions, engaging strangers, and making conversation. Even their greetings typically something like “y’alright?” which is used in lieu of “hello”. I found this to be true even in the smaller cities I briefly visited. Once they are comfortably outside their reserve they are just as friendly and open as any cheerful American.

Ireland and Scotland however were the loudest, more outgoing, extroverted, people I have ever met. They were frequently shout at me, engage with me first, and one guy followed me from the Christmas festival (an absolute crush of people) to ask me out and he didn’t even know I was American! I found Scotland especially to be very intimidating.

6.       I travelled to Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Within London I spent time in York, Blackpool, Oxford, and Birmingham. I recommend not spending all your time in London or even England but you shouldn’t spend all your time travelling. The little I did gave me snippets of their countries but afforded me the opportunity to make a real connection with my host city itself.

Preparing to Go Abroad

Preparing to Go Abroad

This process can be a daunting one. It will be a long journey but the results are worth it. This post will outline and try and explain each aspect.

1.       Contact

2.       Choose a program and country

3.       Degree requirements

4.       Finances

5.       Culture preparation

The first step is to make contact with your study abroad department. They are ready and willing to help you through this whole process step by step. They will have pamphlets, previous experience, and everything you will need to begin. There may be certain restrictions and requirements specific to your school that are important to know from the beginning. One such restriction may be the semester you are allowed to study abroad. Once such restriction could be that you are not allowed to study abroad in your last semester of your degree due to your senior thesis requirements.

This second step in your process is to choose a program and country. Depending on your degree, school, and personal goals, this may be decided for you. As a criminal justice student, I had very little choices in terms of the program and in my opinion my country of choice. Not a lot of the programs had schools in their listings that were applicable to my degree. I chose England as my country of choice because it is the birth place of our criminal justice system. I could have justified other countries to do a comparative analysis with our own but England makes way more sense. These decisions are very important because you will need to justify your choice in applications and scholarship essays.

The third step is figuring out the semester you will be able to go abroad. It is very important to go over your degree requirements to see what you still have to complete. If you have used all your electives already and you only have classes required to complete for your degree you will have to choose a school abroad who is offering those classes.

Finances are your fourth step. Your study abroad advisor should go over the costs of the program you chose, the school, housing, and local costs with you. If not, you can research, research, research. The information is out there. You need to make yourself a budget. Start with how much you will need and then you can work out if it is possible to afford it. There are a lot of options available to you.

a.       Saved money

b.       Familial support

c.       Scholarships via your program, school, state, country, honor societies, and clubs.

d.       Crowd funding

e.       Selling items

f.        Part-time job before leaving

Your fifth step is to prepare for months in a different country and culture from your own. It is your reasonability to prepare yourself for this task. It is important that you try and be as respectful as possible of their laws and culture while you are abroad. You are representing yourself, your school, your degree, and your home. There will be more differences than you can adequately prepare for. These differences could be appearance, language, customs, etc. Make an effort to look up large differences to prepare yourself. The most important differences to research are laws and maybe common social faux pas.

Preparing lists. Research. Be prepared with tourist destinations that are important to you, not places important to others. You may feel pressure to see Buckingham Palace. If it isn't important to you then don't do it. One of the most important things to be was Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, and the Sir Robert Peel statues (in London and Glasgow, Scotland).

•             Shops to frequent

•             Food to try

•             Grocery store names

•             Gift ideas

•             Addresses to send post cards to

•             Inspiration lists

•             Learning about your country of choice (phrases/tips)

Social media holds all the answers. Pinterest is a black hole of travel lists. I pinned every list I could find about unique stops, must see options, and out of this world eateries. Once I had down time I sat down and went through all of them and took note of places, people, and things to see. After creating this master list of amazingness I narrowed it down to the places that really spoke to me. They are at the top of my lists and are a priority depending on time, money, and location.

Remember that you are only human and nothing you can do will make the entire process perfect. I suggest creating a realistic list for yourself to complete before you leave.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to leave them in the comment section below.

Happy Travels,
Elle