London (and the fog) from the top of St. Paul’s dome

I can’t believe that spring break is over and I am back in my dorm at Ohio State.  What is even harder to believe is that I spent the last 10 days in London.  Since I found out that I was accepted to the program, I had a mental countdown until the trip in the back of my mind, and when it got closer I was even more excited, as well as a little anxious.  Now that is all over and tomorrow I will have to wake up early for my 8 a.m. class and jump right back into my studying like nothing ever happened.  This past week is like a blurb in my calendar that makes me ask myself “Did this really happen?  Did I actually just spend my spring break in London?”

Our day trip to Brighton!

When I first arrived in London at 11 p.m. on Friday, I immediately wanted to go home.  There were so many people out on that friday night, the rooms were tiny, the walls were thin, and all I could hear from outside the window was shouting and sirens.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  Thankfully, the rest of the week was much better than this night.  I can’t believe how many different things I got to see and do.  I still can’t believe I got to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, Stonehenge, Stourhead, take a train to Brighton and many of the other places I have learned about.  Some of these places I just never imagined actually being able to visit, and now, I have visited all of them.  One of the things that I noticed early on in the trip was that everything was so much bigger than I thought it would be.  For example, St. Paul’s Cathedral and specifically the dome was enormous.  I knew it was going to big, but I didn’t know it was going to be THAT big!  On our way to the cathedral, we were just walking through the city and you couldn’t see the cathedral yet.  We turned down an alleyway and in the small sliver of space between the two rows of buildings was the huge dome of St. Paul’s looming over us.  At that moment I was speechless.  It was so sublime.  This was the first of many similar reactions regarding the actual scale of buildings.

I also learned a little about myself during the trip.  First, I learned that I actually really enjoy sketching.  I was nervous about the sketching portion of this class before the trip because of the pressure to capture everything in a short amount of time.  During the trip, I found that sketching was very calming to me- the opposite of what I was expecting.  I like to be able to just sit at a site for  a long (or short) amount of time and really focus on the building and its details.  I actually spent my free time on Friday sketching some of the major sites in the area, such as Big Ben.  I also learned that as much as I liked London, I could never actually live there.  London was beautiful and super easy to get around, but I realized how far it actually is.  Living in Pennsylvania and coming to Ohio State, I was nervous because of the distance, but it was okay.  If I were to live in London, that distance is much greater.  The time difference was a little difficult, but it wasn’t too bad.  There was only a short time when I would have been awake in London and the people here in the U.S. would not have been.  Overall, I really liked the city of London.  The city was beautiful and had so many activities to offer.  So I am saying until next time, London, because there will definitely be a next time for me.