my life is an experiment: London and my last days in Rome

(I wrote this blog in Amsterdam over a week ago, just so you aren't confused when I say things like "I left Rome on Sunday")

Hello again! Sorry for the delayed blog post, I’ve been so busy ever since I left Rome on Sunday evening. I moved out of my apartment on Friday and said goodbye to my second home – such a bittersweet moment. I finished classes on Thursday and went out that night to watch the USA vs. Germany game (what a disappointment) with some friends to celebrate their last night in Rome. We had so much fun, possibly too much fun, and we went to places like the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum, although I barely remember any of it. I got back to my apartment just after 2 A.M. and had to wake up early the next day to move out, which wasn’t fun. I got a hotel for two nights in Rome and did some last minute site seeing and a lot of relaxing. I’m so thankful for my time in Rome, it was truly an experience I will never forget. The classes I took, while extremely challenging, were beyond interesting and I can now consider myself an expert on the Syria crisis (well, can anyone really be an expert on such a complex issue?) and an expert on the European Union. I’m glad to be done with classes because I was getting really burnt out at the end with so many papers and finals to study for, all while going to places like Paris and Greece. So I guess now I’ll do a little plug for study abroad (I was not asked to do this by my university). Do it. If you’re young and in college, it’s an experience you can’t quite get from doing anything else. It matures you, the information you learn is of the highest value, both from your studies and from your exploring, and it looks so good on a résumé. I would say that even if you are struggling financially, you should find some way of studying abroad because the benefits it gives you in the long run are well worth it. So yeah, long story short, I loved studying abroad and my time at the American University of Rome was phenomenal.

Alright, so on to London. I landed in London Sunday evening at Heathrow Airport with just enough time to get to my hotel and catch up on sleep. Something about traveling is just exhausting – I’m constantly tired. I woke up the next morning and hopped on a double decker bus and took a tour of the most wonderful city I have been to thus far. It was so nice to be in a country where everyone speaks English. No more struggling with the Italian language, although I am impressed with how much I picked up. After getting on the bus, we went to Hyde Park (it’s like Central Park in NYC), saw a bunch of monuments that I forget the name of, went to Picadilly Circus (like Times Square in NYC), saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tower of London, the London Bridge, the London Eye, and Buckingham Palace. I explored all of these places, but I mostly enjoyed going to the Tower of London because it has such a dark and murderous past. They had armor from previous kings on display and it was cool to be in a place where so many people were beheaded (that sounds terrible, but it’s true!). After exploring the Tower of London, I took a river cruise down the River Thames where we went underneath the London Bridge. After I got off the boat at Westminster Abbey, I went on the London Eye, which is the giant Ferris wheel for those that don’t know, where I got to witness some amazing views of London. After that, I went to Buckingham Palace to see where the royalty lives. It started raining really hard shortly after I got there so I had to cut my time short and go back to the hotel.

The next day, my boyfriend’s best friends came and picked me up and took me around London for the day. We went to Hyde Park where we rented a pedal boat and then we walked to Harrod’s department store. I got to see the church where Prince William and Princess Kate were married, so that’s pretty cool. We got lunch at a Lebanese restaurant and then they kindly drove me out to Southend, which was two hours away so I could catch my early morning flight. I had a great day with them and I’m so thankful for their immense hospitality, and I hope I can show them the same kind of hospitality when/if they come to the United States!

So now I’m in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I’ll wait to post my blog of Amsterdam as I still have lots more exploring to do tomorrow. Thanks again for reading, and only a couple more posts before I’ll be back in the United States!