It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for nearly a month! In all honesty I’ve been putting off writing this first blog post because I’ve been so amazed by my experience here in Cambridge I haven’t known how to put it into words. But today I’m going to try my hardest to describe how fantastic this experience has been already.

The 9 of us arrived in Cambridge on August 27th, ready to start our semester-long adventure in the UK. The first few weeks were filled with guided tours and orientation sessions to get us familiar with the area. While some tours seemed longer than others, I can say that the tours combined with our own time to explore was the perfect way to find our way around the city during the first few days.

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In addition to life in Cambridge, the program through Valparaiso University, provides us a few class trips throughout the semester. Our first trip was a weekend spent in London. We spent our days, seeing all the main sites of London including The Tower of London, West Minster Abbey, The House of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral and a play at Shakepseare’s Globe Theatre. We also got the chance to take a boat tour down the Thames to the markets of Greenwich. It was an incredible but exhausting weekend filled with minor obstacles. I feel like this weekend trip was essential to have in the first few weeks of arriving because we were able to test our travel endurance. We got to run from train to train in the underground, checking to see which one is the right one to take. Because of this amazing weekend, no matter how draining it was, I got an idea of what London is really like. I know there is so much more to London than what we originally saw, but now I feel confident enough to go into the city and get my way around the Underground.

Since that first trip to London, our group has began planning our future weekend breaks, making sure we have back up plans for any of our travels. It’s been a semester of ups and downs, dealing with the stresses of travel and homesickness. However in the past month I can say that all of the ups have made all the downs worth it. Cambridge has already became a 2nd home for everyone in our cohort and I can’t wait to see what else the semester has to bring!

-Emily