So I’m sitting at my kitchen table, surrounded by my familiar house. Out back is a patio I saw for the first time last night, even though it was put in 8 months ago. I saw my best friend and hung out with her all night, I talked to my brothers (like, real conversations… it was strange, I’ve clearly been away too long), I drove a car on the right side of the road and didn’t freak out (too much, it was weird), I’ve slept and showered and eaten in the house that was my home before this. Everything feels so familiar, almost like I never left. But at the same time, it feels like I’ve been gone for ages. Things are the same yet different, people are familiar yet strange, and I’m just slightly not what I was when I left this place 9 months ago. There are people to see, stories to tell, and fun to be had, but for the moment, I’m just sitting here, staring out the window, and contemplating the enormous thing that’s happened to me since I last sat here and saw this view.

Going to Cambridge was a literal dream come true. That phrase gets tossed around a lot, but for me, it really was. I’m not really a future-oriented person, I never had a ‘dream job’ growing up, I never even knew where I wanted to go to college until I was forced to figure it out. But going to England was always there, in the back of my mind, lurking there like a kind of dark horse dream that swiftly overtook my imagination once I went to Valpo and saw that I could actually do it. I applied as quickly as I could, for the soonest semester I could, and did everything I could think of to get there. I don’t regret speeding through that process, and doing this as soon as I did, but I am sad that it’s over now. I have many great things left to do in my life, but that was one of them and now it’s over.

What do you do when a dream has been realized? It’s not that it left, my desire to go to England didn’t magically vanish after I’d been. It’s just that I’ve done it. There’s less mystery in that dream now, there’s less adventure in the prospect of achieving it. But I’m starting to realize that accomplishing a dream doesn’t mean that it has to be over and done with. More dreams come in and replace that burning desire to do that which you’ve already done, but that first one doesn’t really go away. I’ll go back to England as frequently as I possibly can in the future, that much I do know.

I wanted to thank everyone who’s taken the trouble to read all of these, all of my stories and experiences and long-winded descriptions of things I find fascinating. It’s been a long and short 9 months, but it really is true–I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Thanks again.

Bryn

So I’m sitting here on my bed, and I’m supposed to be finishing my 3000 word Popular Culture final paper. I really should be working on this paper, seeing as it’s 100% of my grade in that class, but I can’t seem to bring myself to keep working on it. I thought it was just laziness, or tiredness, but I decided to write this instead. That’s when I realized… it’s not that I don’t have the energy to write that paper. Obviously I could do it, cuz I’m writing this just fine. The real problem is that this is the last paper I have to write here, and once I’m done with that… my study abroad experience is essentially over.

I know, I know, I’m being dramatic. After all, I don’t actually leave for another week. But today I had my last class at Anglia Ruskin. I’ve finished my papers for my other classes, taken my French exam. This is the last thing I have to do here, and that’s freaking me out. Tomorrow is our last Friday here. Last night was our last meal at Matt’s house. I’ve been here for 9 months, how am I supposed to say goodbye to the place that became my home faster than any other place has?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly excited to come home. I can’t wait to see my family again, my friends and the people I care about most. What I’m worried about is leaving. It’s kind of unfathomable to me at the moment, that in one short week I won’t be here, in this place where I feel so present. I keep staring out the window instead of working, I keep trying to imprint my brain with the sight of the pastel-colored buildings that line the main street into the city centre, I keep looking up at the stone facades of the colleges and thinking ‘how is it possible that I might never see this again?’ I don’t know how to say goodbye, no matter how excited I am about coming home.

Map from 1st Semester

All my life, I’ve wanted to come to England. Something about this place called out to my soul, as cheesy as that sounds. It wasn’t even something I could explain, really, and I don’t think I could explain it now, either. There’s something about the history; there’s something about the rolling green hills and rows of hedges; there’s something about cobblestone streets and huge open parks; there’s something about the castles and manor houses; there’s something about the very air I breathe here. It’s an atmosphere I’ve never felt anywhere else on all my travels in Europe and America, and it’s the most comfortable one I’ve ever felt. Even being gone for a weekend while visiting an amazing city in Europe was hard for me this year, how am I supposed to leave Cambridge for good?

It’s raining as I’m writing this, and I’m laughing at the irony that someone like me, who basically needs the sun to keep up a positive attitude (no ‘but Bryn you’re sooo pale’ comments, you guys), can love a place that is overcast and rainy on the regular. But I think it speaks to my incredible love of this place that I just don’t care. I’d dance in the rain for months with the joy of being here if I could. I’d forego seeing the sun for months on end and take as many vitamin D supplements as I needed if it meant I could be here. I don’t want to leave, I want to come home. But the problem with that is… this feels like my home too.

I think it’s possible to have many homes, many places where you feel like you belong. My home is where I grew up. My home is wherever my family is. My home is a cabin in the Northwoods that has been the most constant thing in my life. My home is Valpo. where I’ve met incredible people whom I love dearly. My home is Cambridge, where I learned so many things and most of all, where I truly met myself. Home is a place I’ll always love, and home is a place I never want to leave.

People keep telling me I need to walk around to all my favorite places and say goodbye. People keep telling me that it’s gonna be hard to leave and hard to not come back. People keep telling me that it’ll be okay, that I’ll be so busy over the summer and back at school in the fall that I won’t remember to be sad about not being here. I believe all of those people, but I’m finding it hard to contemplate at the moment. I’ve said this so many times already in this post, but I can’t really comprehend the idea of leaving here. It doesn’t seem real, that I could be anywhere on earth that isn’t here.

What I do know, more truly that anything, is that I will never forget Cambridge. I’ll never forget the way the trees outside my window look, I’ll never forget the cows in the greens, I’ll never forget the colleges or the market or the bookstore by the church were I can look at all the antique books and marvel at literature. I’ll never forget the pubs or the coffeehouses or the tree-lined walk that lit up with fairy lights at night. I’ll never forget what the city looks like, all spread out in front of me as I stand on Castle Hill. I’ll never forget what it felt like to see it for the first time, to live here and to revel in the place where so much history was made and have the privilege to call it home.

With gratitude, sadness, and much love,

Bryn

So this semester has been a little different for me. First off, I came back from Germany and almost immediately had a house full of new people from Valpo who I didn’t really know very well. That was a bit of a shock, because those of us from the previous semester may have started out the same way, but we became very close in the four months we had together. Second, I wasn’t technically a part of the Cambridge Program anymore, despite the fact that I live in the house. I’ve been going to Anglia Ruskin full time this semester, which is pretty fun and interesting, but kind of makes me feel a tad left out of house activities. This did, however, mean that I had a full month after the house was filled before I had to go back to school (Anglia Ruskin’s classes didn’t start until February). Third, my cousin came over to England to study in Winchester, a city southwest of London and the Anglo-Saxon capital of England. So, naturally, I decided that visiting her was the best course of action.

Winchester Cathedral

Because I had basically nothing to do, I showed up at the train station in Winchester at a time that worked for Cora (that’s my cousin). She greeted me with Starbucks, which I appreciated, because I had gotten up pretty early to make my trains. We spent that first day wandering around the cemetery that separated her campus from the town and the area around the big cathedral in town.  We did a ton of exploring that first day, walking up to a lookout point that boasted a gorgeous view over the whole city–it wasn’t lying. We headed back down the hill after climbing a few trees and seriously contemplating rolling down the grassy slopes. To be honest, the only thing that stopped us was the fact that it had rained earlier and the ground was a bit muddy. We wandered around town a bit more, and found the old town walls from Anglo-Saxon days. There was an overflowing river and a ton of mud, as well as fun bridges and supposedly a castle, although we didn’t see it at that point. We continued wandering until we came upon what looked like a hiking trail up something called St. Catherine’s Hill. So, naturally, we decided to go up it.

Didn’t really matter to us that the sky was getting progressively darker with rainclouds, or that the wind was picking up a bit. Or that climbing a decently steep hill would be kind of difficult given the mud content of the area. Nope, we wandered right up the hill anyway. And it was pretty fun, we ran into a few cows and a couple other people who were playing with their kids in this copse of trees at the top of the hill. The rain, however, did get to be too much eventually. I didn’t let that stop me from trying to pet a cow that appeared to be sleepy, although the part where it stood up and glared at me was scarier than I’d anticipated. Cora laughed at me for a solid five minutes and swore up and down she wished she’d caught it on camera. We did realize, however, that we’d been walking around for a very long time and headed back to her dorm. I even got to meet a few of her new British friends.

The next day was much sunnier than the previous one  had been. We started out by exploring the University of Winchester campus, which is pretty modern looking. Surprised me a bit, because it is one of the oldest cities in England. Also one of the hilliest, which led to a lot of stair climbing, something I’m not used to as a resident of Cambridge. We then wandered downtown to see the Great Hall, which is where King Arthur’s Round Table is displayed. Unfortunately for us, it was closed for restoration work when I came this time (which just meant that I showed up a month later and saw it then!). We then headed back toward the Cathedral, because it’s where Jane Austen is buried. With the both of us being avid Austen fans, this was definitely a must-see. Even better, the Cathedral was free to get into that day, because it was a Sunday. It took us quite a while to find the grave marker, but when we did, I’m pretty sure we spend a good 20 minutes freaking out over it. It was certainly a powerful moment. The only sad thing about the Cathedral is that we were unable to go into the crypt due to flooding.

After our celebrity encounter at the Cathedral, we wandered around the town of Winchester for a while again. I got to see the big statue of King Alfred, the last important Anglo-Saxon king who made his capital at Winchester. We also meandered back through the cemetery, and because it was such a nice day, we spend a good hour or so sitting at the top of the cemetery, just looking out over the town. It turns out chilling in the cemetery is not such a strange thing to do, because there were a few people doing the same thing. There was even one guy playing frisbee with his dog between the gravestones. We got some food at the cafeteria and watched a movie, then crashed because walking all over town can exhaust a pair of 20 year old girls.

The next day we did even more exploring, heading off in the opposite direction this time. We found another park on the other side of town, one that led to some great hiking trails. Unfortunately for us, most of these trails were flooded from the excessive rainfall of the winter. Even more unfortunately for our shoes, the two of us didn’t care much about the flooding. We decided to go ahead and walk through the puddles… which kind of turned into glorified wading by the end of the walk. The area was gorgeous, though, and so was the day, so we didn’t mind too much, despite the fact that it was January. We ate our makeshift lunch of nutella and croissants while sitting on a bench waiting for our shoes and socks to dry, before heading back to town. On our way back, though, Cora misjudged the distance between herself and a pair of swans and was almost eaten by one of them–a funny story that is much better in person than online. After that, we explored this new side of town that neither of us had really been to yet, and discovered a much more modern side to the old city. We ended up at the train station after a little bit, a place we definitely knew how to come back from. As we headed back to her dorm, the sun was setting and it cast these gorgeous shadows over the cemetery, and made for a pretty impressive backdrop to the church steeples of the town.

That was our last night in Winchester… this time. I did come back a month or so later to see the Round Table, which was admittedly really really cool. I’m really glad I got to see all of these great things in this ancient city, but I’m even happier to say I got to see them with my wonderful cousin. We’ve been partners in crime for a long time (…sometimes literally, whoops) and the fact that we got to be over here together was pretty much a dream come true. I wouldn’t trade her, or this experience, for anything.

With nostalgia, happiness, and much love,

Bryn