This Story Breaks Free Here

All right. Well, my bags are packed. My desk cleaned (except for the computer), my bed unmade (unsurprisingly), and my iPod charged. I leave for the train station in about 45 min--and from there onto Heathrow, Chicago, and finally Detroit at 7:15PM Eastern Standard Time this evening.

I do not believe it.

I shall try to sum up my last week. If you have been following along closely (and if you have, through all of my long-winded quasi-philosophical, overly sentimental, and often overbearingly academic rants here, then bravo! you deserve a gold star) you will recall that I did not find myself in bed in London after Italy until around 2:30AM Monday morning. At 6:30AM Monday I woke up to get ready for work. It was an uneventful day, as I recall--the first day back from Easter vacation, and all of PBSP's Yr 11 students were mysteriously absent. I had my exit interview with Sherife, and it went pretty well. She gave me excellent feedback, for the most part, and some well-deserved constructive criticism.

But after work was very exciting. I sprinted my way out the door at 3:10 and hurried as fast as I could to Earl's Court Rd Tube. Why? Because I was set to meet up with Kara Cohen at 4:00PM! Kara, for those of you who don't know, is one of my closest friends from Pitt--she also shared a room with me when we were sophomores. She is spending this semester studying in Italy. Originally, there had been vague plans for me to try to see her in Italy at some point this semester, but our itineraries did not really match up at all. As a result, she ended up in London the weekend I was in Italy--but since she was staying in London until Wednesday morning, I got to see her! That evening she was going to a concert and I had class, but we had agreed to meet for an early dinner.

Seeing Kara was fantastic. I had really missed her. It was so refreshing to see one of my good friends, someone who had lived with me and knew me really well and cared a lot about me. Also, I had been a bit worried about her in Italy; I knew she was at least as lonely on study abroad as I was. She's lucky I didn't accidentally strangle her when I hugged her :) Our hour-long dinner flew by and I was pleased that we had plans to meet again on Tuesday.

Monday night was my final PELA class; my portfolio was handed in, and it was over. Tuesday I had a final gallery visit for 20th century art; it was of contemporary British artwork, which I did not really care about. I breezed through it and then hurried to CAPA to do a bit of studying for my imminent Shakespeare final, which went just fine. Then it was off to Camden Town to meet Kara! I led her through the Camden Markets, which I had known she would love (and she did!). Kara was easy because she already knows London fairly well, so I didn't feel obligated to take her round all the cliche sights. We spent quite a while talking on Primrose Hill, then wandered through Regent's Park (I got us a bit lost, I must confess) before meeting up with AlanandRachel (whom Kara also knows from Pitt) for dinner. We found a pub near Great Portland St Tube, where Kara and I both got bangers and mash. I made her drink a bottle of Bulmer's, which she said she liked, and also made her try Guinness, which she decidedly did not like (her face was priceless!). The time passed too quickly, but eventually I had to call it a night because I had my last day of work on Wednesday.

Work on Wednesday was quite easy. I only do half-days on Wednesdays anyway, and there wasn't much for me to do. [Note: At this point I saved and departed for the train station; continued from home in Michigan.] I went through all of the group sessions with Sherife and Davinia and we revised them. Then Sherife, Davinia, and Marsha took Kashif and me out to lunch and gave us lovely departing gifts. I got a nice silver necklace with a dragonfly charm (they thought it was "science-y") and Kashif got a classy silver bracelet. It was so thoughtful and kind of them. Saying good-bye was difficult; I really miss Hornsey.

I had my last class of the semester Wednesday afternoon. Apart from using my house key as a bottle opener in Hyde Park with Stacy after class, Wednesday was uneventful. I went home and worked on my gov't paper. Thursday I got up and finished the paper, then left for a day of sight-seeing and souvenir shopping (I still had quite a list of gifts to gather). I tried to catch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham, but it was an off day. I made my over to Covent Garden, then wandered back through Piccadilly trying to find acceptable gifts for people. It was difficult because I was being very particular. Stacy called me in the afternoon and we met up and went to the British Museum. It was such a beautiful day out, though, that it was hard to stay in. We only spent an hour there. She went off to Regent's Park, and I went off to CAPA to print and hand in my gov't paper.

Afterwards I went home and began packing. I got all of my non-clothes items packed away before calling it a night and going to bed. Friday I woke up early because I had to go out to Tower Hill to pick up a particular souvenir for someone and it was quite a Tube ride. I found what I was looking for and headed back to Buckingham Palace to meet up with AlanandRachel for the Changing of the Guard. I couldn't actually find them during most of the ceremony. Honestly, I wasn't terribly impressed by the Changing of the Guard. I had gotten there early to get a good spot--10:45--and then it went on until about 12:20, at which point AlanandRachel and I decided just to leave because we were bored. It was quite crowded and while the bagpipes were cool, the ceremony itself was a bit lame. We parted ways, making plans to meet up at CAPA later in the day as we all still had to print out our flight itineraries. I met Stacy at Westminster Abbey, and I finally got to go in and see Poet's Corner! It was spectacular. I actually cried a bit--T.S. Eliot, John Keats, Percy Shelley, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Graves, Robert Burns, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron...the list just went on...all these beautiful writers in one small area. Truly overwhelming. I also paid my respects to Charles Darwin, who was buried across the Abbey from Poet's Corner.

After Westminster, we went to CAPA for the last time to get our flight info sorted out. Stacy and I said good-bye there; AlanandRachel and I walked together to Gloucester Rd tube and said good-bye there--although for them it isn't that dramatic because I'll see them around Pitt. I went home and packed a bit before leaving for Romeo and Juliet. I was more than a little melancholy as I walked to the Globe from the St. Paul's tube station; it's lovely walk past the Cathedral and over the Millennium Bridge to the theatre. I was never as in love with London as I was that night.

Romeo and Juliet was everything I could have hope for. I actually leaned on the stage for most of the show! The acting was truly remarkable and the show's energy was through the roof. Quite an experience. Standing inside the Globe, seeing Romeo and Juliet, hours after standing in Poet's Corner, was just perfect. The best way to say good-bye to London. After the play I took the tube to Westminster and made the walk down Whitehall--from Westminster to Trafalgar Sq--one last time. It was beautiful.

Then I went home and stayed up until 2:30 packing. I woke up earlier than necessary, at 7:30, unable to sleep. I showered and then finished packing up all my bits and pieces. Mr. Martin drove me to the train station at around 10:00. My flight was scheduled to leave Heathrow at 12:50PM. While I waited for the train, I shed a few tears over London. I'm convinced I'll make it back, but I don't know that I'll ever have a life there again like I did for these few months.

My journey home got off to a decent start. I made it to the airport with enough time to comfortably get through security and find my gate, but late enough so that I didn't have to wait around for a long time before boarding. We took off at around 1:00PM, I think. Our scheduled arrival time in Chicago was 3:25PM Central time, which I thought was odd because I didn't think it took 8.5 hours to get to Chicago. My flight to London had only taken 6.5 or 7. But we did not reach the Chicago area until around 3:45PM Central time. This made me a bit nervous, because I had a 4:55PM connection to Detroit and was worried about making it through immigration/customs/security in time to catch my next flight. I became thoroughly restless when, at 3:55PM, the pilot announced we had entered a holding pattern and might be circling the airport for 45 min. At 4:15PM, it was announced that we had been diverted to Minneapolis. There were severe thunderstorms in the area, apparently, causing no end of difficulties and congestion.

I pretty much lost it at that point. I was so anxious to get off the plane and get home; I was done travelling, done with planes and airports. I didn't even want to think about re-booking a flight to Detroit. Almost instantly I became ridiculously panicked. It was the least calm I've been in years, I think. When we landed in Minneapolis, the pilot told us it could be anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours before we could leave for Chicago. In the meantime, we could not de-plane because we were an internat'l flight. Frustrated, I called my dad. Several times. He did not answer. I got no answer from Sue as well, which was unusual. I left them each a very upset message saying that I was in Minneapolis and would not be arriving in Detroit at 7:15PM as originally planned. I then tried calling my mom, because I desperately needed to talk to someone. I got no answer there as well, which was probably a good thing because she would have just worried. Finally I got my friend Joshua from Pitt on the phone and I felt awful because almost as soon as he said "Hi" I started crying into the phone and could barely explain to him what was happening. He did manage to calm me down though, and even made me laugh, and by the time we hung up I had regained a bit of control--even though I was still on the runway in Minneapolis. I finally got Dad on the phone, and told him as much as I knew, which wasn't really anything.

We left Minneapolis at around 7:30PM Central time, arriving in Chicago at 8:30PM central time. It was after 9:00PM by the time I got through customs and immigration, and then I was directed into the hellish re-booking queue to try to work out a flight home. While in line I read the departure boards and pretended I hadn't because they did not look promising. But when I got to the desk they confirmed what I had read: there were no more flights out to either Detroit or Flint that night; there was nothing until Sunday morning.

When I realized that I was spending the night in O'Hare I broke again. I barely managed to make it through the conversation with the woman behind the desk, who gave me an itinerary for Flint at 9:20AM Sunday. I had all of my baggage with me (you have to claim it before you go through customs) and I dragged everything through the very crowded area to the arrivals terminal, where I had a cell phone signal and could call Dad. I was almost completely incoherent on the phone, which I think really alarmed Dad because that's fairly out of character for me. But I had been awake and travelling for nearly 24 hours, I was jet lagged, I was hungry, I was anxious, I was already beginning to feel reverse culture shock, and if I couldn't be in London then I wanted to be home, not trapped 300 miles away from home. Dad actually offered to come pick me up from Chicago, which was sweet but I was still rational enough to know that wasn't worth it. After I got off the phone with him I made my way to a chair, took several deep breaths, and called Elizabeth in Pittsburgh. I knew she would calm me down, and I thought she would appreciate knowing where I was. She was as brilliant on the phone as Joshua had been, reassuring me and distracting me. By the time I hung up with her I was almost cheerful, and felt strong enough to face a night in O'Hare alone.

I went to my terminal and found a seating area where a security guy took pity on me and made another guy move his stuff so I could have a spot to sit with all of my luggage near me. He then brought me an airline blanket. A Dutch couple who were sitting near me recognized me from my flight from Heathrow (probably as that "crazy crying girl") and asked me how I was doing. We made small talk for a bit before I tried to sleep. I did manage to doze for a while--not proper sleep, but rest. I stayed there until 4AM, when I could go and check-in and get through security. Once through security I got some food and then went to my gate, where I dozed a bit more. Four gate changes later, my flight finally boarded at 9:30AM. We sat on the runway for an hour, where I began to panic again. If that flight had been cancelled I probably would have started walking home. But we did take off, and I landed safely in Flint at noon after 30+ hellish hours in transit.

And now I am home. I don't know what to say about it, really. Driving feels a bit odd still. American money feels strange in my hand. I miss hearing British accents, and I had forgotten how inconvenient it is to live a 20-min drive from anything useful. Michigan feels remarkably spacious after the UK. Proper peanut butter on my toast is amazing, and coffee in the morning is a nice change from tea (even if I did forget how to operate the coffee pot here on my first try Monday morning). Seeing my family and friends has been spectacular so far, and I am anxiously awaiting this Saturday, when I will be back with my Pitt family. By next week I am sure the novelty of my being home will have worn off, and my life will resume as if these last four months didn't happen. It's a bit jarring still, to reach into my wallet and find a bus ticket from Ireland, a 2 pence piece, my ticket for the Venetian waterbuses, old Paris metro tickets. To clear out all of the pamphlets and ticket stubs from my backpack. Sort through all of my pictures and remind myself that yes, I was actually there, not long ago. It all really happened.

During my last weeks in London I began considering my future travels. I've begun to consider spending some time teaching abroad. I want to travel central Europe next: Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Budapest. I want more time in London, I want to make it up to Scotland, out to Spain, more time in Italy. I want to make it to Greece and Turkey. Although I have been fortunate to have travelled a lot in my life even prior to this semester, I never really thought of myself as a traveller until now. But I have no doubt now that it will always be a priority of mine and with careful planning and patience I know I can pull anything off.

Thanks for reading. I hope it wasn't too dull, and that you perhaps learned something along the way. I certainly did.

"The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can."--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings