The End of England and Reflections on Being Back

The start of term two brought new people into the mix of our experience. There were more students from Europe and other parts of the world for this semester than the last. We made friends with people from Italy, Belgium, Germany, Spain and France just to name a few. They were here to study English and were willing to talk to us where as I practiced my elementary Italian to their surprise. It was interesting to see their view of America and American culture. They found it strange that we were not able to drink until we were 21 where as in their cultures drinking was something done with their families ever since they were little. Something that Americans take for grant it is that everyone knows the jargon that we do. One day we were watching Crash and a scene came up where someone called another person a "redneck" two of my friends from Japan and Spain did not know what a "redneck" was and Brian and I tried to explain since to us and everyone in America a "redneck" is a generally known term. They also were very interested in American politics and knew a lot about them more than probably some Americans. A cultural difference was the fact that politicians paid citizens to come and hear them speak where as in America people pay thousands of dollars to hear a politician speak. Everyone that I came across that lived in Europe was hoping and wanting Obama to win the nomination. A couple of times I experienced people generalizing Americans beliefs especially in one instance where one Royal Marine got into an argument with us about the war in Iraq and figured that everyone in America must have been for it.

The last two weeks flew by and it would have been nice to have had more time with the second term people. It was fun to be able to do the orientation to Cambridge with another set of people, such as exploring town and going punting. This time with punting we decided to try it ourselves and seemed to do a pretty good job and got far down the Cam. My second group of classes was challenging and fun especially History of Museums and Art Collecting. We visited two separate museums in Cambridge and it challenged our preception of what art is. My second class was Introduction of Ancient Egyptian Religion which is something that I have always been interested in and it was great to be able to reach out to a different segment of history besides American. Our last dinner came quickly and it came time to say good bye. Most people left and went home that day however I had a few more days in England with my Dad. Hopefully all of us will keep in touch and now I have fun and exciting places to go and visit. Who wouldn't like to go to Sicily?

Now that I have been back in the United States for almost a month I have adjusted back to life in Boston. It was awesome to see all of my friends again and get that burrito and Dunkin Donuts coffee that I was craving. There are definitely somethings I miss about England. I miss the availability of other countries. It was extremely easy to just hop on a train and go to see another country I wish I had more time to explore the rest of Europe. I miss constantly meeting new people and having people around to hang out with and explore new places. It was a lot of fun to have the dorm experience again after a few years of living off campus. One thing that I definitely do not miss is the conversion rate it is nice to be able to buy something again and it only costing $3. Overall I had a wonderful experience I made a lot of good friends that I hopefully will keep in touch with I took a lot of fun and challenging classes and I learned to be a little more independent. Studying abroad helped me to challenge my perceptions of things as well as want to travel to see other places.