Meeting the Queen of England

The study abroad of a life time and how I became inspired to travel.

After my rough layover, I finally made it!  England, land of tea, cathedrals and scones.

I had been told to use a travelers check to protect my money – however upon receiving the second charge for processing it, I knew I would never use these stupid things again.  With $2,500 in hand, I divvy up the money per six weeks so I am not left with a zero balance long before the trip is over.

The town of Canterbury was like nothing I had seen before; people were walking in every direction, some to get to work and others just for leisure.  The building alone could consume my time for hours if I had the spare minute to sit down and sketch them.  Everything was so different from America and I was actually walking through places I had seen in the movies.

Our class was full of diverse people, (one of which later became my favorite person) all of which shared the similar interest of culture.  We spent day trips in London and surrounding cities.  It helped that our professors had done this every year and knew a lot of history to go with the well mapped out places. I felt very clever when signing up for this program as “an independent study” which basically meant I could write my novels for two classes prior to even going on the trip and romp around Cathedrals and such while my peers were in class.

The program gave us three long weekends off, so we made sure to pack as much of Europe as we could; Amsterdam, Scotland and Paris were on the agenda.

I should mention that we never did see that Queen…she is pretty good at hiding from the Buckingham windows. It is true what they say about the guards, they really dislike cottage cheese. Oh and they won’t react to anything you say to them.

Another highlight from the trip was my first trip to Bath. Some of us girls bought alcohol for the train – very ceremonial seeing as we couldn’t legally drink in the US. We organized an intimate spa day at the Thermal Bath Spa – the first of many thermal baths to come. We had a three course meal, wine, and unlimited hours across multiple floors of hot water. I was in pure bliss and felt more than my skin was rejuvenated that day.

There are simply too many stories across the span of this pivotal summer. It was my first trip outside of the US (aside from the Virgin Islands) and living outside my comforts taught me many things about life and everything I am seeking. Everything may be bigger in Texas, however I am a small gal, and I simply desire experiences.

Photos cannot describe the experiences encountered during this short trip.  I not only made life-long friends while earning a few hours of school credit, but something inside me started turning that day.  All my life I was eating out of this bowl of white rice with one flavor. Suddenly I wanted to try every flavor, and I needed to figured out how.