England
The study abroad tour I went on we
traveled to Scotland and England. I loved the whole tour and everything we saw,
but I have to say my favorite part of the trip was England. Now we stayed
towards the outskirts of London, but we were within in easy walking distance to
a train station. I have always loved London, England, well the idea of London
since I had never been there before, because a lot of my favorite shows and
actors are from London, England, but let’s be honest I really enjoy English accents
too. So when I saw that Columbia was having a tour going to England I had to do
it and I was not disappointed.
I live about an hour north of
Chicago, Illinois and I do not like Chicago and rarely go there
because I am not a fan of cities I am more of a suburban kid, but I loved
London. It is not as crowded, in my opinion, as Chicago, it is a lot cleaner,
and I felt it was a lot safer than Chicago too. I really enjoyed using the
underground train because I haven’t done that before and they have so many
different types of food to try out there. One thing that surprised me was how
early shops closed in the UK because in Scotland and England the shops all
would close around 6 or 7 at night. So make sure to get up early so you can
make it to all the places you want to see that day.
The things we saw in London are:
all the touristy sites, Buckingham palace and the changing of the guard, the
National history and Science museum, the Sherlock museum, the British library,
the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studios (me and my friend Hannah did this on our
own), St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that is all I can think of at the moment, but we did see much more. We
did get to walk around and see a lot of the different parks, like Green Park,
and shops. On our free day Hannah and I
went to the Harry potter studios and we went to hunt down the location of
Sherlock’s apartment that is used in the BBC show Sherlock, which is on Gower
Street.
Also, included in the tour was an
excursion to Stonehenge and Bath. It was a great experience to get to see Stonehenge
I wish we would have been able to get closer to it, but it was pretty surreal
still to actually see Stonehenge. The Roman baths in Bath were really neat to
see. Also, if you are a Jane Austen fan they have a Jane Austen museum in Bath
because that is where she lived and wrote all her novels. I actually was able
to visit the museum really quickly and purchased a copy of Pride and Prejudice
while I was there, which I am really enjoying reading right now. It was a less busy type of city/town and again
it was laid back compared to cities in the US. I really enjoyed bath also and
had a lot of fun walking around checking out the shops and trying one of the
Pasties that they are famous for, which was really good!
Overall, I had an amazing
experience and made so many new friendships while on this tour. If I had the
chance to do it again I would in a heartbeat. If you are debating doing a study
abroad tour you should just go for it because you will meet a lot of great
people and it really is an experience of a lifetime if you have never been
overseas like I hadn’t been before this trip. I plan on trying to do a semester
abroad in Canterbury, England this fall 2016 which is about an hour outside of
London. I am really looking forward to going back to England and being able to
travel to new places while I am out there.
Alley, you are so right. The friendships made on these tours are lasting. I hope you are able to do the Canterbury semester. It can be difficult to spend that much time overseas later in life.