One Week Away

One week and an hour or so from now I will be on a plane flying out of the Newark airport to the London-Heathrow airport where I will be living for the next quarter. I have never been outside of the U.S. or Canada before and I anticipate that Europe will be much different than what I am used to. I have a lot of mixed feelings about going away for such a period of time. 3 months may not seem like that long but I have never been gone that long without seeing friends and family on a regular basis. I am so excited about seeing a new part of the world that I've only heard and read about, but I'm also kind nervous, anxious, unsure what to expect, and sad about leaving my family and friends. Drexel's study abroad office warned us that students traveling to London tend to experience a greater 'culture shock' than students who travel to countries that require the knowledge of a second language. I think that is because we don't expect London to be THAT different from Philadelphia, but there are a lot of differences that I'm sure we will pick up on while we are over there.

I've been trying hard to concentrate on planning for London but it's been really hard with everything else I have going on this summer! Right now I'm in my 4th straight quarter of classes and we are approaching finals week. I have to take all of my finals by the first real day of finals, Tuesday, because my plane leaves Wednesday. I have my hotel rooms division management final Friday, Finance and Business of Sport on Monday, and Marketing on Tuesday. I am also busy moving out of the apartment I have lived in the past year. Unlike when I lived in the dorms freshman year, I have to move out all of my furniture as well, in addition to clothes, books, and all other random college items. Last week I became very overwhelmed with everything happening all at once, but I have started to get my things for London together and have planned out the last few days I will be here so I make sure I get everything I need to done. In the past week, I got a new camera, raincoat, laptop case for our 9" little Acer, long-sleeve shirts that I can layer with when the weather gets cold, a portable hard drive, my international phone, international student identity card...and I have to be careful because I only can bring one large suitcase, a duffel bag and a backpack probably.

As I'm sure you've probably seen by now, this first post is stressed-out Jenny, pre-London. My parents keep telling me that once I am over there I will really be 'getting away' from Philadelphia and Drexel and a lot of the activities I am involved in here at school, so it will hopefully give me the chance to relax. One week away! I don't think it has hit me yet that I will be 4000 miles away from home in just a few days!