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Well it is about a month after my last post so it just goes to show that I really slacked on writing posts my last few weeks in London. I've been putting off writing a last entry because I knew there would be a lot to talk about. Every day in Europe had some sort of new experience or place that I had never seen or experienced before so trying to recall about 3 weeks is just overwhelming. I chose to finally type this today because of 3 reasons- 1) I just began to unpack my suitcases today and 2) I just took my sim card out of my international phone to send back to the company and 3) I'm finally getting over my cold that I've had since I was in Italy my last week. It has been 13 days back in the US and I'm still trying to transition back to my normal life. It is a very strange situation to be living in a different country so far from home for three months and then to suddenly within a few hours be thrust back into the life i've known in my home country for the last 21 years. It was an incredible experience and it opened me up to a whole world that I never knew existed. To put the trip into words would be very difficult and in some ways I think that only people who have had a study abroad experience like that know what I am feeling right now. I am so grateful for the experiences I had overseas and I acknowledge that 99.9% of people in the world will probably never get to do that. I am very lucky to have had the resources to have been able to truly take advantage of the program and its location this fall. There were many things I liked about the UK and miss, and there are plenty of aspects that I do not miss. I am happy to be back home and engaging in a familiar routine again but I've had some "down" periods since I've been back and I am contributing that to the fact that I'm returning from such an experience. Sometimes I feel like I was here in the US the whole time and never went abroad because nothing really changed here at home. However, I have all of this knowledge and experience that I didn't have before I left and when I think about that it grounds me and reminds me that I was really gone for that length of time.

The last week in the UK was busy as I was finishing up projects for my British Culture class, taking an in-class final and packing up all of my belongings for home/Italy. I had two large suitcases and a backpack. I had to divide my belongings between the smaller of the two suitcases that I was bringing to Italy for the week, and everything else I wouldn't need. I left the other two bags with a girl who was from a different college and studying with FIE until December. I traveled with my friends Amy, Catey and Sachi for six days beginning Nov. 22nd. We took EasyJet to Venice which I enjoyed immensely. Out of the three cities I visited, I thought Venice was definitely the most unique. There are no cars and everyone travels by boat! The city is old and quaint. The sidewalks are narrow and frequently become picturesque bridges over the canals. I was able to ride a gondola one morning and was amazed at how quiet it was. Without all of the traffic sounds it seemed much more peaceful. I experienced riding the water ferry a few times which was their main mode of public transportation. Tuesday morning we took a train to Florence and spent a little over a day there. We did a lot of walking around and sightseeing but I don't remember the names of very many places that we saw. We did see the David by Michelangelo which was really neat and we saw the two replicas of the statue as well. Florence was the other girls' favorite city but I didn't care for it as much as the other ones I saw. The last city I visited was Rome, where we also did a lot of walking around and exploring. We saw the Fountain di Trevi, the Pantheon and several of the piazzas the first night we were there(Wednesday night), went to Vatican City (St. Peter's Basilica & Vatican Museums) Thursday on Thanksgiving and went to see the Colosseum and Ancient Ruins on Friday morning before I left later afternoon for the airport. Our hostel was in a great location, as were our hostels in the other cities, and it was easy to walk to a lot of the major sights. The only time we took the subway/metro was to go to the Vatican. Thanksgiving was a tough day to be over in Italy; we were all a little homesick and missed spending the day with our families and feasting on turkey. We googled "turkey dinners in Rome" that morning but couldn't find any restaurants that were offering feasts. However, we did have a delicious italian meal out that night, sharing a bottle of wine, bruschetta and buffalo mozzerella, bread, and each ordered our own entrees (I ate veal which was very good- just to get the record straight my favorite animals are cows but I try my best to separate eating beef from my love of cows because it is just too good!)

The last night in Rome was an adventure- I was supposed to take a British Airways flight back to London Heathrow airport but there was a Ground Handling crew strike and my flight was cancelled and not able to leave the airport. Originally the woman at the BA customer service desk told us that buses might be picking us up and taking us to the Pisa airport where we could get our flight; however, they eventually switched our tickets for new plane tickets on an AirItalia flight leaving just about an hour later than the one I had previously booked. They were switched for free and I was so relieved it had worked out so well because my flight back home was the next morning at 10:30 or so, out of London. I was really tired when I returned to London but I took the tube all of the way back to South Kensington, picked up my luggage from my friend and sorted everything out back at the hostel. The hostel was ok considering I only slept about 3 hours there that night but I am pretty sure I saw cockroaches in the bathroom and if I hadn't been so tired and desperate for sleep I would have been freaking out pretty bad. The next morning I somehow got my two large suitcases, backpack and large bag of souvenirs to the airport and checked in and 8 hours later I was sitting on my luggage at the Newark airport waiting for my family to pick me up (they ran into some traffic coming from Williamsburg where they spent Thanksgiving). All in all it was a great trip and although I did miss Thanksgiving I am glad I spent an extra week traveling without having to worry about any schoolwork back in London. I was happy to finally be going home and not have to live out of suitcases anymore. Although I have sort of been doing that the past 13 days because since I have been too lazy to unpack, I've just gradually picked clothes and items out of my suitcases when I have needed them. But I'm finally getting organized today!

So to wrap things up- this is the final blog entry from my Eurotrip. Thank you all for tuning in to this website and keeping tabs on me during my adventure. I was happy to discover that a number of my family and friends were reading these entries. I enjoyed writing them on here especially since it wasn't as easy to communicate with people as much as I wanted to while I was in London. So this is it! Drum roll pleaseeee. Signing off from my computer in my parent's home office in NJ- Cheers! (or as they say in Ireland- Slainte!) :-)