A Reflection

Over the course of my year in England, I walked until my boots wore thin. I saw sights until my eyes nearly fell out. I became the queen of the budget airline, earned a Master's degree, moved in with Ruth, worked in a bar (I can pour an excellent pint), still spent too many hours eating scones at Costellos. I fell in love fiercely (with an adorable boy, yes, but also with the Yorkshire countryside, my church, and all the people who are now ingrained in my heart). It's been a year that's exceeded even the dreams I had for myself.

It's cheesy and cliche´to say, but it's just true. I learned a lot too. Now that I'm back in the States for a bit, I'm already losing my weird tendency to use British words (which Vicki spent so long beating into me). As I move on to a new season in my life, I want to make sure I reflect and remember. I don't want to lose all those little lessons, all the little memories.

• It's a daily occurrence to trip in the street. Cobblestones are picturesque, but hard work for us clumsies. They're also really hard on luggage wheels. I had to retire more than one carry-on bag. 
• You'll quite often ride the bus with two dogs, a pram, a whole lots of students (many drunk), a homeless man and a professor. 
• 70 degrees is HOT. You'll break out the shorts, the sunglasses, and the suncream. For a California girl used to 110-degree summers, you'd think I'd laugh in the face of 70 degrees. Yet, somehow, that 70 felt like a 100 -- at least. 
• When in Paris, avoid the last metro ride home. You will very likely be squashed like a pancake (and I mean like a British pancake, which is not fluffy).
• Speaking of pancakes, Pancake Day is the cutest thing, and the best idea for a holiday (minus the epic and slightly gruesome Guy Fawkes Day, of course.) 
• Museums are stuffy. I did have a bit of a Callie moment in the Louvre. I was all classy-looking with nice boots and a blazer and feeling very famous-museum-ish. But I had on fleece tights under my pants because it's been very cold outside. About an hour into touring about, the museum became very crowded and warm, and I felt myself getting panicky. I felt absolutely buried under a mountain of clothes, and I thought my legs had caught fire. And then I got light-headed, so I yelled at my family that I had to find fresh air and rushed out to find a bathroom. The Louvre is massive, and that's an understatement. There are 4 different buildings, each with many different floors and endless galleries. And in all of this, there are about 3 WCs. It took me nearly half an hour to find a bathroom and after I stood in line (it sucks being a girl), I was nearly crawling out of my skin. So I take off the tights (which was an impressive feat in the tiny stall) and put back on just the trousers. And only then did I realized that I had no socks. So today, I walked around the Louvre, and then more of Paris, in boots with no socks. I got a blister the size of Texas. And I lost my family for a good hour; when I found them, they'd seen most of the Michelangelo sculptures without me. Moral of the story: even if it's nearly snowing outside, there's no need for 19 layers. Trust me to turn the amazing Louvre experience into a frantic toilet hunt.
• Skype is a genius invention. It kept me in touch with everyone near and dear at home. Plus, when the internet is bad, you can avoid frustration by taking embarrassing screen shots of people's faces frozen in grotesque and hilarious positions. 
• There's nothing, and I mean nothing, worse than walking around all day in wet boots. 
• London at Christmastime is something from a fairy tale.
• Downtown Leeds at night is not something you want to see. It'd downright scary. Leeds in the daytime, however... Well, I'll say that I was never a city girl. I've always liked the country. Quaint cottages or curvy dirt roads or mountains with pine trees. I like the family-feel of the small town -- the Stars Hollow quirkyness, or the Avonlea gossip, the Meryton dances. But Leeds won me over. Leeds with its crazy band names, loud night life, Victorian architecture, skate park, night-club churches-turned-night-clubs, rows of brick houses. I'd even go as far as to say I'm part city-girl now. 
• Long walks do the soul good. John taught me that.
• When a Yorkshire man tries to get my attention, his thick accent means I often won't recognize my own name. 
• Mexican food is non-existent over the pond (good Mexican food, that is). It's just not the same, and boy, did I miss it. But at the end of a hard, long day, would I still make an attempt at Mexican food? Absolutely. 
• I learned the top signs of procrastinating when writing a master's dissertation: Chasing a fly in an epic battle around my flat (Breaking Bad, anyone?). Baking incessantly (Izzie Stevens, anyone?).  Playing endless games of Boggle on my phone. Listening to all 7 Harry Potter audio books (they're read by Stephen Fry, for goodness' sake!). Watching endless Ellen Degeneres clips on YouTube. Editing my sister's term paper. Scrubbing my toilet, shower, kitchen, etc. etc. etc. Getting hungry every 35 minutes. Cleaning up my computer -- not just the keyboard, but re-organizing all my documents, iTunes songs and photos. Googling Emma Watson's entire history. Making stupid lists, like this one. 
• There are wonderfully good people in the world, who know what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus. 
• After reading a million and one academic articles, I sure did miss some good-'ole snappy, pithy prose.
• I could never learn to love riding on the Megabus! Always a miserable experience, despite the onboard wifi and cheap (really cheap) fares. I still would have to battle crippling motion sickness,  and riding for 6 hours inside a moldy-smelling sock. Miserable. Every time.
• Sweet potatoes from the garden (particularly Ruth's garden) are 
• I actually kind of missed knowing what was going on with those damn Kardashians. 
• I gained an everlasting love for curry.
• Falling in love can happen so quickly and with a ferocity you would not expect and would've disdained a few months ago.
• I had a humbling realization that I moved here a year ago with 2 bags and a pillow, and I ended up moving out with a truck full (literal not figurative-- I had to hire a van) of things.....I justified it by saying you can't ever have too many books (I study literature, cut me some slack) or jumpers (England is cold, okay!)
• London is not the for the weak of heart. If you don't pay attention, your bag will be stolen right from under you, and before you know it, you'll find yourself moneyless, IDless, chapstickless, bookless and umbrellaless, standing at the Westminster pier with only a bag of cookies and a half drunk mini bottle of Rose wine. Yep, London can eat you up and spit you back out. Yet, each time you see it, you'll say, "Wow, this never gets old." 
• You'll spend half your life waiting for a bus. I had bad luck with busses. 
• Surefire ways to feel British: talk about the weather (which always is rubbish), offer a hot drink promptly, (and no, squash is not a vegetable), serve potatoes with any meal (ANY!), know about accents (it's like a superpower! I could barely distinguish Scottish from Australian).
• Standing on the peaks in Hathersage, you will become Elizabeth Bennet. 
• If you don't follow road signs in rural France, you will end up with your car stuck (genuinely stuck) in a tiny, tiny back road in a tiny, tiny village. And the whole entire busy-body village will come out to yell at you, and to put in their two cents about how you can reverse out without putting the back of your car through one of their front doors. 
• When it is bitter cold, the snow on the streets is brown and dirty, you're working a 16-hour catering shift in an industrial town of small shops and tightly-packed brick flats, when you're serving food next to a man with a limp in a damp and echoing (COLD) event hall  . . . . you'll definitely believe you've stepped into a Dickens novel. 
• York is the most charming medieval town ever. Explored it with Sara, with John, with the parents, with Lyndsay, by myself -- it's charmingly new in all of its fascinating oldness every time. 
• Stay till the last drop of booze is gone
• Football (they're football) is the only sport worth anything. 
• Know how to fix your own radiator. You can't rely on them, or the handymen who fix them
• Don't be half-assed when it come to fancy dressing. Go all out! (and that's how I was Bellatrix for a birthday party... scary!) 
• There's nothing sweeter than an elderly British couple who let you stay for two days in their gorgeous stone Chaleat in the wine country. They feed you olives and smelly French cheese, they give you dates from the tree in their garden. They throw a dinner party for their neighbors (a German couple, a French couple, an American couple ... oh, the mix of personalities!). They let you sleep in the charming attic room overlooking the river, the sweeping vineyards, the tucked-away church steeples. 
• A "bin" is a trashcan, and a "box" is a bin. I think a cardboard box is just a box? 
• Rain doesn't stop you from doing anything. 
• Going somewhere on the train never gets less exciting and romantic.
• If you go to a folk festival, you are guaranteed to meet the most charming hippies. And I don't mean new, young and hip hippies. But genuine old-timers who really know what they're doing. 
• You can't not smile when dancing a ceilidh. 
• Eat everything with peas.