When In London...

…blog!

In slightly over a month, I will board a plane in Los Angeles and get off ten hours later in London.

I’m spending my junior year studying abroad at Queen Mary, University of London, located in East London between the tube stops Stepney Green and Mile End. I will be living on campus in student housing, with my own single room in a suite of five to nine boys and girls (also with their own single rooms). We’ll share a bathroom and a kitchen, and probably a lot more as the year wears on.

I plan on doing a lot of traveling while I’m there. London is pretty much in the geographic center of a long list of places I want to see. I’m already planning weekend trips throughout Europe (perhaps even north Africa — I have a strange desire to see Morocco), and my “spring break” encompasses most of the month of April.

But I also want to get to know London like a local. The prospect of actually living abroad, and not just vacationing, intrigues me. I’ll be studying British literature at a British university from British professors who speak with British accents. I’ll get to be a part of a new culture and finally experience this city I love (and this country I love) from the perspective of someone who’s there to stay — for a year, at any rate.

While I’m abroad, I’ll be updating this blog more-or-less regularly (I’m aiming for actual entries every week or two, with pictures posted a little more frequently, at least to begin with). I don’t know my contact information in the UK yet, but when I do, I’ll post it here. The one surefire way to get through to me is to e-mail (or you can always leave a comment on one of these posts).

Now, it all seems like a crazy fever dream. Between me and London stretch long weeks of packing, acquiring my student visa, saying goodbye to friends, finishing up my work projects, unpacking, re-packing, and generally preparing for what will most likely be the best and scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And it’s really happening.