BU Abroad: My Blissful London Dungeon

There are many expectations one has when studying abroad. There are sights to see, new faces to greet, food to try, and monuments to explore – it is both thrilling and mesmerizing, but let’s face it – it’s exhausting. Being a calendar driven gal, I was finding myself attached to my bucket list, highlighter glued to my hand, thumbing through endless packets and tourist guides to ensure that I make the most of my four months here. On any given weekend day, I had the potential to hit 2 to 5 British sights, which would have put me on track to accumulating quite an impressive record at the culmination of the semester. But come Sundays, I was peeling myself out of bed reluctantly, unmotivated to walk another 4 miles through London just to mark a check at the end of my next venture. After two weeks of forceful tourist habits, I gave into my deepest and most passionate desires – I slept in.
Back home, I don’t feel much stress or angst from sleeping in – on the contrary, my typical week at BU includes a daily nap penciled into my demanding schedule. And there seems to be time for it, even through working a job, going to class, and attending many rehearsals for various clubs and activities across campus. With the absence of that same social scene here in London, I thought this would be my time to super engage myself, to maximize every breathing moment I was awake in this new and fabulous city.
 I still stand by this, and truly believe in taking advantage of every new thing that awaits me here in the UK, and in Europe in general, but the truth is that a few days staying in my dorm did not interrupt my cycle of ever-gained Euro-knowledge. It actually enhanced it. Spending the weekend in, curling up in my miniature top-bunk with a cup of hot chocolate and watching vari
ous guilty-pleasure movies was exactly what I needed. I may be abroad, but this doesn’t mean I have to abandon everything I enjoy doing back home – putting it in a new setting makes it that much more enjoyable, and it illuminates the wonders of the city once I am well rested and dive back into my adventures. Something about lazing around with a book, movie, or computer activity with the backdrop of the foggy and rainy view out of my dorm window that makes me feel relaxed, at ease – at home.
I love this city, and I love seeing everything new it has to offer, but sometimes, traditions are imperative to illuminate how you grow throughout processes such as studying abroad. For me, it only took a movie and a Sunday morning snuggling with myself – I wasn’t on vacation anymore: this was my home, and in my home, I’m allowed to kick back and do all the things I thought I didn’t have time to do here. A gal needs to get dressed up, and she needs to flaunt her American-flare down the streets of a new city – but she also needs time to herself to reconnect and revisit the true appreciative value that lies within such a unique semester.
So I washed away the guilt, and in the end, I’m still finding time to make a dent in that bucket list as many days out of the week as I can. But when it comes time to tick off my cultural and social achievements, I grab my list, throw on my sweatpants and curl up with my highlighter for a lazy morning of documenting and reflecting, and I am proud to confess how blissful that truly makes me feel.