I spent a semester in London, England on a whim. I had known for a while that I wanted to study abroad in college after spending two weeks in Ireland one high school summer followed by a class trip to Germany that spring. After both excursions, my brain was full of mental notes of places I wanted to return to and my Pinterest boards were filled with cities I wanted to explore. After my first semester at UNH I realized that studying abroad during junior year was the norm, so I didn’t give it too much thought knowing it was years away.
Fast forward to fall 2018 when I was sitting in my very first journalism class at the beginning of sophomore year. An English department professor opened class by passing around flyers for the J-Term London travel writing class and I was immediately interested. As a sophomore in her first journalism class who hadn’t even declared a major yet, I didn’t meet the requirements to do the J-Term that upcoming January. But, there was an information session later that day about the UNH London Program for the spring semester. If I’m not qualified to go for one month, I should go for five instead, right? Right. That night I talked to my parents, emailed professors for letters of recommendations, submitted my application the next day and paid the non-refundable deposit less than a week later.
As it got closer to my departure date, the butterflies in my stomach multiplied and more tears fell on a daily basis. I was torn between fear and regret and excitement and curiosity. I landed in London at 8:00am after a direct eight-hour flight from Minneapolis, Ubered to the hotel in a daze, got to my room, and didn’t leave for approximately 7 hours (with the exception of walking to the Starbucks down the road). This was the biggest city I had ever been in and on top of that, I was alone. I was so afraid of looking the wrong way when crossing the street and getting hit by a car that I just didn’t go outside. Just thinking about the Tube and its web of lines gave me anxiety. How the hell was I ever going to be able to navigate a subway system by myself when I can’t even keep up with the blue dot on my phone’s map? I began to rethink my entire decision as I sat in the European concrete jungle. Luckily, that only lasted about a day.
Out of the twenty UNH students in the London Program, I anticipated being the only one going into it who didn’t know a single soul. I mentally strategized and stressed about how I’d awkwardly wiggle my way into a preexisting group, but it quickly became clear that all twenty of us came into this program alone. We were all strangers to each other and we are all looking for friends. Luckily, we all clicked and everyone invited each other everywhere and thankfully that never really stopped throughout the semester, even as all of us became closer with some than others. We all navigated the Tube together as a herd and over time I felt more comfortable and more confident. In under a month it was a no brainer whether to take the Jubilee or Bakerloo line to get to Oxford Street, we made seamless transfers getting from Baker Street to Piccadilly Circus on Thursday nights, and (although it’s probably not recommended) I could make it home on my own after a night out. This escaladed to taking a five-hour train ride north to Scotland by myself, flying solo to visit my best friend studying in Portugal, becoming my family’s personal tour guide in a city I was a stranger to a few months prior, and finding my way back to the hostel when my friend and I were almost stranded in a little Italian town.
When people ask me what my favorite part of study abroad was, the first thing that always comes to mind is the Tube, whether I say it or not. Of course, it’s also the city, the architecture, the culture, the massiveness, the nightlife, the history, and the overall beauty. But people always say that study abroad gives you a newfound independence and navigating the Tube is where I saw that independence really emerge. It was my biggest fear when arriving in London. I thought I’d never come close to mastering it, but there I was four months later walking through the stations at the same quick pace as the native Londoners, topping up my Oyster Card in seconds, not even needing to look at a sign to know where I was going. I knew I conquered it.