London, week 1
So… it’s my first time abroad, ever. And I happen to be in one of my all time most desired cities to go. I am in heaven. But wait, there’s more! I also have the privillage to study art, art history, and architecture in two of the most artistic, visually vibrant, and intellectually driven places in the world: London and Paris. So essentially, I was pumped.
Having been here for one week already has been a really surreal experience. Days have blended together, as though this whole time has only been one long day. There is so much to take in, not isolated to the museums, but from the city itself, with the shops, the style of clothing of the locals, the languages, the foods, trying to maneuver about in a foreign city, everything! At first, it was incredibly overwhelming to walking outside, because of all the various distractions and sights. There is so much to do here with so little time.
Thus far, we have explored the wonders of the British Museum, the Tate and Tate Modern, the Museum of London, Sir John Soane’s Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, and seen a musical at Prince Edward’s theatre. Yeah, it has been a really busy week, and we have taken in so much. But to be given the opportunity to come and explore the city and learn as we are learning is absolutely magical.
Additionally, the great thing about our group is, though we all are very different personalities, there are hardly any problems within our group. We all accept each other, and appreciate the differences. This really reigned true for me the other night, I had never been to a club before, but we went to a pretty interesting one, very awesomely designed, good music etc, but there weren’t many people there. The one thing I noticed was that there were no clumps of people from our group ignoring each other, everyone was up and dancing around with each other. And every single one of the students who went and were dancing in this massive circle of Eckerd students (since we were literally the only people there at that point) had the biggest and most sincere smiles on their faces. We were there to enjoy the presence of each other, and it was a really beautiful moment of realization that the students on this trip are truly wonderful people to spend a month in London with.
It’s going to be a really incredible month. We leave for Paris in two days, which I AM PUMPED FOR!!! We are going to the Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre, AH! I’m so excited! Well hopefully it all goes well and we see some Monet and Toulouse Lautrec works ^_^
Out for now,
—MaryBeth Dietrick
