Finishing it off

Well, I suppose I need to finish of my Bible School experience. After Germany, I flew home for about a month. I was originally going to backpack around Europe during this time, but there are a few things I learned about myself during the previous 5 months that made me rethink that plan, being:

A. I hate backpacking.
B. I hate hostels.
C. Apart from my husband (whom I hadn't met yet) spending more then a weekend traveling with someone made me want to:
a)kill myself
b)kill the other person
No offense to anyone, but I need my personal space. Especially because traveling brings out the worst in people. Unless your very similar, you want to see different things, spend different amount of time at different things, etc. etc.
D. I hate being homeless.
E. I enjoy routine.
F. I hate backpacking.
G. Did I mention I hate backpacking?

So I went home. It was a great choice. I got a short term job painting houses for a builder in Kola, and recouped emotionally after a few fairly traumatic months! A month later I flew back to England for the Spring semester. Which was somewhere between 2-3 months. Can't quite remember now. Immediately it was a different experience. I was by no means a world traveler, but I'd done the bus/train thing enough in Germany to get a handle on it. So the train ride from the airport to the school didn't bother me, and it was in ENGLISH!! That was SO AWESOME! The atmosphere when I got to the school (for me) was so different then Germany had been. There were about 10 of us that knew each other from Germany that came on to England. My friend Megan being the only one I really had anything to do with. So right away it was way less intimidating, knowing you had a friend you could just walk up to and pick up from where you left off. The school was in this huge mansion/castle thing, and was beautiful. The grounds were beautiful, with walking paths, and pastures and sheep. My roommates were right away friendly, and we all got along so differently then the ones I had in Germany. I don't know if the great experience I had in England was so different because I was different, that I was more confident, less introverted. I'm sure it played a big part. I made better friends in 2 months then I had the whole 5 in Germany. If there was one person I wished I lived closer to, it would be Jordan. You know how like, twice in a lifetime, you meet someone who is you, except not you? That was Jordan for me. After so many months of feeling very misunderstood, and being unable to express myself, she was like, a gale force wind of fresh air. I don't even know if she knows she was that for me or not! I'll have to tell her! Right away having that person who "got me" made the HUGEST difference. Actually, funny story. I sat beside Russell Brown for the first 3 months in Germany, and we said like, 6 words to each other, I'm not kidding you. I think he was terrified of me - probably though if he talked I would burst into tears. Haha. Anyway, in England we sat beside each other again, but because we wanted too, which is really kind of crazy if you think about it. How many other friendships did I miss out on because I was so sad? Anyway, he was American so we had fun making American/Canadian quiz's for each other, (which we both sucked at), and he made the time there a lot of fun too.

I actually traveled a fair bit too. I went to London for a few days, and then to a family friend's cottage for a handful of days as well. Those were both great experiences. I still say that London is my favorite city I've been to in Europe. I stayed with a family I knew through connections of connections. They came with me to a few things, but for the most part, I was on my own, and I loved it! I had my Underground railway map in hand, and navigated myself around the city. I saw all the major things you think of when you think of London, and after traveling with people a lot, I loved being able to go wherever I wanted to go, stay as long as I wanted, and if I wanted to stare at a tomb in Westminster Abbey for 45 minutes, I darn well could.

I'm really glad I went to England, because I definitely had more the experience I was hoping for the whole time. If I hadn't gone, I think Germany would just have left a really bad taste in my mouth, and I would have felt really negatively about the whole thing. England really balanced it out for me, and like I mentioned before, grew in me the resolve to not quit when things get tough, because then you end up missing out on really really great things. :)