As the weeks have been flying by I have definitely started to find my place in London and although it may be cheesy, “finding my home away from home”. I would say the biggest thing that triggered this change was getting used to the transportation system here and learning how to navigate it as efficiently as possible. Now I am not super nervous about getting lost, know what platform I should be on, or even if I am taking the correct line. I am able to ride the tube to classes, work, and my favorite place in London, Chinatown. Although I admit, my transition to London was probably easier than most because I came with one of my closest friends from Pitt. She was also my roommate in America and we became really fast friends from the first time we met. I am really grateful that I could explore this amazing city that has so much to offer with one of my friends. It makes it much more convenient to try out new restaurants, visit new places, or even travel to nearby countries. 

It took a really long time for it to hit me that I was in another country. I will admit in the first couple weeks, it has just felt like a really long vacation. Everything felt so new and I was seeing all these different sites for the first time. My biggest “Oh my gosh, I am in London” moment was when I saw the guards for the first time standing outside of Buckingham palace. Whenever I thought of London in the past I imagined the guards with the tall fluffy black hats that wore a red uniform with polish gold buttons and tall black boots. It was amazing for me to see them standing out and about because this was something that I had only seen on my laptop before. It is hard to even describe the emotions and feelings that were running through my bloodstream at that moment. But I think I just felt excited, but also a sense of deja vu because I could recognize everything, yet it was all new. 

I wouldn’t say I experienced “culture shock”, but the biggest thing that I found surprising was Londoners don’t walk on one specific side of the street. So it is really hard for me to navigate if I should be walking on the left or right. And ultimately I just end up walking in the middle weaving around people. But I guess that is what everyone does because it is a city and everyone has somewhere to be.