How London Has Changed Me: Reflections on a Semester Abroad

This post originally appeared on CAPA World Blog in December 2015.

There is something surreal about waking up in one country in the morning and falling asleep 3,500 miles across the ocean the same night. It's so surreal, in fact, that it's almost unbelievable.

I thought that after over three months spent immersed in another culture, another life, it would be difficult to readjust to the one I'd left behind.

I thought it would feel strange to turn on my car and drive down the open country roads after traveling only by foot and public transportation in a bustling city.

I thought it would be harder to count American change after finally getting used to those chunky one-pound and pointy twenty-pence and tiny five-pence coins. I thought it would be just as wrenching to settle in back home as it was to acclimate in London.

But it isn't. It's easy. 

It's so easy to fall back into my life here, even after just a handful of days, that I catch myself wondering if the past few months were nothing but a dream, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to remember every little detail of that dream that was so recently my reality. 

But it wasn't a dream, and I can't forget, because even though everything here seems just the same as I left it, it isn't. 

Everything has changed. I've changed. 

And as I embark on another new adventure — picking up where I left off and moving forward with my life — I will carry London with me, and I will remember all that it has given me. 

This is how studying abroad in London has changed my life.

It has offered me a new perspective on the world.

Before I studied abroad, my conceptions of the rest of the world were, while relatively well-informed, admittedly idealistic. Other countries, other cultures, seemed far away, unreachable, almost imaginary.

Being in London, an international metropolis on the brink of Europe, nearer to any number of other countries than I'd ever been, made me realize the closeness of the corners of the vast world, the relevance of current events in one place to everywhere else, the interconnection of humanity everywhere.

Being able to visit Paris and Scotland and Italy helped me put real pictures and faces to names and conceptions, gave me my own role in this international circuitry of people and places. I've still seen only an inch of the globe, but it feels ever more accessible to me now. 

It has taught me how to live in a new environment.

Londoners feeding birds along the Serpentine, Hyde Park

Back in America, nowhere I'd ever called home had been without wide fields and open spaces and quiet all through the night. I never thought of myself as the kind of person who could survive in a city, who could withstand the dense crowds and constant noise and lack of room to breathe.

And my need for immersion in nature did make it difficult for me to adjust when I first arrived in London. The sound of sirens kept me up at night and distracted me during class. The swarms of people in the underground and on the streets suffocated and frustrated me. I was off-kilter and out of place in a setting that would likely have been just as foreign if it were Chicago or San Francisco, and for a time I was convinced that I could never fit in quite right.

But all the things about London that had been daunting and unfamiliar at first gradually became as natural to me as any other home had been, and — to my own surprise — I became someone that belonged in this place that was so unlike anywhere I'd ever been. And I realized that if I could readjust and claim London as my own, if I could become so harmonized with a new life so different from what I'd known, I can do it anywhere. 

It has given me a new family and a stronger ability to connect with others.

Memories of making friends on my trip to the Scottish Highlands

One of the best parts of my experience in London — and arguably what will be my most lasting memory — is the relationship I formed with the family that hosted me in North London.

Both my host parents were born in Cyprus and relocated to England in their young adulthood, and not only did they give me a wider cultural perspective and a place to stay, but they provided me with the kind of love and security that I receive from my own grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Entering blindly into a stranger's house in a strange country was a nerve-wracking experience, but I couldn't have asked for better hosts, and I have never felt such immediate or long-lasting warmth from anyone, stranger or not, who welcomed me into their home with so much trust and familiarity.

And my homestay gave me more than a strong relationship with my host parents; I became close with their grandchildren, befriended other international students that came and went, and formed a quick, strong bond with friends and family that frequented the house.

I began the semester completely on my own, knowing no one in England, and I left the country with the tearful goodbyes and well-wishes of an extended family, with a new realization of how easy it is to connect with people from anywhere and everywhere.

It has given me a new appreciation for home.

As much as I came to love London, as much as I was able to thrive there and appreciate all its little wonders, it also gave me a new vantage point on all I'd left behind.

Especially in the beginning, when I was painfully aware of the fact that I was farther from home than I'd ever been, I realized how much it meant to me, how much I may have taken for granted.

It occurred to me how lucky I was to have what I did — a supportive family, a strong education, a safe home that I could always return to, and the opportunity to venture forth from it to explore the world.

And although the separation became much more bearable as my journey continued, I have returned with a new perspective, and I have a feeling that I will live my life a little differently from now on.

It has shown me how well I can make it on my own.

I have always been an independent person.

I don't seek approval from others, I don't make the choices that others would make for me, and I don’t mind being alone if that's the only way I can do what I know is right for me. But being on my own in London put those ideals to the test very literally.

I was completely by myself in ways that I wasn't accustomed to. I didn't know anyone when I started out. I didn't know where anything was, I didn't know how anything worked, I didn't know how to get anywhere, and I didn't always want to do the same things or go the same places as my classmates.

There was nothing familiar to fall back on, no one from home to return to when things got hard. It was up to me to find my footing, to protect myself, to be strong enough to make my own choices and brave enough to execute them alone.

At first, I was worried that maybe I wasn't as strong as I thought, and I was ashamed to feel the fear and uncertainty that sometimes followed me around the city, making me question who I was and whether I could do everything I had imagined. But over time, that fear made me stronger, bolder, more sure of myself. I became more and more able to move past it, more self-sufficient, more confident, and more independent, not in spite of my fear, but because of it — because I defied it, again and again, until it didn't exist anymore.

And now I don't just think I'll be fine on my own. I know I will.

As strange as it is to leave behind this city that has become another home, to leave behind this part of my life that has been so radically developmental, I know I'm not leaving forever, and I'm certainly not leaving unchanged. 

Wherever life leads me next, I'll be ready — a little wiser, a little stronger, a little more willing to see the beauty in things big and small, and hopefully just as able to effect my own change. 

Thank you, London.