Back to the 'Burg

Hello All!  After a very relaxing week at home, I am now heading back to Williamsburg to complete my Summer Monroe Research Project.  Hopefully I will finish all of my work in 7 weeks, so then I can be back at home for the remainder of the summer!  This week has gone by so fast - it's so hard to believe that I arrived home from Bath just last Saturday!  I'm excited to go down to Williamsburg, but at the same time I don't feel like it's time yet.  I've been planning this project for just over 18 months, and it's exciting, yet strange, to see it finally happen!  All Monroe Scholars have to blog on the Monroe Blog 3 times during the duration of our research.  My blogs can be found here:  http://upperclassmonroe.blogs.wm.edu/tag/sarah-kyle/
I might copy and paste those blogs into this one, but I haven't decided yet - so check back for details!  Also, if you remove the tag/sarah-kyle/ from that URL, you can access all of the Monroe blogs!


So with that, I'm off to finish up packing, and I will see you all in Williamsburg!

A Bittersweet Adventure

I am finally home safe and sound.  And let me tell you, it has definitely been an adventure getting here.  I arrived in Dulles Airport around 2:30, and about an hour later was through customs and on my way home!  But, lets rewind 15.5 hours from my arrival at Dulles, because that is where my adventure really begins.  I got up at 4am this morning (GMT - so 11pm yesterday in EST) in order to finish packing and get everything in order for departure from our flat (we had to pack up our bed linens and make sure all our dishes were clean, etc).  So I got about 4.5 hours of sleep last night, and about the same the night before after we went out for our final night out as a programme.

Our Last Night Out

So with that background in mind, I arrived at the Bristol Airport "bright-eyed and bushytailed" around 5:50am, after a very sad farewell to my roomies and my last taxi ride through Bath and Bristol.  After dealing with the very inefficient system for paying for extra luggage in the BRS  Airport, I met up with two other ASE students on my flight to Amsterdam, and we awaited the announcement of our gate.  Sadly, instead we got a notice that our flight had been delayed 35 minutes.  Originally I did not think much of this, but then I realized that I would be missing boarding for my connecting flight to Dulles.  Trying not to freak out too much, I sat rather impatiently through my flight to Amsterdam (once the airplane finally came).  We arrived with all the other connecting flights in Terminal B, where I located a departure schedule.  At this point it was 11:50, and boarding for my connection started at 11:30.  On the departure schedule, I read the most dreaded words on the screen:  "Gate Closing / Gate Besluit."  Needless to say, I ran from that point on to Terminal E, and to my gate.  Arriving out of breath, the lady running the security check just sort of looked at me, and said, "you're on time, you don't need to worry." Funny, I was not under the impression that the words "gate closing" meant "on time," or that my panting could be instantaneously stopped by not worrying haha.  Of course to make this adventure even better, I had to go through the xray machine and get a pat down at the security check.

ASE Final Tea

As I was walking down the walkway to the plane, I was stopped by another airport employee, telling me that I could take my time now that I was past security.  Only, he thought I was Dutch, so he was explaining all of this in Dutch until he finally realized that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying!  So apparently, I can pass as a Dutch citizen and a German citizen (see notes on trip to Rome)!
All of these insane aspects of my travels were made up for with the Toffee Ice Cream they served as our snack on my flight to Dulles.  THEY SERVED ICE CREAM ON THE AIRPLANE!!!  Why is this not a more common occurence?!?  I was also very thankful that my luggage made my connection as well - I was not expecting them to get my luggage on my AMS-IAD flight, since I barely made it in time myself!
So now I have officially been awake for 22 hours, I'm ready for bedtime!  I am so excited to go to MPC tomorrow - I've missed going to church so much this semester!  Speaking of missing, I miss my ASE friends already, it's so weird being apart from all of them, knowing that we're all going our separate ways.

One Day More!

"One day more!  Another day another destiny..." -- Les Miserables

 It is so hard to believe that today is my last day in Bath.  The semester has definitely flown by, and it is so difficult to imagine not seeing the people in my programme all the time!  The fact that we won't really see each other again hasn't completely hit me yet - but that is going to be so bizarre.  Today is most dedicated to packing (which I have yet to start! haha), but our programme also has our Final Tea, as a final farewell between the students and staff.  Sadly, our tutors are not going to be present, so we already had to say those goodbyes last week.  I just can't believe the semester is really ending, and that we all have to go back to our separate lives back in the States.


Wish me luck on packing!  I'm really dreading having to fit my life back into two suitcases!  I'll see you on the other side of the pond :)

In the Final Stretch

It is so bizarre to me that I go home in only a week - I honestly don't know how I feel about it.  I feel like it's the end of the semester, so in that sense I am definitely ready to be home.  But at the same time, I've adjusted to life here, so it's hard to imagine just picking up my old life when I get back.  It'll be strange not to see my roommates and friends every day, and not to cook my own meals or walk down the street to go grocery shopping.  However, there are things that I am very excited for:  seeing my friends and family, driving Volvo around Williamsburg (though I am not looking forward to the lack of air conditioning!), and getting started with my summer activities.  We recently had a programme meeting about what it will be like to go home, and how we can reconcile our experiences here with resuming life at home.  I was surprised at the response of one of our students, who wanted to just close the door on his study abroad experience and not look back.  Apparently he didn't really enjoy his time here, but his reaction got me thinking about how life transitions work.  And so when it was my turn to speak in our meeting, my thoughts were mainly directed at his comment, though they applied to everyone.  We can't just close the door on study abroad, and shut out that experience.  Whether we realize it or not, we have been changed by living in a different culture and having adventures with new friends.  Our personalities and lifestyles have been changed by our experiences, and we can't ignore that.  We also can never go back to the way we were - whether we like it or not, we are different people, and we can't just undo that change.  Successful transition comes from acceptance of our experience here, and application of our new selves into our old lifestyles.  Spending time in denial will only make the transition back to American culture more difficult. And now I'll step off of my soap box. :)
In this last week, our time is mostly consumed with exams and final preparations for departure (I'm dreading packing all my stuff up again!).  I know this week will fly by, so I am also trying to get things settled with my Monroe project.  I only have a week at home, so I don't have much time to get everything arranged before moving down there over Memorial Day weekend.  I can't wait to see you all VERY soon! :)

An Ever Fixed Mark

O no!  It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. -- Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 

I meant to include a quote from Macbeth, but they all seemed too dark and depressing...so I decided on Marianne Dashwood's favorite sonnet, according to the Ang Lee adaptation of Sense & Sensibility! :)

Shakespeare's Birthplace

These past three days, our entire programme has been touring Shakespeare's birthplace and later residence, Stratford-Upon-Avon.  I had already seen much of the town on my previous class day trip, so I admit I was not super thrilled to be spending three entire days there.  Stratford is a very small town, and of course the main attractions are all Shakespeare-related.  There are a grant total of 5 Tudor properties that tourists can visit, but other than that, there just isn't much to do.  Our days were broken up by lectures from our Shakespeare tutors, and then we usually ended each evening with some kind of group activity.

Outside Anne Hathaway's Cottage

The highlight of the trip was definitely the two performances we went to see.  Our first night we saw Shakespeare's Macbeth, and then our last night we saw The City Madam by Philip Massinger.  I thoroughly enjoyed both plays - and it was nice to end the trip with a comedy, especially after the intensity of Macbeth.  On our last day in Stratford, we also toured the ruins of Kenilworth Castle, which was a nice break from the Shakespeare-filled Stratford proper.
Overall, I had mixed feelings about the trip.  I think we could have done Stratford in one day, and so having 2.5ish days to see the town was definitely too much.  It would have been nice to explore the surrounding area more, and maybe to have seen another show on our middle day (the programme usually sees 3 performances).

Shakespeare's Grave

Only 2 weeks left now!  We have one week of classes, and then one week of exams and the semester is over!  It's hard to believe that I'm going home so soon, but I definitely think that I'm ready to go back to Ashburn and Williamsburg.  It feels like the semester should be ending at this point, and that we should all be going back home for summer break.  However, it's weird thinking that I'm not really going to see the other students in my programme again.  We are all scattered across the country, and so it's going to take a lot of coordination to keep in touch with everyone!