The End

Well, it's my last night in London. Tomorrow I arrive back in the States--barring any airport/flight shenanigans--at precisely 5:35 pm. (Set your watches.)

Now that my homecoming is nigh, I'm wishing that I could stay longer. (Also wishing I got to use the word "nigh" more.) London is without a doubt among my favorite cities in the world, if it isn't actually THE favorite. As soon as I got here I felt happier, more relaxed, less homesick.

But I've covered that before. It IS my last night, though, so I think a little looking back is in order. 

First, I'd like to pay homage to the casualties of this trip: my only non-broken hair clip, every hair elastic I started this trip with, innumerable bobby pins, the headband that was blown off my head by a gale in Cassis,  possibly my black t-shirt (unclear, but I haven't seen it for a few days...), and my clothesline, which I think was stolen by a stupid person who mistook its little carrying pouch for a wallet. Joke's on you, dim thief, enjoy drying your clothes.

Okay, sorry, I have to interrupt my own blog post for a second. I'm writing this in the Criterion Theatre as I wait for the play I'm seeing to start, and this whole place is full of Americans. I don't think I've heard a single person with a British accent aside from the usher who has to keep explaining everything to these numbskulls. And really, they're almost all stupid. And some of them are sort of rude. It's like a parade of stereotypes, I don't know how this guy hasn't cracked yet. 

It is NOT that hard to find your seat in a theater. I know this. Not only have I managed to find my own seat in many a theater, I was once an usher for Merrimack Repertory Theater. You know what the extent of my training was? Getting handed a name tag and being told, "Rows are alphabetical and seats are numbered. Have fun." (That was actually a pretty sweet job; I got to see every show I ushered for free and I got paid in ticket vouchers which were also redeemable for gift certificates. Oh, MRT, how you spoiled me.)

But seriously. Can you count? Do you know the alphabet? Can you read signs? Then you don't need an usher unless you want a program or someone's in your seat. Simple.

But back to what I was saying. Now that I've paid homage to the possessions that I have accidentally scattered across the continent we can turn our attention to happier things, like the highlights of this trip.

Every place I stay, someone asks me what my favorite city or best experience has been so far. And every time I'm asked, I hem and haw and eventually give the thoroughly uninteresting answer that they were all great for different reasons. It's true, though. Even in cities where I had bad luck, where things went wrong, when I got bored or felt homesick, there was something that caught my attention or made me smile. Some of the cities I did not expect to enjoy much, like Rennes, ended up being hidden gems.

I met people from all over the world and learned a lot from them. I tried new foods (vegetarian haggis is delicious--who knew?), explored, took risks, had adventures (both good and bad), and became my own best resource for problem-solving. I feel ever-so-slightly more capable and confident than when I left.

But sad as I am to leave London, there are some things I'm looking forward to about coming home. I'm going to close this entry by listing them, so as to end on a positive note rather than a bittersweet one. And although my trip ends soon, still have tons more to write about it--I'm behind on travel updates, as we all know, but also on Eats Across Europe, Eats Across Europe: Candy Edition, and that post with pictures from my train rides that I've been promising you guys since practically day one. I'm definitely planning on adding posts about all that (as well as more photos, which I know is the part everyone really cares about) in the near future, so check back when you can!

Until then, thank you for following along with me on my grand adventure. I've enjoyed blogging about it and I hope you've enjoyed reading it!

THINGS I CANNOT WAIT TO DO WHEN I GET HOME

1. Take a shower without wearing flip-flops. Dry off with a real, non-travel towel. Use all the shampoo, conditioner, and body wash I want.

2.  Read a book that's not an e-book...although I don't mind them nearly as much as I thought I would, I'm afraid I'm still a snob about the inherent superiority of real books over virtual ones.

3. Use my laptop instead of my ipad. The ipad is great, but I'm looking forward to having my laptop keyboard and comparatively giant laptop screen back.

4. Drive.

5. Cook. I mean real cooking, not hostel cooking, although I have made a béchamel sauce precisely three times in the last week. But béchamel sauce barely counts at this point...where's the challenge? 

6. Cry. I'm not upset about anything in particular; it's just that I haven't had that emotional outlet available to me at all for the past month and there were some times when I really, really wanted or needed it. Having forced myself to hold in my emotions and soldier on for five weeks on end, I've found that I'm much more likely to tear up over relatively innocuous things, like war memorial plaques and the audio guide description of Thomas Becket's assassination. So I think a good, long, cleansing cry is in order. Recommendations of sad movies--who's got 'em?

7. Listen to my music at full volume without having to wear headphones. Sing along as loudly as I want.

8. Return to my boring routine. Do you know how adrift I've been without my boring routine of flossing every night, being in bed by 11, and waking up at 5:45 every day? REALLY adrift. 

9. Wearing clean clothes every single day. Over the course of this trip I've mostly taken an "eh, good enough" approach to personal hygiene. I wore everything over and over until it started to smell. I am so sick of almost every article of clothing I bought on this trip and I think I'll have to wash everything twice before wearing it again to make sure all the ingrained grime from a month of trekking around is truly gone.

10. Not having to mentally convert prices into US dollars. Sure, 60p doesn't seem too expensive for a single postcard, but in American money it would be about a dollar. Yikes.

11. Really, really brushing my teeth. As part of my "good enough" philosophy, I've been brushing my teeth with hardly any toothpaste, as my tube has been more or less empty for the past two or three weeks and I didn't want to spent £2.50 (at least $4) on a tiny travel-sized tube of toothpaste. 

12. Seeing everyone again! I've missed you crazy people!