Next week this Jterm ends, and I’m off to Italy, where I’ll be traveling to Cienna, Flornece, Vienna, and Rome. I’ve heard worse pick pocketing stories from Italy than I have from France, so my fingers are crossed.

I am a political science major at Gustavus, with an English minor. At Gustavus, I am the president of College Republicans, a group leader for Prepare Ministries, and (the now former) treasurer for APO, a community service fraternity. I was also active in Proclaim, Men’s Christian fellowship, and the Pro-life gusties. I really value my faith, and I enjoy talking about politics – the two worst conversation starters. The first time I toured Gustavus, I decided I wouldn’t go there. But applying was free, so I did it anyway. Once I was accepted, I toured again, and as I started eliminating colleges I didn’t want to go to, Gustavus remained. So I ended up here, and I am very glad for it.

So here I am in England, for the second time. Last year I took the Gustavus only Jterm going to England, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. London is a tremendously multi-cultural city, and I rarely hear English on the subway (tube). I do have to say I am a fan of the English accent though. It sounds intelligent and confident. But other than that they are a whole lot like us. England is really the most similar country to America. Materialism is insane, and an independent lifestyle is valued. The english barely consider themselves part of Europe anyway.

I haven’t been homesick at all despite knowing I won’t be going home for five months. I now have to keep a long distance relationship, and it has been really tough already being away from her and knowing I won’t see her for so long. I feel very cut-off from the life I lived before a couple days ago, but that isn’t all bad. I enjoy choosing what I can do, and being completely independent in a foreign place.

I haven’t done a whole lot yet in England. I visited Buckingham palace, went in a few shops, and walked around Hide Park. Since I had been here last year, I feel a lot less touristy and not especially excited to see the things I’ve already seen. But my schedule has a lot of new things on it, and next week I’m in Brussels. I’ve been sitting here for an hour writing this and sending emails to other people, and I already feel lazy since I’ve spent the last few days always on the go. But I should go now anyway to try my new European calling plan. See ya in a few.

The funny thing is, I keep getting shocked by the fact that people don’t have accents — I’d become so accustomed to listening extremely carefully so as to understand through the cockney or RP or Italian or whatever accent I encountered. There are a lot of things I forgot about the States that I have to reaquaint myself with — and I do have to admit, it is taking me some time to remember how to drive on the appropriate side of the road!

Although it is nice to be home, I miss London terribly. It was honestly the best thing I ever did, going abroad. My mom keeps commenting that I’ve “grown up so much and become so London-ified”. I hope that’s a good thing. She’s right, though. I’ve changed a lot, and for the better. I now have a ton of tools to help with my acting, and a ton of tools to help with my life. To prevent this from becoming incredibly cheesy, I’m going to stop. But I know there will always be a place in my heart for this semester, and for London.

My parents, brother, and grandpa arrived last Wednesday, and I have had such a great time showing them around. They leave tomorrow, but in their short time here I’ve made them see a castle, have tea in Harrods, set my brother up on a date with our resident director and therefore fufilling his dream of going on a date with a British girl, get taunted by a Beefeater, walked along the Thames at night, and spend way too much money on stuff for me (hehehe). It has been fun. Unfortunately, I haven’t really done any work so I have to write two papers in the next three days. Oops! Kirsten and I leave on December 14, and after a short stop in Amsterdam with our friend Autumn, we’ll be on our way back to the States. It’s all going by too fast!

It is so weird to see the place I live through new eyes again — since I’ve been here for three months, everything has just become routine, even small things like looking right before crossing a street or saying “cheers” instead of “thanks”. But now I get to be touristy, well, in between classes. I had my performance of “The Tempest” on Friday, before we went to the opera to see Verdi’s “Falstaff”. My performance went very well (I didn’t forget my lines), but overall, it was pretty terrible. Richard Digby Day (the program director) pretty much yelled at us when it was over, saying we didn’t understand what we were saying. Not exactly good for self-esteem, but at least there wasn’t a large audience. He did tell me my performance was “Not what he would have thought Ariel to be, but very well done.” For him, that’s a great compliment and I took it just that way! Only two weeks left! I miss Minnesota, but I now that its winding down, I realize how much this has made me grow and how much I’m going to miss it.

Some highlights: getting lost in the hedge maze, an underground grotto with bone art, getting stalked by some creepy tourist guys who took a picture of us with their cell phone, and high tea with THE BEST pastries and clotted cream (which Andrea has apparently been calling coddled cream for some time now). Friday we went shopping (when you are in the best fashion city in the world, you can’t help it) at outdoor markets, and then I met up with friends from home. Saturday we visited Buckingham Palace — we figured it was something we should do before we leave — which is actually not all that impressive, and you really can’t see the changing of the guard because there are about 30,000 other tourists also trying to see through the massive gates. Then we went grocery shopping. Now it’s back to school — I’m sore because in the last two days my movement and acrobatics instructors have been really cracking down on us physically. We’re performing our Shakespeare scenes on Friday, in which I’m Ariel in “the tempest”, so there are a bit of nerves in the air. Wish us luck!

Love, Sarahkathryn

I didn’t quite know how the french were going to react to us so soon after the reelection of George W. Bush (in London, people are very angry about it), so most of the time we put our theatre training to use and spoke with accents, either standard British or Irish, if we were feeling adventuresome. But all in all, the French were very sweet (in that French way). It was such a nice way to spend the weekend! But now back to life in London — ick. Tomorrow for my acting class I have a major project due which required me to go to the Polish part of London in search of a Polish folksong, folkdance, and recipe. Wish me luck that I don’t mess it up!

Classes have been intense lately — we just had our mid-term evaluations, where all the teachers sit around and talk about us and our progress, and then Richard Digby Day (the very British, very pompous theatre director who looks like a squirrel but is terribly cute) reports back to us. My review was favorable, with some constructive criticism thrown in (which you always run into in this business), but overall I think I’m on the right track. We had a master class with Henry Goodman yesterday, who is this amazing actor who is actually quite famous over here. He brought out some good stuff in me.

London is well — the weather has actually been nice here, different from the cold and rainy it was all last week. I have nothing more to say, so cheers!

Love, SarahKathryn

Our first fall break was two weeks ago, and a bunch of us went to Rome to stay with one of the guys in the program, Angelo. I stayed at a hostel run by nuns, which was supremely nice, almost like a little villa. It was weird to see the Forum and the Colesium up close — I almost felt like they were fake. Well, I need to run — we’re off to the Royal Ballet!

Love, SarahKathryn