Saying Goodbye

The day started off with the boys in the kitchen and all of us eating breakfast like a family (as you can tell, we're still trying to get rid of those last little food items). The girls did the dishes, and like that we were all off on our own last-minute escapades. For Allie and I this meant an expedition to the British Library, where such treasures as the Magna Carta and the very first Guttenberg bible were kept under glass and low-light.
Some 20 or 30 people milled about like us, wandering from glass case to glass case and looking casually at the manuscripts collected and labeled. I, of course, immediately went to the section with the heading "Music." It's hard to describe to you that moment when I first set eyes on the items found in this particular grouping. All through my past three years in college I've studied and learned about these great composers and fascinating ideas ranging from the early medieval days to the current centuries, and, indeed, I had seen pictures in books of various documents. Today, however, I stood in front of a book on display that was cover-to-cover sheet music with notes written in that had been penned by Mozart, literally in his own hand with ink and quill. I saw a sketchbook of one of Beethoven's symphonies, handwritten with scribbles marking the places where he changed his mind and considered a mistake. A page marked by Edward Elgar with doodles lining the bottom five or six staves with pictures of faces showing various emotions and the words written, "Waiting for the IIIrd symphony."
Looking at these books was a little bit like transforming me into my three-year-old self and taking me to Disney world to see the characters of my favorite cartoon movies. As if that weren't mind-blowing enough, I saw real-life pages from the very original Beowulf transcription, burned at the edges from the fire that damaged it, as well as pages handwritten by Charlotte Bronte that contained the entirety of her novel Jane Eyre as she originally wrote it, before it was printed for the masses. Just so you know: Jane Eyre is one of my most favorite novels in the world, and has been since I read it my senior year in high school.
I'd say it was an early-afternoon well-spent.
2pm found us on our way to afternoon tea, literally, in the traditional British sense. We sat down and had a full tea service (those of us that opted to pay for it, that is) that included finger sandwiches, scones, French pastry deserts, as well as, naturally, the tea of our choice. As we sipped at our tea cups and made polite conversation I thought of my Aunt Carol, who would have been thrilled for the opportunity to sit down and spend the afternoon this way, and made a mental note to tell her all about it when I got back. We also made side-remarks about how funny it must be for the expensive, well-trained staff to observe our "Americanisms" and watch people who had no idea what was the proper way to go about afternoon tea. It made for a fun afternoon, though, and was a pleasant experience that I'll be sad I may never get to do to again.
Thus ensued the task of packing. It occurred to me early on that I may have to relegate myself to the fact that I would be leaving my new home in the morning (4:30am, to be precise) and in order to do so, I would have to gather together all of my belongings once more and make sure nothing important was left behind. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to a trip outside your home country, but if you have you know that what you came with is about only 3/4 of what you end up leaving with. Needless to say, I hope my parents don't mind that I'll be dragging home an extra suitcase (even though it contains mostly gift-items for various family members). Don't worry Mom and Dad! It's fairly small!
Which brings me to the evening. There were ideas tossed about concerning what we would do tonight. Most of us had some extra little pound-notes floating around and burning a hole in our pockets, so the logical conclusion was to blow them on something. And what better thing to blow them on then some high-quality English beer? Laura found and interesting place serving pints for 1.70 pounds, but we ended up at the Churchill Arms, were Ryan and Abby (our professor and his wife) had just eaten dinner. The Churchill Arms is not exactly your average pub. Out front is a menagerie of flowers all carefully tended and pruned to create a cheerful and colorful facade facing Kensington-Church Street. Going to the bathroom was like taking a walk through the Secret Garden, with plants hanging from a, literally, glass ceiling and butterfly stickers on the toilets.
It was here that we all gathered together and spent our last night in London, leaving, eventually, with a fond goodbye and well-wishes until next semester. It was then that it hit me: Tomorrow I will be hopping on a plane and returning home. I will be going back to the place I left behind to embark on this grand adventure, and I'm too attached to say goodbye. Going home again is going to feel so weird, with cars that drive on the directional right side of the road and bars that don't serve that good-tasting high-quality beer you can only find on tap in England. Home to family that I haven't been able to talk directly to for three weeks and home to a place where my cell phone gets a signal.
It has been one great, glorious adventure that I will be able to look back on with so many fond memories, but tomorrow I can guarantee that I will be reluctant to turn in my room key, a tear welling in my eye. I've learned too much from this trip to write down in one blog post, and have too many favorites to list here in one night, but when I wake up tomorrow morning at 3am I will do so as if saying "See ya later" to a very old and very dear friend that just happens to be the size of a country.

JD