I would like to thank The City of London/London Bridge Rotary Educational Foundation for the amazing opportunity to go to London and study abroad. This scholarship gave me the opportunity to do new things and meet new people and has truly changed my life. As I write this, I have a hard time putting into words what this trip meant to me. This experience was so amazing that no words can describe the impact it has had on me.

 

The class that I took while there was Art and Society, in this class we got to learn about art by traveling to the museums around London. I felt that this class gave me the opportunity to see London through a different light. The teachers were amazing and extremely personable they really took their time to get to know us and try to recommend places for us to go visits while we were in London. This class was a great way to learn about London’s history, society and culture. Not only did we learn about the culture of London, we also learned about the culture of our classmates. Since we were all study abroad students, we all came from different backgrounds and places which enhanced the experience even more.

 

 

London is a city known for its architecture so as an architecture major, I was looking forward to getting to see the historic buildings of London juxtaposed to the newer modern buildings. I really enjoyed being able to see the buildings I had learned about in school, in person. One of the most memorable moments of the trip was getting to go through Saint Paul’s Cathedral and getting to go up into the iconic dome. This scholarship allowed me to study architecture outside the classroom and from a different part of the world.

 

 

Getting to be a part of a new community and culture was one of the things I was most excited about for this trip. I was looking forward to learning and fully immersing myself into a new place. As one of the locals told us “when you go to other places you are an outsider, but when you are in London you are not an outsider but rather part of the community.” I might have been completely out of my comfort zone and thousands of miles away from home, but this statement could not have been truer; I felt like a part of the community of London. From the moment we arrived in London, we began to act like locals, from spending afternoons in the park to taking the tube to a pub for dinner. We felt comfortable enough in the community that there was not a hard adjustment period for us, but rather we got to experience all of the wonders London had to offer without fear.

 

Something that Ashley (one of the other scholarship recipients) and I took advantage of were the day trips that were offered. On the weekends we would hop on a bus for a couple of hours and be in a completely new town. We got to see Bath, Oxford, Brighton Beach, and Canterbury which were all amazing places to see. Ashley and I even took a two-hour flight to Dublin, Ireland for a weekend. It was crazy being able to go to so many places in a short amount of time and I highly recommend the next recipients to travel around England while they are there. 

 

 

The thing I miss the most about being in London must be the parks. We were only a short five-minute walk to the park, where we spent a lot of time. We would walk around and just enjoy being out in the beautiful nature. I will miss being able to lay-down in the grass and enjoy the nice weather. Coming from a desert climate, it was crazy to see all the greenery that London had to offer. London is a large city that takes pride in their parks, I was amazed at how many green spaces there were around the city.

 

Meeting everyone at the Guildhall was an amazing experience. Everyone was so nice and personable they made sure to give us recommendations on where we should go and things we should do. Along with our scheduled tour of the Manson House, and Guildhall museum they also made plans for us to go and see one of the City of London Companies which was very cool to see this part of the City of London. We were even invited back to talk to Paul Doubler and have a cup of tea before we left London. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will never forget, and I am so grateful for having the opportunity.

 

This trip was wonderful, and I really could not think of anything that I would want to change. In the future, getting to meet the Lord Mayor sooner in the trip might help, because they gave us so many recommendations on what to do in the city but at that point, we had already made most of our plans and did not have time to do all of the things they had recommended.

 

 

 

I had a really hard time narrowing down my favorite parts of this journey because every time I think about this trip, every part becomes my favorite part. There is so much I learned about London and its community but there is also so much that I learned about myself. I am extremely thankful for everyone in the City of London/Lake Havasu London Bridge Rotary Club for this once in a lifetime opportunity. Overall, I made new friends that will last for a lifetime, memories that will stay with me forever, and a new appreciation for the London culture. Cheers!!