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Students prepare to travel through Europe during their five-week spring holiday
BY ERIK LUND
STATESMAN STAFF WRITERr
ISSUE: 78/25
SUBMITED PHOTO
Corey Hertog (middle, top row), Corey Onderick (far
right, top row) and Erik Lund (far right, second row
down) nestle among some of our favorite compatriots
here.
It’s felt a bit eerie around the flats the last few days. Classes ended on Thursday, marking the beginning of
our long spring semester break. Groups of us are trickling off in ones, twos, threes and fours to embark on adventures to a variety of vacation destinations. Some are heading down to London first, which is usually the easiest place to fly out of. Some are meeting parents or friends right away. Some left Thursday morning, and some are leaving next week.
It’s felt like kind of a preview to the end of the year. We’re saying our goodbyes to people we won’t see for another five weeks, and when we return, we will have three weeks in May until it’s all over and this turbulent year will come to a close. I said what could be my final goodbye to some of the best friends I’ve met here. They call themselves the “International Penthouse,” and they live in a flat across the courtyard from me. The residents include two Austrians, a Swede, a French and a Finn, all girls. One of them might be moving to London permanently, another is returning to France to take her teaching exams. I tell them, and myself, that I will return to Europe in the near future and visit all of them. In my heart I must, and I will, because I’ll always
have an excuse.
With two months left, and five weeks of that traveling, it has caused all of us to do quite a bit of reflecting. We’ve thought about the advice we’d give others considering studying abroad. Everyone will tell you, “It’s going to be the best year of your life, be excited, you’re never going to want to come home.” It’s not going to be the best year of your life. Expectations always exceed reality; if there’s one thing in life I’m sure of, it’s that. Instead, treat it like just another year of school, and you’ll enjoy it that much more. Don’t come here thinking you’re going to befriend everyone in the world. You’re not. In fact, at times you might not even feel like leaving your room, especially when the gloomy English weather starts to really get you down. Yesterday started sunny and T-shirt warm, then it began violently raining, then hailing, then gloomy for a couple hours, then it started snowing. It seems England can’t decide what climate it is.
But all that aside, here’s what I can tell you. Your life will change. Europe will change you: different ways for different people. In fact, you might not feel anything about you has changed, but it happens in unexpected ways. I guess it’s the moment it dawns on you that in all honesty, being here is really just another year of school. For me and Steve Billstrom, that moment happened simultaneously, on top of a double-decker bus, heading into the city centre like any other day. We both said, you know what, we don’t have anything to live up to, we’re just going to enjoy this place and this year, day by day. That is when you truly become adjusted to living in another country, and it happens ever so slightly, over the course of time.
Tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. sharp, Corey Onderick and I will hop on a train from Birmingham to Liverpool. From there, we have to make a mad scramble to the Liverpool airport a few kilometres away. Then at 3 p.m., we’re on a plane heading to Budapest, Hungary. From Hungary, we go to Romania, then Bulgaria and on to Turkey. Our next stop is Greece, at which point we’re meeting up with Corey Hertog. He’s joining us to visit Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Italy, southern France and finally ending up in a villa on a beach in Barcelona, Spain, for a week. So we’re taking a bit of an unbeaten path. And we’re wild camping most of the way.
But I’ve got no expectations whatsoever. Anything can, and most likely will, happen. I’ve learned that’s just about the best way to go about life.
