Jumping back across the pond

After putting spring break columns on the opinion page every day this week, I felt like I would be remiss if I didn't share my own vacation experience with all of you.\nSome of you might remember my short and ill-fated attempt at being a correspondent columnist last year while I studied abroad in England (I don't blame you if you don't remember: I only produced two lousy columns before jetting off to Europe to travel for five weeks, much to the chagrin of my editor). \nThis spring break, I revisited England, gallivanting around London and Canterbury, the university town where I spent most of last year.\nLet me preface this with the fact that I never intended to go back this soon. I was still adjusting to being back in the States this fall, when all my sorority sisters were busy booking cruises and condos in warm climates.\nBut then an e-mail came my way advertising ridiculously cheap flights to the UK and Europe -- unbeatable prices that were hard to pass up.\nAll it took was a little convincing and I had found a travel partner in my best gal pal, Holly, who studied in Canterbury with me. \nI knew the trip would be a success when we were met by a large group of British men, all dressed in matching rugby shirts, at our departure gate in Newark. Just hearing the British accent was enough to put smiles on our faces and good spirit in our hearts as we boarded the plane that would be our home for the next six hours.\nWe started our trip with a few days in London. We had done or seen most of the sights last year, but did a few we missed: Madame Tussaud's amazing wax museums, the Tate Gallery of modern art and Harrods department store. \nBut I felt like the trip really began when we stepped off the bus in Canterbury. It was like coming home.\nDespite its reputation for awful weather, England really does have some beautiful days, and this was one of them: sunny, crisp and bright. Walking around the High Street, I couldn't seem to wipe the ridiculous grin off my face, but what I was feeling was more than euphoria at returning to a town where I spent eight months.\nI never felt this way about coming back to Bloomington after a vacation. Perhaps I embraced Canterbury so fully while I was there because the British culture is so different from America's and it was a challenge to assimilate into it. \nI've never cried when leaving one location and moving on to another: not when I moved from Nashville to Memphis in junior high, not when I left for college, and certainly not when I got on the plane to go to England. \nBut I cried when I left Canterbury, and going back brought me close to those same tears.\nThings only became more surreal when we left town and made the short trip up the hill to the campus where we studied, at the University of Kent. We met up with Phil, one of my British housemates from last year, caught up while "having a coffee," and ran into many other acquaintances and friends while walking around campus. \nOnce again, I felt like I had never left. Walking around Eliot College, where I spent countless hours slaving away on essays, it seemed like I was just on a study break, walking down to the bar to grab a pint. \nThat evening, we ate at our favorite pub for traditional British food and danced the night away at the on-campus night club, the Venue. \nI won't even go into the exorbitant amounts of money I spent while shopping on the High Street the next day, the great West End theater or the street markets we explored on our last day in London. Suffice it to say that the rest of the trip was a dream come true. And it rained only five out of the seven days we were there! \nOf course, some things were different and made me a little sad: I was very close with a small community of Americans at the university, and their absence was definitely felt. Canterbury without the other two American Girls, California Dave and Julie, Indiana Mike and Courtney and the Marley crew was strange.\nBut the essence of Canterbury was still there, and that's what I find myself missing the most. \nSpending a year abroad is like no other experience I have had, and probably none other I will have. Part of it will always be with me, and there will always be a special place in my heart for all things British, and for the fine Kentish lads and lasses with whom I had the pleasure of spending a year.