1st Day of Class

Sorry to be absent recently. These past few days have been busy for an assortment of reasons but I'm glad to have a breather now. Today was the first day of classes and I must say having the city of London at one's disposal is incredible. For British history and humanities, both which met today, the art and reference points provided by this incredible place are beyond helpful for adding depth to my studies. I can tell the semester is going to be special when our professor takes us to the National Gallery to look at a painting in person with the help of a curator and understand how it describes the period in which it was fashioned in person as opposed to on a projector or in a power point presentation as often happens on college campuses. There is just a wealth of knowledge and opportunities here, I'm almost overwhelmed.
Kids in my program have also been in a flurry to book flights and trains to places in Europe they want to visit. Students returning from last semester have passed along some helpful hints about areas they visited and Web sites to use to expediently and frugally book transportation and lodging to and from these locales. As of now, I'm going to be going to Ireland the weekend of January 25th and the south of France the weekend of February 15th. Both places were on the list of areas I wanted to travel to going into the semester so knowing for sure that I'm going is itself an accomplishment. And one can get to these places on the cheap, too. Although the British pound is over double the dollar, flights to mainland Europe from here are incredibly inexpensive. So much so that it wouldn't make sense not to travel and see what else is out there. After all, thats why we're here, right? To see what we can and learn about as many cultures as we can possible fit into our limited time here. This semester just seems surreal to me at the moment so its hard to describe the duty I feel to myself to just going all out while I can. I will say this though: anyone who has the opportunity to go abroad should without a doubt. It's incredible.
Believe me. Even for a soul as American-centric as myself, its good to get out there and see what else the world has to offer. You won't be disappointed.