Well this is awful. I don’t think I can comprehend that I’m actually leaving. Even though I’m going home, I feel like I’m leaving home.
We had a final banquet last night where we gave out superlatives that we all had voted on and we had dinner with the teachers as well as Charlotte. Everyone got dressed up and we had a great time. I don’t have the pictures for this yet, they’re on other cameras. As a group we pitched in a little money each and we got Charlotte flowers, a card, and a gift card to one of her favorite restaurants. Afterwards, we came back to Madison House… for the last time. Many of us hung around in Flat A until around 1 or 2 in the morning, and people slowly trickled off as they had early flights in the morning. That was the last time I saw most of the people here in London.
I could barely sleep last night. I woke up at 6 and kept waking up every 10 minutes after that. I’m not sure why. When I finally got up at 9, almost everyone was gone. The place is empty; Charlotte and some students took down everything yesterday. All the walls are bare. Everything is gone. There’s only about 10 students left here. Some are staying in London a little longer, some are going to Paris, and the rest are going back to the USA. We’re all just finishing packing and cleaning out the flats.
I’ll see some people next weekend, when I visit JMU. I’m really looking forward to that. I’ll meet up with Becca at the beach throughout the summer, Katie, Candice, and I will visit each other’s home towns, I’ll tour DC with Sarah, and I hope to see many other friends back in the States as well. But this is all just so weird. I’ve spent the last 3 months, every single day, with the same 28 people. I’ve seen the same people in the morning when we argued over people taking too long in the bathroom, every day for class in the same classroom, and all over Europe while we traveled together. Every morning when I woke up, on the way out to class I always stopped in Charlotte’s office to talk to her, see Mariah, and usually meet up with my friends for the morning. We complained about the same classes every day, and looked forward to some great classes as well. We were constantly busy, JMU had 90% of our time planned for us, and we were all overwhelmed but having an amazing time together. And now after seeing the same faces every day, there’s only a few left here, and we’re all flying all over Europe and to different locations in America.
I hope to keep in touch with these people for the rest of my life. Being here and traveling all around was incredible, but it was definitely because of everyone in this group that is was as amazing and unforgettable as it was.
