The last couple of weeks have given me plenty of time to reflect on the time that I spent in London. I have come to realize that the time I spent there was some of the best times of my life and the friends that I had made will no doubt continue to be some of my best friends. While I am definitely sad about the early departure I am grateful for the time I did get to spend abroad. After returning to the states I have noticed more differences between London and the US than when I had arrived in London.

One of the first things I noticed was while in the Charolette was how people dressed, there were plenty of cargo pants being worn there. One of the aspects I appreciated about London was that people dressed a fair bit nicer for daily activities. I feel that this made it seem like people took better care of themselves and made it easier to feel at home in London as I prefer to dress with more care about my appearance.

Another aspect of London that is vastly different is personal space. I was surprised by how quiet places in London were, specifically buses and trains. I even noticed a difference between London and Paris. While in Paris one of the first experiences we had was a Parisian getting on the train and rapping and then going through the train car asking for donations. And while boarding the plane at Heathrow it was very easy to tell who was American and who was not by who was talking to other passengers. Personally, I usually prefer having a quiet commute but I did occasionally miss having conversations with kind passengers.

Yesterday I left my house for the first time since returning home and visited the grocery store. Our local Hy-Vee is very different from the ASDA I had been visiting the previous two months. The first thing I noticed was the huge size difference and the quantities of food available. One of the things that I found interesting is that the variety of goods available is not as large, there is just more of the same items. I believe that this is because of the great diversity in London compared to Iowa City, which is considered quite diverse for a city in Iowa. The diversity in London is, perhaps, the thing I will miss most. The diversity in London allowed me to experience lots of new and different foods, which was one of my favorite things to do.

While at the store I also was reminded that I am underage for another ten and a half months, and how different the drinking culture in the US is from the culture in the UK. I feel that drinking in the US is very excessive and not done in a healthy manner. While in London I felt that drinking was more social and done in a more healthy way. It also seemed that drinking was a norm for many occasions, but almost never excessively. 

After trying new foods, walking/running through London’s parks was another favorite pastime. The abundance of green space in London made it easy to escape the feeling of being in a big city and was a nice escape from the everyday hustle of the city. According to the Independent, London has over 3,000 parks and is over 45% green space. When we learned this during our green tour at the beginning of the semester I found it hard to believe, but by the end of my stay, I found it easily possible. I had barely even seen Richmond park even though I went there multiple times a week. Whether at home or at school in Pella I feel that there is less space to explore, even though most of the area is wide open land. Although much of the greenspace is hidden on rooftops of highrises and inaccessible to the general public, there is still plenty of areas to discover. I do hope that other large and smaller cities try to replicate this idea of green space. 

While I did not watch any TV during my stay, I did notice that the media is usually less sensationalized than media in the US. This current outbreak has really shown the differences between the media in both countries. At the beginning of the outbreak, some media outlets in the US were calling this a hoax and blaming political parties. While in the UK it seemed the media was more accepting of the facts and more worried about presenting the facts to the public, though there are still clickbaity articles in UK media.

I still miss being in London, the current state of things is not helping. I do plan on returning to London sometime, hopefully, sooner rather than later. Recently I have been thinking about returning to London to continue my studies, whether another study abroad program or spending a year to earn a post-graduate degree. While the future is unknown, I do know that my experience abroad has changed me and that I will one day be returning to do some of the things I missed out on. And I will definitely miss being offered a cup of tea when walking into the office.