Travel everywhere, so you may have stories to share

Hello everyone! I am so excited to finally have this blog up and running, I promise to do my best in keeping it updated, in the mean time please enjoy!

I decided to come to England for a few different reasons, first and foremost it has always been a dream of mine to travel, forgive me for this cliche' but I've always had a bit of wanderlust (great word, no?). Secondly, I knew that if I decided to go to a country in which English wasn't the native language I might hold myself back due to anxiety. The third reason I think may be attributed to a certain allure that London presents to many Americans. I personally have always romanticized London as the second great city (behind NY of course), a place similar to New York, but richer in history and culture. I'm finding this to be mostly true thus far.

At home I left a wonderful group of friends on Long Island and in New Paltz, as well as a greatly supportive family and boyfriend. When deciding to take a big trip like this I think that the hardest part is leaving the ones you love. Of course this experience would probably be better if I were able to bring them with me to share special moments with. However, I must look at it as a wholly unique experience which I will be able to share with them when I return. Although I get awfully lonely sometimes when I think about them I thank the stars everyday that I have these people to go home to. Here's some pictures of them from my going away party:

Matt and Caitie representing my transition

My mother and sister coming to my trashy party.

I suppose I should tell you a little bit about the area in which I'm staying. It's called Kingston Upon Thames, and it's just a little bit outside of central London. It is a 20 minute train ride to get into the city itself. It's a really lovely and pleasant town, with farmers markets nearly everyday and tons of clothing shops and pubs. Here's a picture of the town center:

Kingston is set along the River Thames, and when the sun shines (which is not very often), the walk along the river is gorgeous. The town itself is a goof mix of both a college town and a residential neighborhood, there are grammar schools everywhere so I often share the bus with children in school uniforms, it's quite cute.

I hope you enjoy this (more so that people actually read this) I suppose the goal of this blog is to help myself keep track of my travels while also sharing my experience and hopefully inspiring others to travel. Since I've already been here for almost a month I have some retroactive blogging to do, which I will begin tomorrow!