Dreaming My Dreams

So looking back on past blogs I’ve realized I haven’t talked much about my town nor the people who live in it and figured now would be a good time to debrief you on this, if that’s what you want to call it.

            I live in the town known as Surbiton, has a cute little center of town with trendy thrift shops, cute little café’s and a decent amount of pubs. You also can’t forget the McDonalds and Starbucks, of course. The only downside to living here is the fact that I am the farthest from literally everything. I need to catch a bus to get to Uni and a bus to get into town to do anything. This showed to be most unfortunate last night when I was trying to catch the bus and the road was under construction which left me completely at a loss as to where to catch another bus without walking back to campus. 

        The upside to this nice little town is the fact that I am two minutes away from the Thames, which if you do not know, is the largest river here in England. Recently I took a walk along the Thames and with all the ducks swimming in the water and the trees that dress the path, the sight is pretty beautiful, I’m just sad it’s taken me a month and a half to take advantage of this beauty.

Along with the beautiful scenery you have the people that live here. I must discuss the fact that everyone here, young and old dresses topnotch and has left American’s looking like they’ve just stumbled out of a garbage can. Not to offend anyone, we do have a fair share of decently dressed individuals, but even the worst dressed is the best dressed here. If the men in the states could take a second to think about what they look like when they step out of the house, I’m sure they’d be scoring big with the ladies. I have yet to see one badly dressed person, they make the ugliest outfits work somehow, sometimes I swear it’s without them even trying. Even the older ladies know how to put together an outfit, and half the time they look ten times better than I do, what’s that saying?

The people here are also super friendly, you have your occasional person who seems to be a little tough around the edges but for the most part, they tend to show more kindness in their actions.  Maybe it’s just my perception of Jersians but everyone is rather enjoyable. The only thing that I still have a hard time dealing with is the fact that literally no one say’s excuse me when they walk by, they literally just plow right into you with no regard. Forget it if you apologize for hitting them, they look at you as though you have two heads and stammer a quick it’s alright or no worries, they tend to look taken back when I say sorry. It utterly confuses me.

 There’s also a greeting that is a bit difficult for anyone coming from the states to adjust too. This statement is: Hey you alright? While that seems like such a little thing to adjust to it honestly is posing to be the most difficult. In America if someone is asking you if you are alright you automatically feel utterly pissed off or like you need to spill all your feelings until your hearts content, maybe maybe not, but by asking if you’re alright they are simply asking what’s up? My biggest problem with adjusting to this phrase is how to respond to that sort of statement. I feel quite silly saying I’m alright you alright, so the natural response is yes, which in turn makes me sounds like a complete idiot, but you try it out and see how you’d respond. Not so easy when you think about it.

I’m honestly finding a hard time with hating it here. I wonder when’s the day I’ll wake up crying to go home because I can’t take it here but I honestly never see that day coming. I do truly miss home, my family and friends, especially my CAR, I’ve never walked so much in my life, but anyone that’s ever been abroad can relate when I say that life is just so much more relaxed and enjoyed over here. Everyday I wake up feeling more blessed than the day before, I finally feel like I’m living life the way I was meant to and that is such an awesome feeling.

            So with that being sad thanks for reading the words above, seeing as it had no relevance to anything and was just random opinion. I’ll be sure to give a run down on oxford later in the week.

Till next time.