Goodbye/Home

I'm sitting in my kitchen at home in sunny southern California as I'm writing this. I've left Bath and England. And still, it doesn't quite real. It kinda feels like I'm going to return soon, like how I'm going to back to Gettysburg (yay!) in a few weeks. So who knows when the full reality of the situation will hit. But for now, I'm glad to be home, although I truly do miss Bath.
The last couple of days in Bath were, naturally, very busy and quite emotional. (Although, again, not as emotional as I expected, especially since it's not hard for me to turn into an emotional hot mess. Maybe because it didn't feel entirely real...) Thursday I had my last final for my 'Shakespeare in Performance' class. It was pretty easy. Except I couldn't focus, which made it a bit harder. But I finished it, and that's the important part. I spent most of the afternoon relaxing, hanging out with my housemates, and thinking about packing. We ordered some delicious Indian take away for our 'family' dinner and then we all headed out to the Huntsman. Ian (our amazing hired British friend) organized one final pub crawl for ASE which started at the Huntsman. It was great to see most of the people in the program all together and just to hang out in a number of pubs (soo British). Most of our house ended up leaving fairly early, but April, Claire and I stayed out for a while. We headed home as the group started to head towards a club (not really our scene, plus we were all tired) and our friend Greg walked us home across town. It was so much fun to walk through Bath at night and to even walk along the river Avon. The city's so beautiful at night (none of the pictures I took can do it justice) and it was a wonderful Bath-y ending to an ASE night. We stayed up and talked and drank tea, but eventually I went to sleep so I could get a lot accomplished on Friday.
Friday was busy, which was fitting, considering it was our last day in Bath. I headed over to the Roman Baths (finally, I know - but isn't that the perfect thing to do on your last day in Bath?) with my housemates Claire and Jan and Greg. They are so fancy and Roman! You get a free audio guide when you buy a ticket to the baths, and I ended up listening to the children's tour (naturally). The tour was narrated by all of these 'characters' who would have hung out at the Baths during the Roman days. My favourite was the British servant boy Belator. He cracked me up. After we finished touring the Baths, we ran up to the Royal Crescent (because Claire hadn't seen it). It still was gorgeous and impressive and a perfect symbol of Bath. Then, we had to race back into the city center again because we had an important appointment with Lindsay, the social coordinator of ASE. Our house had asked Lindsay to give us 'accent lessons', because she really has the perfect British accent (she's from Hampshire, if you were interested in what region her accent is from). We spent a lot of time giggling in her office and reading BBC news reports practicing our accents. It was so sweet of Lindsay to agree to spend time with us, listening to our accents, and it was (yet again) another perfect 'last day' activity.
Then we had to race home to get ready for the ASE Final Tea, which was held at the Francis Hotel, one of the fanciest hotels in Bath, so I've heard. We got dressed up all classy-like and had high tea (sandwiches, scones, cakes, and all). One of my favourite parts of the tea was that I ended up at the same table as Barbara (the head of ASE), Lindsay, and Andrew Butterworth (my favourite - I soo wish we could have taken him home, he would have been the perfect souvenir). Of course, they were a bunch of trouble makers. We ran out of tea really quickly and a couple of us didn't even get a cup of tea, which made Barbara very upset because she lives for tea, so Andrew went to steal us another pot of tea. And got caught by the waiter. The rest of the afternoon, we caught the waiter making judging faces at our table. It was a ridiculous afternoon of tea and giggles. Then, Barbara stood up and made a speech about us and ASE. And it made all of us emotional. She told us that after this tea, we would be ASE alums, not ASE students. The rest of her speech was so sweet and so perfectly wrapped up the entirety of our semester in Bath. Lindsay then made her own little speech, and gave us a 'class' photo and an ASE shirt with all of signatures on the back. Then it was Jonathan's (our academic head) turn to talk, and he played a slide show of photos from our semester abroad. And finally, the tea was over. There was lots of hugging and final moments. It was was quite emotional. But at the same time, it also felt not quite real, like we weren't really saying goodbye. For me, it kinda varied moment to moment. Eventually we had to leave the hotel. So Clarendon Villas trekked over to the Huntsman to say some more goodbyes. Jonathan, Lindsay, and Ian were having dinner together, and we just wanted to stop by to say some real goodbyes. Then, we left Bath's city center one final time.
The first thing I did back in Clarendon Villas was pack. Thankfully, I've gotten so used to packing that it took me practically no time at all. So April and I music shared, ate some delicious pasta (so she got to make pasta for me one last time in England), and drank some wine. Ian, Greg, and our friend Allison all dropped by, so we all hung out downstairs (we even brought down our stuffed animals to play with Ian's new Heffalump) and drank the rest of our leftover alcohol. Finally, there were some emotional goodbyes and we went back to being productive and cleaning. Between hanging out with people and packing/cleaning/etc, I only was in bed for about an hour, but that's alright. Saturday morning rolled around, and April was the first one to leave for the airport. We all got up to hang out as a house one last time and say goodbye. About an hour and a half later, it was mine, Courtney, and Jan's turn to leave. We were all on the same flight from Bristol to Newark and took a taxi to the airport. Oddly enough, the goodbyes this time weren't as real - it felt like I would come back to Bath, Clarendon Villas, and these girls soon. And just like that, we were on the road.
I got incredibly lucky in my travels yesterday. In spite of all of the weather that hit the east coast, I was still able to make both of my flights. I have some friends who were trapped in Europe for a day (or even longer) and some who got trapped in the Newark airport, but somehow I was lucky enough to make it home. Still, with the knowledge of the storm looming over my head, the day was even more stressful that it would have been otherwise. Thankfully, there were lots of ASE friends on the flight from Bristol to Newark and then another ASE girl on the one from Newark to LAX, so there was always someone there to help keep me from stressing out too much. And it helped with the stress and insane travel time that both of my planes had those fancy touchscreen headrest TVs, so I got to watch episodes of lots of my favourite TV shows and Bringing Up Baby. And, I made it home.
So here I am. Safely home in Riverside, California. My whole family came to pick me up at the airport, which was fantastic and sweet. I really am happy to be home, but at the same time am truly missing Bath. And it was the same before I left - that bittersweet feeling when you both do and don't want to leave. But I guess that's all part of the 'study abroad experience'. And I really am glad to be home.