In the middle of it all

Oops. I didn’t mean to have a month-long break in the middle of my blog, but my last few weeks in London were so busy and then I came home and for the past month I have been so focused on making the most of life that blogging went on the back burner. So this is really just a post for posterity’s sake.

A week or two before I left London my classmates and I went to a bunker below the Whitehall complex. There we visited the Churchill War Rooms, an underground safe house for Churchill and his staff during the WWII Blitz of London. While Churchill only spent three nights in the bunker, his staff lived there for many months. They turned off the lights in 1945 (for the first time in many cases) and abandoned the bunker; the lights were turned back on in the 1970s, the desks, beds, and telephones were dusted and then encased in glass - nothing moved. Everything is just as it was. Awesome.

 

I also visited Primrose Bakery (our absolute fav bakery in London) a few more times with my girls for cupcakes and, once, for a delicious breakfast of crumpets and tea.

 

And then it was Thursday, the last day! I interned in the morning, took an exam in the afternoon, and then the AHA staff hosted a little tea gathering for us and many of our professors. I tried mince pie - not bad - and we all excitedly talked and goofed off, driven by an odd mix of happiness and sadness.

Much of the group outside our 200 year old school building.

After drinks with our (handsome, German) economics professor and a few hours at a local student pub, we all hugged goodbye. All of us, even the token frat bro. What a wonderful group of people to spend three and a half months with. They have set the bar very very high for my Geneva classmates.

My winter break has been filled with family, friends, and food which is exactly how I like to spend time at home. But now that Christmas, New Years, and the Rose Bowl (champs!) are all over, I have to look ahead to Geneva - to reconfigure my 50 pounds of luggage to fit two winter coats and numerous pairs of wool socks, to mail in my passport to receive my visa stamp, to prepare myself to be in classes with Ivy League East Coasters. I really need to get started. After I go grab tea with some more old friends. x

I have a long reading list to learn about Switzerland