By tomorrow, September 24, 2022, I will be in Liverpool, England, which is three and a half thousand miles from home. There, I will begin my study abroad journey over these next few months. I’m currently brimming with excitement (and a tidbit of nerves) for what’s to come. For the past several months, I have been preparing for the trip, and I will learn whether my preparations have been enough.
I will be leaving the United States today and arriving in the UK tomorrow after a long flight, and I scheduled this post to be released while I’m busy. My mother will be taking me to the airport. I will be going through the strenuous process that is the TSA, which apparently stands for Transportation Security Administration. Who knew?
I will board the plane with no hiccups. Knock on wood. Or God-forbid, I accidentally leave a half-drunk bottle of water in my carry-on. I will arrive safely at my destination. KNOCK ON WOOD. I’m not scared of flying in a plane, so I won’t have to worry much about that outside of jinxing myself. Liverpool Hope University is providing transportation from the airport to university housing. I will settle down, talk to my fellow Susquehanna students (there’s five of us) and other international students, and try to go to sleep early to adjust to the time zone. Then, orientation starts the next day. Classes begin on Monday, October 10th.
Next week, I’ll have to update you on how orientation is going. I’m probably going to keep uploading every Friday like I have been doing. Maybe a little later in the day to account for the time difference, which is five hours ahead of EST. The way I think about the time difference is by the time it is morning at home, it is the afternoon there. If it’s afternoon at home, it is evening there. So on, and so on.
But before all that, I should tell you about a mistake that I made while preparing for this trip, so you could avoid it if you decide to study or travel abroad. As I’m sure you know, it is important to have some currency for the place you are traveling abroad in; that’s in case you need a service that doesn’t take a credit card. Exchanging currency at the airport is more expensive, but unfortunately, I was in a situation where I needed to exchange at an airport because I assumed my credit union exchanged currency when it did not. By the time I went to my bank, it was too late. It would take them five days to exchange currencies, and I was leaving in four. By the way, you can also exchange currency with AAA, but you need a membership, which I don’t have and isn’t worth the measly amount of money I need to exchange into the British pound.
I suggest packing most of your things a week in advance if you’re looking to study or travel abroad like I did on the Saturday before I left, which was a little less than a week in advance. It gave me more time to notice if something is missing, or I could find something that should have been packed like how I found more long sleeves than I had initially packed, which I needed because of England's cooler climate.
There is some advice based on where I did succeed when it came to packing early and didn’t succeed when it came to exchanging currency. Hopefully, you keep that in mind. See you on the flip side!
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