Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Summer Break 2014

Pictures don’t do it justice

For the longest time I have listened to other people tell me about their travels around the world. Listening to their stories and looking at their pictures made me want to travel myself. During my sophomore year when I was making my “I will” list I decided I was tired of hearing, “Oh it is so beautiful, or that place isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” I wanted to travel. I wanted to see for myself this world that I was missing.

In preparation for my goals of traveling I had to get my passport, which I advise you to get as soon as possible. The first place that was on my travel bucket list was Europe, and it just so happened that my roommate from my sophomore year lived just outside London. Throughout our entire sophomore year I told him that I would be visiting him, but I don’t think he actually believed me until I hopped on the plane.

The entire experience was new to me. I had never ridden on a plane by myself, experienced jet lag, I had never traveled east of North Carolina, and this was my first trip out of the US. However, that all changed on May 12 when I boarded the US Air flight to Heathrow Airport in England. 

I had planned out the trip months before so I could make my 2 week stay as beneficial as possible. During the first week I toured most of Southwest England, including Weybridge, Windsor, Wimbledon, Bath, Stonehenge and towards the end of the week we did an entire walking tour of London. The second week involved my roommate and I doing a shadowing at a bank his father worked at. The shadowing involved us commuting into work by train and the tube, which took about an hour. It involved us working with different departments, shadowing meetings, and also they gave me a mock interview. Even though I don’t think I want to enter the field of banking, I loved the entire experience and the international internship experience will definitely be something I can talk about in future interviews.

When I returned home I kept getting asked the same question, “What was your favorite part?” To this day I still don’t know the answer because I enjoyed the entire trip. I loved every trip we took, even the smallest ones to Tesco (grocery store, similar to Wal-Mart). Each place we went I was amazed by the beauty. Then the thought came, “I have to keep traveling, I am missing so much.” Don’t get me wrong, the sunset in Chapel Hill is beautiful, but the sunset in London is spectacular.

By the end of my stay I began to understand the British accents better and I was even using some of the lingo (Tube for subway, Toilet for bathroom). I found that the food wasn’t much different than America other than the fact that they don’t use any high fructose corn syrup, which explained the skinner people. The reason the trip was such a success was due to getting to stay with my roommate’s family. Without them I would’ve been lost, hungry, and probably broke. On one of the last days I told them that I couldn’t have imagined my first trip abroad being any better than it actually turned out.

I have been back in the states for about two weeks and my summer is just getting started. Soon I will head back to Chapel Hill to work my second summer at Roy Williams Basketball camp. Then I have a few trips planned to the beach, and a trip to California, where I have always wanted to visit.

My advice to you, wherever you are in life, college, married, or a senior citizen, don’t ever stop traveling and seeing the world. Pictures don’t do it justice. Pictures can’t do it justice. For years I looked and heard about traveling, but not until this past year did I truly experience the first person view. And yes, it’s much better.