An American Abroad

 One of my top bucket list items for coming to the UK was to go walk around the big pile of rocks known as Stonehenge.  Built around 2500BC Stonehenge has continued to impress and confuse archaeologists and other scientists. As a self described history and archaeology geek I had to go. I just didn’t know when I would make the trek south to go and see it. The other problem I had was that the country’s third lockdown closed the monument temporarily.  As I sat trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my day off today with it being a bank holiday, I had considered spending the day in London, or maybe going to Cardiff, and then it hit me this was the perfect time to go to Stonehenge. So I bought a ticket and prepped.  I left the house for the train station and readied myself for the 2.5hr train ride to get to Salisbury, the city closest to Stonehenge. I sat reading a book I had purchased last month called Vagabonding (I highly recommend it if you want great advice on...

     Christmas time has come, usually that means spending time with family, waiting for Santa to practice home-invasion, and seeing the looks on my family's faces when they open the gift that I handpicked for this special day. This year has been a bit different...      I had planned to head to Germany after the term ended here at Radley, I have family who lives in Cologne who had offered to show me the city and show me what a German Christmas was like. But by the time November arrived, the UK had put in place a quarantine rule for travelers to and from Germany. This made it impossible for me to go, so I had to cancel plans with my family in Germany. I would have to wait to see the famous Cologne Cathedral and to go watch my favourite football (soccer) team, Bayer Leverkusen. Hopefully the COVID situation will have improved by the time I am able to travel again.     After the disapointment of not being able to go to Germany, friends of mine from Sc...

     In 1620, a group of separatists led by a man named William Bradford left port in Plymouth, England headed for a landmass on the other side of an ocean very few had crossed. These separatists were English protestants, leaving friends and family because they did not want to declare allegiance to the Church of England. After two months of chaos and death at sea, the group found their way to Cape Cod and called their new home Plymouth. The colonists then spent the winter on their boat called the Mayflower, where only half of the crew survived the harsh New England winter. Then the captain of the Mayflower sailed it back to England and the colonists were forced to settle onshore. The colonists would have died had it not been for an English-speaking Native American named Samoset who taught the colonists how to hunt, fish, and grow crops. At the end of the following summer, the colonists held a celebration for their successful harvest, a three-day event called the festival ...

      When lockdown started on 5 November, the UK government set out a set of rules that we are to follow to maintain lockdown in the country. A majority of these rules restricted socialising with other people, which makes sense. But there is a clause in the rules called a social bubble. The social bubble is created by an adult who lives alone and another group of adults who live together. This social bubble is allowed to get together, eat meals, and just spend time in general. I believe that the social bubble exception was created for families who have a family member who lives in a different house. But being someone who lives alone here at Radley, I have been able to use this exception to get together with a group of young adults who also live on campus in the same house.      When I first got to Radley, one of the people that I met was a language assistant from Barcelona, Spain. (Yes for any of my soccer/football fans, he is a supporter of FC Barcelona) ...

    The beginning of the month marked the end for me. On the first of November,  I got out of quarantine, went for a run, and finally made it to Radley! So far I am loving Radley and the fantastic people here. Everyone I have met is super kind, engaging, and inclusive. I keep being told that people are sorry that I had to come "at a time like this," but honestly, I'm just glad to be here. The day before I was to leave, Saturday, 31 October, Boris Johnson, England's Prime Minister made an announcement that starting 5 November, the nation would go into a lockdown which was to end next month on 2 December. Which gave me about three days to meet people and try to get some sort of experience of normalcy before we go into a month-long lockdown. Those three days were full of getting settled in and making sure I knew somewhat of what was going on. Then came lockdown. If you thought that the little lockdown we had in Ohio was bad, you should be here for this. Only essential bu...

29 Oct. 2020      My alarm goes off, and I slowly regain consciousness, I reach over and hit the snooze, 5 minutes literally won't hurt anyone. I roll back over, tucking the pillow under my head and pulling the duvet back over my shoulders. I have nothing to be awake for today, but I'd prefer to not sleep all day. I get up after the alarm goes through a couple more snooze cycles. My quarantine habits are most definitely bad habits, things I can't continue to do once my two-week stay is over. As I'm waking up, I shower and get ready to hit the day. I then throw my mask on and head to the cafe of the hotel for a cold-served breakfast and a warm cup of tea. On days like today when I'm feeling productive, I run back up to my room and grab my laptop to bring back down to the cafe and work on either left-over schoolwork, a new blog post, or some training videos for Radley. If I don't return to the cafe, I'll sit at the small desk provided in my hotel room, or even...