6 Months Home, and a random bit of advice

It's been 6 months since I came home, which is a little hard to believe.  Sometimes it doesn't feel like it could possibly have been that long since I was in Glasgow, and sometimes it almost feels like I was never there - until I remember walking down the street to the grocery store, taking the train to go shopping, or sitting in an 150 year old building to take an exam.  It makes me even more grateful that I bought way too many souvenirs.  (Okay so maybe I shouldn't have spent so much money but hey, you only live once right?)

  As far as adjusting back to "normal" life after study abroad, I still don't think that its really that hard... mostly the same as my last update. 

  I'm beginning to really miss Glasgow and the whole study abroad experience.  Not to say that I didn't miss it before but now its more substantial.  I keep wishing that I could live my life here, but then pop back to Glasgow for a little while, before coming home again. 

I'm not sure if this is part of a delayed reverse culture shock or something, but I miss small things about life in Glasgow, like being able to shop at Tesco, which is bizarre because shopping at Tesco isn't really anything spectacular except for the fact that it's British. 

However, I'm still glad that I chose to only go for one semester, rather than the full year (which some people that I was friends with in Glasgow did/are doing).  I think doing a full year may have been too much for me, and I don't just mean financially.  I'm really not sure I would have been able to go back to Glasgow after coming home for Christmas break, because it took me awhile to actually begin missing Glasgow.  That might just be me, so don't just take my word for it if you're trying to decide whether to do study abroad for one semester or two.  Also, keep in mind that according to my school, you can sign up and go for one semester, and then while you're there, potentially choose to stay for the other semester.  I suppose it would be better to sign up for one and stay for two than to sign up for two and "leave early". 

Anywho!  I was randomly thinking about my flight to Glasgow and a couple things about my flight popped into my head that I thought I'd share.  I don't know if this should be labeled as advice - perhaps just a perspective to keep in mind.

    For my flight to Glasgow, I picked a flight that would leave from Albany (basically my hometown) around 3PM, went to Philadelphia, had a 2 hour layover, and then flew to Glasgow, arriving around 7 in the morning local time. 

I chose this flight for a couple of reasons:
1. I wanted to leave at a decent time, so that I wouldn't have to worry about rushing around in the morning, especially when I knew that I'd already be nervous about leaving. 
2.  This one is fairly obvious, to make sure that there was a decent layover at whichever airport I had to stop at. 
3.  There are no direct flights from Albany to Glasgow, so I specifically chose a flight where the layover would still be in the US.  I didn't want to have to deal with immigrations and all of that at some airport in the UK (or wherever.  Iceland?? Eek!) and then still have to fly to Glasgow.  Plus, if I went to another airport in the UK, it would more than likely be Heathrow in London, which (I've heard) is usually crazy busy.  So who wants to deal with that?  I was fortunate enough to fly directly into Glasgow, deal with immigrations, customs, and my luggage there, and then be in my final destination.  I highly recommend doing something like this, if possible. 


So to end my post, I'm going to share a video that was played at the end of our study abroad orientation last year.  Its fairly popular so you may have seen it but I really like it and am sharing it anyway :)

                                                                         Enjoy!